Board Style: All Mountain Freestyle
Special Features:
- MagTek (Magne-Traction + AmpTek camber)
- The core has carbon, Kevlar and biaxial fibers
- All terrain flex pattern
The Midwest Rossignol rep, Tim Parker, was nice enough to lend us a 2011 Diva to demo for a couple days, and all I have to say is, Tim, at the very first possible second that you are able, you gotta sell me one of these boards. It was outstanding! But really I do have more than just that to say about it.
I took the Diva out for a night riding session and the snow conditions were pretty hard packed due to the fact that I live in Minnesota (nuff said). I could tell I liked this board before I even took it down one run. As I got on the chair lift I noticed that this board was significantly lighter than my old board and as you can see in the picture the graphics are pretty rad too. I especially like that they left the top sheet clear to see the grain of the tip to tail wood core. Once I got it on the snow the board continued to impress.
Park: I was a little nervous to bring the Diva into the park because of the Magne-Traction. I know that all the reviews say that Magne-Traction doesn’t make a difference on rails, but the thought of having extra grippy edges still made me a little hesitant. It turns out what they say is true. Even with edges that were still manufacturer sharp I had no problem with catching edges on rails, or anywhere for that matter. The AmpTek made good work of that. AmpTek in the Diva has 5mm of camber in between the bindings and is rockered out to the tip and tail. I felt the rocker going to work where I was able to butter out or hop through things that I would have normally caught my edges on (i.e. coming up short on a spin or a bad angle on a rail). I also found myself accidentally airing over a lot of things because of the insanely poppy Carbon, Kevlar, biaxial fiber core. I have gotten used to putting a lot of effort into ollieing and things like that and this board does a lot of the work for you. My tricks were bigger, cleaner and I was able to start trying new things because I had the amplitude I needed and never had before.
Flatland Freestyle and carving: Whether I was spinning over a roller or ollieing over some little feature the Diva got the job done. I was able to spin fast, getting more revolutions, because the swing weight of the board is amazing. Tail blockers were fun because it was easy to pop up into it and the Diva has a fairly soft flex. There isn’t a halfpipe where I was riding but they do have icy walls, and riding up those I could feel the Mag going to work and it held tight the whole way. As for carving, I don’t know that I have ever taken harder turns. Again the Mag came into play and dug deep and held tight on hard packed groomers. When I say hard I mean hard. One of the runs I was testing the carving ability of the Diva on was just freshly maintained ski racer style, which means pure hard-ice patches. I could barely tell a difference in grip when I cut across the ski path. Turning from edge to edge was incredibly responsive thanks to the camber that AmpTek offers. I was popped over from toe edge to heel edge before I knew it with hardly any effort.
I could without doubt feel each of the features of this board working as I was riding. This board saved me so much energy because of the work that the construction does for you. It made riding a lot more fun because I was able to do more, land more, and keep at it longer with the energy I saved (Minus the energy I burnt hiking the park because I’m out of shape). Rossignol specifically designed this core to be poppy and they definitely hit that nail square in the face. The camber makes it a great carving board and the rocker makes it a great freestyle board. The Diva has a twin directional shape so riding switch was a breeze. Lastly, Magne-Traction is an amazing invention because it will benefit your riding all over the mountain.
I probably should have taken a little bit more unbiased approach to writing this review, but what can I say, I had fun on this board. When it comes out next year be sure to find it this one at your local demo and try it out for yourself. I promise you will be impressed.
