Burton Smooth Operator Snowboard Review

An In Depth Breakdown of the Burton Smooth Operator Review by The Good Ride

• User Reviews
• Product Specs
• Product Images
• Questions?

How The Burton Smooth Operator Was Tested:

I borrowed the Burton Smooth Operator 160 & 164 for an extended demo and sent it back.

Size: 160 & 164
Days: 5
Conditions: Varied Spring Conditions, 1″ of Powder and good groomers the next day.
Riders: James (Size 9, 5’10”, 185-195lbs). I’ve tested and compared 900+ boards and close to 1,000 if you count different versions of the same Model over the years.
Boots: Nitro Team TLS
Insoles: Footprint Kingfoam Orthotic Elite
Bindings: Union Force
Redundancy: Strapins in case boots or bindings break.
Jacket: Skyline Fuse 3L Jacket, Skyline Fuse Light 3L Jacket
Helmet: Smith Method
Goggle: Smith 4D Mag
Gloves: Burton AK Clutch Mitt, Burton AK Tech Leather Glove, Drop Tahoma Mitt,

James’s Set Up

21.5” Wide. Stance Angles +18/-3, +18/+3, +24/+6, +27/+9 back. Close to Reference on groomers and set all the way back in powder.

Similar Boards We Like (but not the same):

Korua Dart, Korua Café Racer, Weston Japow, Moss Jellyfish, Gentemstick Barracuda, Soul Shift, Nidecker Beta, Nidecker Beta APX, Korua Pintonic, Jones Storm Chaser 2025, Salomon Wolle Nyvelt Fish, Stranda Tree Surfer

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Construction / Durability / Weight

The Burton Smooth Operator has a semi-durable Topsheet and Burton almost always has great construction. It’s not heavy or light. Just on the light side of middle.

(We don’t put in the exact weight because with wood cores, there is no consistency in a board’s weight)

Sizing

I tried the 60 that you see here and the 64 for Bachelor. I would be all about the 64. I didn’t feel like the flex personality changed too much going up those four centimeters; I felt like it handled my weight fine. And while it wasn’t as easy to turn as the 160 for my size nine boots. It was doable. For Bachelor, I’d love to have the 64. If I were riding in steeper terrain, like when I used to live in Mammoth or in Tahoe for a few years, I would have chosen the 160.

Burton is pretty liberal with their boot sizes, but with the Smooth Operator, pretty fair with their recommended weight.

The Good Ride’s Conservative / Safe Boot Size Recommendation

These are sizes that will keep you from booting out (super bad) or being too wide to turn quickly in critical situations.
152: 7-8
156: 8-9
160: 9-10
164: 10-11

There is often more than one size that will work for your specs and your riding style. Size down for more control and size up for more speed/stability/carving power. If it comes down to boot size or weight, I would ensure it fits your boot first and then your weight a close second.

Burton could only send this to me in late spring, and I did get a powder day. I only got you know, a few inches of thick wet powder on top of some really hard, uneven snow. Those conditions got uneven quickly, then I got it on some varied groomers, from almost really good groomers to varied spring conditions, where it’s hard in the morning, going to soft and slightly uneven in the afternoon. But overall, I got a good idea of what this board is like.

Shape & Setback

The Burton Smooth Operator is tapered, but it is only 10 mil of taper, so that’s not a lot. The width over the inserts is the same. So you really don’t have that really tapered feel you do with a lot of snow surfboards, like when I compared it to the Soul Shift and the Korua Dart. Those boards feel so much more tapered. They look like weightlifters who always skip leg day. But it is very directional. You can see just so much more nose than this little swallow tail, and very set back on board. Despite only being. 12.5mm back on side, cut.

They want you to play around with different stance widths here. With this unit channel, you can bring your back foot way back if you want and truly emulate what it’s like to surf. As a lifelong surfer, surfing was my first passion before snowboarding. I call “surfy” a snowboard that rides near the tail a “short board ” because that’s how I rode short boards when I ocean surfed. So this board truly emulates that aspect because you could just keep going back if you want, or hell, you could truly center yourself over the camber. Get a really narrow stance, which I’ve done before on other boards. That’s kind of fun to see how that turns. So play around with it. Have fun with it, see what you like. There’s no right or wrong with this board. And that’s what they’re saying with this stance set up.

