Arbor Cosa Nostra Snowboard Review

Hello and welcome to my Arbor Cosa Nostra Review.

In this review I will take a look at the Cosa Nostra as a Powder snowboard.

As per tradition here at SnowboardingProfiles.com I will give the Cosa Nostra a score out of 100 (based on several factors). However, I won’t on this occasion be comparing it to other powder boards (like I usually would for other categories) because it’s not a category I test very often, currently. 

Overall Rating

Board: Arbor Cosa Nostra 2019

Price: $549 (USD recommended retail)

Style: Powder

Flex Rating: Stiff (8/10 on Arbor’s flex scale)

Flex Feel: Medium-Stiff (7/10)

Rating Score: 80.4/100

O.k. let’s take a more detailed look at what the Cosa Nostra is capable of.

Demo Info

Board: Arbor Cosa Nostra 2019, 159cm, 252.5mm waist width

Date: March 9, 2018

Conditions: Sunny with periods of cloud. Great visibility Icy in patches and getting slushy in other patches that were in the sun. A little bit of fresh powder in the upper parts of the hill but didn’t have to go too low for that to disappear.

Bindings angles: +15/-15

Stance width: 540mm (21.3”)

Stance Setback: 20mm (0.75″)

Width at Inserts: 264mm (10.39″) at the back insert and 265mm (10.43″) at the front insert

Weight: 2980grams (6lb 9oz)

Weight per cm: 18.74grams/cm

Average Weight per cm: 18.21grams/cm*

*based on a small sample size of 24 boards that I weighed. So just a little heavier than normal.

Powder

This board is made for powder. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a lot to test it on and it certainly wasn’t super deep, which is a shame, because I feel like this board would have been great in powder. The feeling I got from the board in the shallow powder and slush plus the specs of the board, and the general semi-loose feel, set this board up as a great surfy powder board.

Unlike a lot of this type of board these days, the Cosa Nostra is a more traditional length/width board for powder (a lot of short/wides these days).

Carving/Turns

It’s not a carving machine by any means – and I’m yet to find a board without any camber that is. But it’s OK on a carve. Just can’t lay it really deep. The System Rocker (which gradually decreases the amount of rocker towards the contact points) isn’t quite as loose as traditional continuous rocker, but it still doesn’t have the bite and spring on a carve as you typically get from camber. Also, it’s quite stiff so that does help too.

General turns were OK too, without blowing me away.

Edge-to-edge it’s quite quick when you’re travelling at a decent speed. Not so much when riding it slower, but it can ride slow OK. But it feels better a little faster.

It’s not super easy to skid turns on, but it’s not impossible either.

Learn more about the Cosa Nostra in the Video Below

Speed

For a rockered board, this felt surprisingly good and stable at speed. It’s not a bomber, but you can get some decent speed on it, without feeling too washy or wobbly. The fact that it’s System Rocker and that stiffness help with this board at speed. 

Uneven Terrain

It can handle uneven terrain pretty well, especially for its flex. 

Jumps

There’s a little bit of pop in there but not heaps – and you have to make a decent effort to extract it.

It’s also relatively stable on landings but not an out and out stomper. 

Overall it’s OK for the occasional jump but not it’s forte.

Switch

If you judged switch on looks alone, you would think this would feel super weird riding switch. It does feel a little weird but not as weird as you would think. It’s actually doable. Not great of course, but occasionally and for short periods you can switch it.