YES Rival Snowboard Review

Who is the Rival Best Suited To?

The Rival is best suited to someone with a freestyle first mentality but still wants to be able to ride fairly quickly and carve well. 

In terms of park, this is a board you can go big with, so if you like bigger jumps/tricks it's got you covered. But it does just as well on smaller jumps/features. It's got a little bit of playfulness to it, but it's not one of those park boards that's super soft/playful but if jumps are your thing, then this board has it all. 

It's not great for powder but for a camber twin, it's pretty good. 

You could quite easily call this an all-mountain freestyle board and you wouldn't be wrong, but it's so good for freestyle, that it just had to be in this category. 

It's not a super challenging ride, but still not for beginners. You'll want to be at least intermediate to get this board.  

Bindings angles: +15/-12

Stance width: 520mm (20.5″)

Stance Setback: Centered

Width at Inserts: 251mm (9.88") 

Weight: 2700g (5lbs, 15oz)

Weight per cm: 18.12g/cm

Average Weight per cm: 17.29 grams/cm*

*based on a small sample size of around 30 women's boards that I've weighed in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 models. The Rival is a heavier than normal on the scales. On snow felt a little heavier than normal but pretty close to normal. 

Tester: Jade

Rider Height:  5'7" (170cm)

Rider Weight: 145lbs (66kg)

Rider Boot Size: Women's US6.5 Thirty Two Exit

Bindings Used: Burton Lexa, Medium 

Powder

Not bad in powder for a twin. Jade was pleasantly surprised with how well it kept afloat in the powder we had. 

Still never going to be the boss in powder - it is a true twin, cambered board after all, but probably the best twin camber you'll ride in powder. 

Carving

Jade felt that the Rival was an excellent board to carve with. She said she was able to really dig in and lean in to an edge.

Turning 

Ease of Turns/Slashing: Pretty easy to in initiate turns on and quite effortless.  

Maneuverability at Slow Speeds: Really decently quick edge-to-edge. 

Skidded Turns: Able to execute skidded turns without too much fear of catching edge. Surprisingly good for a full camber board.

Speed

Given how well suited this board is to freestyle/park riding, it felt fast and capable of handling a really good amount of speed and remaining stable. 

Uneven Terrain

Crud: It was able to smash through crud pretty well. Even when it did get a little bucked around, it was pretty easy to correct. 

Bumps/Trees: Heaps of fun in trees. Has the maneuverability and not overly stiff so you can hug the bumps well. 

Let's Break this Text up with a video

Jumps

This board was unsurprisingly fun on jumps! It felt very stable on the landings and had a little bit of pop and a bit of a playful feel.

Pop: This board was so fun with it's poppy playful feel! You could really feel it on side hits and jumps. Super fun!

Approach: Great on the approach. It was easy to adjust you speed coming into the jump and to maintain control. But at the same time, when you need to bomb it on a faster approach it can handle that well too. 

Landings: Landings were quite damp with this board. They felt really solid. It felt like it would be difficult to shake a landing with this board. But even though you could really stomp a landing on it, it wasn't unforgiving when you got it wrong. 

Side hits: This board was super fun on side hits! I had a lot of fun with it. Easy to maneuver on the approach, good pop and great on uneven landings.

Small jumps/Big Jumps: Handles all types of jumps really well! 

Switch

It's very comfortable riding switch on this board. It's got the specs for it - and it felt easy transitioning into switch and never felt like catching an edge. 

Spins

It has all the ingredients as a good spinning board and shouldn't disappoint. The only thing stopping it from being perfect is that it's a little heavier than normal - but otherwise, it's pretty much ideal: Good setting up/taking off switch, good pop etc. 

Jibbing

Whilst it's not as good down the jib line as it is down the jump line, it's still something that can tackle boxes/rails etc well, particularly if you're experienced on them. 

Butters

It's easier to butter on that you'd think at first. It's something that you've got to put a bit of weight/effort into, but when you do, it bends quite nicely. 

The Rival is a really versatile freestyle board - and you wouldn't be wrong labelling it all-mountain-freestyle with the way it can handle speed and lay down a carve.  

In the park it's a beast for jumps of all sizes. If jumps and spins are your thing, the Rival won't disappoint. It can hold its own down the jib line as well.