Bataleon Distortia Snowboard Review

Who is the Distortia Best Suited To?

The Distortia is best suited to someone looking for a park board and want it to be as light as possible. While it did surprise in terms of its speed and carving capabilities, it's still not as good in those areas and excels when it comes to creative ground tricks, rails, jumps, spins and side-hits. 

It is a super easy board to turn and is really catch-free, so in that sense, it's really good for beginners. But it is quite loose feeling. So one-footing off the lift can be more challenging and that looser feeling can be a little bit to tame at first.

So, I would say a great board for someone who's learnt the basics of snowboarding but is a beginner in the park. Or for someone who is more advanced, but want a board in their quiver that's really playful and fun for creative freestyle/park riding. 

The Distortia in More Detail

Bindings angles: +12/-9

Stance width: 520mm (20.5″)

Stance Setback: Centered

Width at Front Insert: 248.5mm (9.8")

Width at Back Insert: 248.5mm (9.8")

Weight: 2160g (4lbs, 12oz)

Weight per cm: 14.79g/cm

Average Weight per cm: 17.38 grams/cm*

* based on just over 40 women's boards that I've weighed in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 & 2024 models. Yes, you read that right! This board is seriously light. The lightest we've ever weighed and by some margin. Felt super light on snow too. 

Tester: Meira

Rider Height:  5'4 (163cm)

Rider Weight: 130lbs (58kg)

Rider Boot Size: US Women's 8 (Burton Limelite)

Bindings Used: Union Milan

Powder

Nothing to to test in on day but based on specs and feel, it's not going to be great in deeper powder. It's a centered true twin with a camber profile. That said, the 3D shaping will help with float a little bit - but other than that, it doesn't have much in its favor for powder float. 

Carving & Turning

Carving: Given how soft and playful this board is and how easy it is to slash it around and get loose on it, it surprised with how it carved. I mean when you're trying to rip a short sharp carve at higher speeds it washes out, not surprisingly, given the style of board. 

But for straighter carves at moderate speeds it did much better than expected. But still don't expect a high speed carving machine or anything. 

Turning: Super easy to initiate turns on and super easy to slash with, unsurprisingly. 

Maneuverability at Slow Speeds: Super nimble at slow speeds. You can get edge-to-edge in an instant. 

Catchiness: Zero catch at slow to moderate speeds. I couldn't catch the edge even when trying! Gets an ever so slightly catchier feeling at higher speeds, but even then it's still predominantly un-catchy (note that some boards are the other way around - they can feel more catchy at slower speeds and less so at higher speeds).

Speed

Another surprise with this board was how it went at speed. Again, don't expect it to be a bomber, but for the way it rides at slow speeds, it wasn't completely hopeless at higher speeds. It actually felt quite fast for a twin, park/freestyle board. 

And while it wasn't super stable at speed - got quite wobbly at certain speeds - it could handle higher speeds than you'd expect. But still overall a board that does its best work at slower speeds. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud/Chunder: It gets thrown around like a rag doll! A very easy board to throw spins on, whip quick turns on - but that same lightness and agility that makes it easy to do that also makes it very susceptible to being bounced in uneven snow conditions. And feels the chatter too, when in harder stuff. 

For our freestyle scores we don't separate Crud/Chunder and Bumps/Trees. This averaged out to 3.5/5 but it would be like 4/5 for bumps/trees and 2.5 for crud/chunder.  

Bumps/Trees: Really good! So easy to weave between bumps. Really quick edge-to-edge and effortless. Wouldn't be as good in trees with powder, but otherwise really good. That lightness probably also helps with how easy it is to whip this thing around.

Jumps

Overall really good for small to medium jumps and tricks but not as good as going big. 

Pop: Super easy to extract the pop. Pops with  very little effort. Total pop pretty good too. 

Approach: Stable for up to certain speeds and really easy to make any necessary adjustments or speed checks. But can get wobbly for faster approaches. 

Landing: You can stomp smaller jumps, but gets a little "bouncy" from bigger air. Super easy to speed check after landing, if you need to. 

Side-hits: Epic for side hits. Super easy to approach and super easy to pop without effort. Easy to get good style and look like you're making no effort! 

Small jumps/Big Jumps: Best for small to medium jumps.

Switch

Super easy and catch-free transitioning and then nice and easy to ride switch. Of course it maintains that looser feel in your switch direction, so you've got to be able to control that, and it does limit the speed you can ride switch at. 

Spins

Probably the easiest board to spin I've ever ridden. Super easy to setup and super easy to spin, that lightness again really helping there. And no issues finishing spins on the snow when necessary. 

It can over spin a bit (want to keep spinning after landing) especially on bigger rotations. 

Jibbing

Super easy and confidence inspiring on boxes/rails. It's nice and nimble on approach and pops onto and off features super easy. Feels good sliding on the feature too, but that looseness can be a little trickier to control if you're not used to it.

Butters

Butters super easily. And while it's really flexy tip and tail, you can still lock it in.

If you throw too much into it, you can over flex it though and end up on your back! But for most this won't be an issue and is something you can adjust for. Really fun to press and butter on. 

Score Breakdown and Final Verdict

Check out the breakdown of the score in the table below.

The Distortia is a super light, snappy, easy turning, catch-free, buttery board that's super easy to throw around and get creative with. Did I mention that it's light? And when I say light, I mean, this thing is the lightest we've ever weighed/tested.

So if you're looking for a quality park deck and lightweight is important to you, then this is definitely worth looking at.