Camber/On Snow Feel

Burton Smooth Operator has directional camber as usual, with a decent amount of early rise before this long ass nose. And then you have this really unique channel system. That you see here, and I’ll turn it around this way. That’s hard as hell. The wax. I absolutely hate this stuff for waxing, but there is a nice channel that goes to about right here on the board. And it’s a pretty cool concept because it seems like it will help you float and keep speed a little better in powder and softer snow, but it didn’t feel like it was affecting the board’s performance, didn’t feel grabby. Like the flat to rocker deep days did for me in some soft, thicker snow conditions. This didn’t do that. And I think a committed intermediate who’s really intrigued with snow surf could handle this ride up to advanced expert riders. That’s where it really shines, though. But it’s very stable. It tracks really well. It’s very easy to one foot, even though you’re so set back on board, and it has this consistent feel in all conditions that I like.

Edge Hold

When it comes to edge hold, I felt it was competent enough in the firm spring conditions that I got it in on some days, but it’s not amazing. There are boards that grip better. But if you’re more medium hard on the soft and powder, this will work just fine for you.

Flex Personality

All right, let’s talk about Sade’s Flex here. You have a pretty stiff flex from here. All the way down to the tail. The tail is very stiff. Between the feet is very stiff. And if you watch me flex here, you can see all the band comes from the nose. Right here. It’s very easy to butter that nose, and it’s very soft in this region, you can see, and it starts to stiffen up as you get to that front insert. But overall, it’s a very poppy dynamic, easy to Ollie kind of ride. And it’s not bad to butter on the nose. The tail’s definitely a little more work.

Uneven Snow

I got this in a wide variety of uneven conditions. It handles hard, uneven snow pretty well. Soft, uneven snow. It’s a little better. It’s not a full-on chunder, buster, and the softer nose can bounce a little bit, but it quiets down pretty well once you get to the front foot and back to the tail. So overall, it’s a very good all day ride.

Turning/Carving

Turn Initiation

Both the 60 and 64 had effortless, quick turn initiation. Obviously, the 60 was much easier, but the 64 wouldn’t make me feel uncomfortable in tight spots or on uneven snow. I still felt like I had enough control to get this edge-to-edge.

Carving/Turning Experience

When I got it on edge, it was such a fun, springy, turning experience that felt like back-foot weighted turns. Maybe a touch better, but I could front-foot and center-weight turns as well, and I think that might have to do with the balanced freeride geometry. Keeping the width over the reference stance almost exactly the same, so you don’t feel like you have a tapered board on side cut when you’re on groomers. But in powder, I’ll bet you this thing would feel a little more tapered and surfy and slashy, but this has a really fun turning experience.

It’s not too stiff torsionally. I felt like it could gauge and twist those edges, get them to spring out of a turn. You got lots of camber, a good poppy, energetic flex. The combination of those two things, with the fun turning side cut shape like this, really made for a board that just lives to carve on clean groomers. I would not call this a powder board by any means. This is snow surf. This is take it out on groomers and make some really fun turns. This can handle any kind of stance angles and width. But what I really liked about this was like plus 27 plus nine on the back. But it even handled -3 back / -18 Front really well too.

Stance Angles

Some snow surfboards really start to light up as you get more positive. This one seems to be great for people who are getting into that directional ride. I think this works really well for a wide variety of riders, and this is a smooth operator. I felt smoother and cooler turning when I was on this board than I did on other boards.

Speed

And while this isn’t a bomber, I felt like this wasn’t fighting me when I needed to go straight or wanted to go straight on those random occasions. It’s not bad for a snow surfboard because a lot of them don’t like speed. They like careful, controlled, always moderate speed kind of rides. This can light it up pretty well for what it is.

Base Glide

And I thought the base glide was good. It’s not exceptional. I mean, if you’re looking at like this or a Gentemstick base, it’s going to be a night-and-day difference. But it’s getting into that upper-tier range, and it kept its speed pretty well.

Powder

I really wanted to try this in powder, but Burton only had a late spring testing window for the good ride here in the Pacific Northwest. So what I got was what I got, but it looks like it would be a really fun board to ride in deep powder. I would suggest, as I do with a lot of really aggressive swallow tails like this, not to set it back all the way unless it’s just ultra deep. And even then, I don’t really like it. But they have it so you can maybe give it a go, see how it feels. It might be more fun than other swallow tails, and hit me back. If you get this in the deep, deep,

Final Thoughts

So all in all, this and the Counterbalance were the highlights of my Burton testing. This, by far, was the highlight from a snow surf perspective. I just really enjoyed how this turned in almost all conditions. It really did feel smooth. It was just that nice balance of not being too stiff, not being too soft, having a playful, fun, springy, snowsurfy turn without a ton of taper. I think if you love to ride powder, but also take a snow surf approach to carving and turning on groomers, you’re going to really like this board. It’s a board I wouldn’t mind having in my quiver. And I love that if I got to 64, it could float better than the 3D fish, but then carved groomers would massively outperform it. So this is a very good one. Board quiver. And I’m going to be recommending this a lot