Jones Mountain Twin Review

Who is the Mountain Twin Most Suited To?

The Mountain Twin is best suited to... well everything really. OK, that's a cop out, but it truly is one of those boards that feels confidence inspiring pretty much anywhere doing anything. 

For this reason it's best suited to riders with a versatile skillset, but want that one board quiver. Or it can be part of a quiver, best with a 3 board quiver, as that in-between board for days when you just want to have some variety - and you might have a powder specialist and a park specialist to compliment it. 

It's not so easy to ride as to be beginner friendly - well not for most. There are always those riders who get on a board and can ride anything that will tell you that you can learn on anything (sometimes just naturally gifted, sometimes just forgetful in forgetting that they once struggles and sometimes just athletically strong/coordinated). But for most of us, this wouldn't be suitable for those just starting out. But it is fine for anyone at least at an intermediate level. 

Powder

Nothing on the day, but from previous experience and specs, it's a board that goes pretty well in powder. Perfectly fine in shallow powder - and can hold its own in deeper powder - all be it with a bit of a back leg workout. 

It has a couple of things going for it. Firstly, some rocker tip and tail, all be it relatively subtle, secondly a small setback stance and thirdly a slightly longer nose than tail.  It also has a little bit of base contour, though again, pretty subtle. 

Carving

The Mountain Twin felt good when carving. All types of radius of carves too. Tighter, slower carves, longer more drawn out carves. It wasn't a carving monster, but it was consistently good for various carving types. It did have it's limits in terms of high speed, low angle carves, but for how good it is in everything else, the carving aspect was impressive.

I was very close to giving it a 4 for carving for this reason, but because I give more weight to high speed carves in the scoring for carving, I settled on 3.5. If I was going to start giving scores with quarter scores (which I'm not, as tempting as it is!) it would be 3.75. 

Turning

Ease of Turning/Slashing: It's not an effortless turner, but it's overall pretty easy to initiate turns on and you can slash it around. 

Maneuverability at slow speeds: Decently fast getting edge-to-edge at slower speeds, without too much effort, but not effortless. 

Catchiness: Definitely not what I would call a catchy board by any means, but it's also not fully catch-free. 

Speed

It's not an out-and-out bomber but it can handle a really decent amount of speed before starting to feel unstable. Like carving I felt it was bordering on a score of 4. But ultimately I think 3.5 is a little more accurate. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud/Chunder: It wasn't unmovable in crud, but for board of this flex and for a relatively easy to ride board, it was quite impressive with how well it held things together in crud. Took a fair bit to shake it. And when it did encounter terrain that could buck it of course, it still had the maneuverability to make the necessary corrections. 

Trees/Bumps: There aren't any areas where the Mountain Twin isn't capable and weaving through trees and moguls and other obstacles and riding the bumps over undulating terrain was no exception. It felt really good in these scenarios and like in every other area just seemed to be unflappable in terms of the feel of the board.

If there was one word to describe this board, it would be consistent. 

Jumps

And just like everywhere else, the Mountain Twin didn't fail to feel good taking to the skies (or rather a few feet off the ground...  but still sky right?). 

Pop: Not what I'd call oodles of pop buy decent enough and pretty easy to access, too. 

Approach: Great mix of stability and maneuverability - as you'd expect from such a well balanced board. It can handle faster approaches that require stability to hold your line and trickier approaches that require more finesse and little adjustments to line or speed. 

Landing: Ditto the approach. It's solid on bigger landings but it's not so solid that it's unforgiving of errors, when you get your landing a little off. And it's easy enough to speed check and maneuver, should you encounter any obstacles after your landing spot. 

Side-hits: Like it is with everything else, it just works. It's not the board I'd go to if I wanted the most exciting, dynamic side-hit board I could find. I don't think of the Mountain-Twin underneath my feet when I'm dreaming of launching off epic side-hits, but you just can't fault it.

Enough pop, easy enough access to it and maneuverability that whilst not up there with the most agile, is plenty to access those trickier take off points. And it's solid yet forgiving enough for those not so flat landing zones.  

Small jumps/Big jumps: I'm not sure it even knows the difference, such is how consistent it feels across all of them. OK, that's an exaggeration, but it really does feel like it evens out the extremes and just remains solid no matter what it faces. It can take on any size jump, IMO, depending on your own skill level and confidence/risk aversion (or lack thereof). 

Switch

While often mistaken for a true twin (I mean with twin in the name I don't blame anyone) the Mountain Twin is a directional twin board with a nose slightly longer than it's tail and a small setback. 

Nonetheless, it still feels really good riding switch - and because of where the inserts sit, it is a board you can center up on effective edge (you'll still have a little more nose than tail outside the contact points), and if you do, there really is very little difference in feel between riding in your normal direction and switch - even keeping the setback stance, there's not much difference. 

Transitions aren't catch-free, but they're also nothing that requires any serious concentration.

Spins

Felt good on spins. It wasn't effortless to setup, you had to think about it, just a little bit, but with fairly easy to access pop and a great switch feel, allowing easy setups, landings and riding out switch (for 1s, 5s, etc).

That, and a nice balance between being able to correct an under spin on the snow, to an extent, but without a tendency to over spin, provide it with, like it does for basically everything, a nice middle-ground. 

Jibbing

I personally like a nice soft flexing, easy going, easy turning, easy maneuvering, catch-free board for boxes, rails, etc. And while the Mountain Twin is relatively easy on those aspects, it's not enough for me to feel 100% confident on it - to try too much. 

But I suck on jibs, really, considering I take almost every board I ride on them, so for the more jib-strong, the Mountain Twin should do fine. 

Butters

The nose and tail don't flex at the slightest bend, but it's also not hard to get it pressing. And the nose and tail feel pretty symmetrical to press. It's got enough stiffness in the tail and nose that it would be very hard to over-flex it - and when you find that spot, you can lock in - but they're certainly not stiff enough to make you work too hard either. 

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