Burton Smooth Operator Women’s Review by Jordan

An In Depth Breakdown of the Burton Smooth Operator Women's by Jordan Review by The Good Ride

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

How The Burton Smooth Operator Women’s Was Tested:

I borrowed the Burton Smooth Operator Women’s for a short demo and then sent it back.

This was ridden on mid-season pack powder and powder conditions. I only got to ride it once, but it was perfect powder for this board. If you’re curious about the grom conditions, please refer to Biesty’s review. He was able to get in, groomed, and not powder. Unfortunate for him, but I have this perception from the perfect powder day.

It was written with Union Trilogy, Bathing Size, medium, and Solomon dialog boots men’s size eight, which equates to about a woman’s size seven. I got on know 148, which is recommended for a rider’s weight of between 100 and 150, and a medium ladies binding. I rode reference sets of 19 inches with my usual stance, singles of positive 15, negative nine.

Size: 148
Days: 1
Conditions: 4-6″ of fresh powder on top of soft and packed powder
Riders: Jordan, I’ve ridden over 50 boards, and I’ve been snowboarding for 20+ years

Jordan’s Set Up

19” Wide. Stance Angles+18/-9 Close to Reference

Similar Boards We Like (but not the same)

Korua Dart, Jones Storm Chaser

Ethics Statement

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Construction / Durability / Weight

The Burton Smooth Operator is built in Europe (I think Austria) at Burton’s Family Tree Factory, and it’s well-built with a great warranty. (We don’t put in the exact weight because with wood cores, there is no consistency in a board’s weight)

Sizing

The Burton Smooth Operator Women’s fit my specs posted above really well, and I didn’t feel like I needed more or less.

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.

148: 8-9
144: 7-8

About The Channel System

Interesting to note that this sport actually features almost a complete tip-to-tail channel system to allow for a wide variety of stance widths and setbacks. You can almost hang ten on this thing.

Shape

The smooth operator features a directional snow surf shape with a wide nose and a swallow tail. It also features some 3D shaping of the tip and tail. It has ten millimeters of taper, quite a bit of taper, and it’s set back about 12.5mm on the side. Cut. out of reference stance of 19in. This is 9.625in setback. Now, if you set all the way back to the tail again, maintaining that 19-inch reference stance, you get 10.625in of extra nose.

Camber/On Snow Feel

The smooth operator features a setback directional camber profile, with significant early rise in the nose and camber underfoot. It also has a concave nose and tail, giving the sport a very surfy feel. The board actually felt surprisingly stable, loading and unloading off the lift, and when traversing.

However, I was only able to ride this board one full day, and it happened to be a powder day. So my experience, although ideal, was limited. This is a swallowtail board that requires some experience in these types of conditions. However, it didn’t feel hard to control or loose, as some powder-specific boards can, so I’d recommend this for intermediate to advanced riders looking for a comfortable and surfy snowboard.

Edge Hold

So edge. Hold on. The smooth. Operator, I’m pretty limited in my assessment of the edge hold based on the conditions that I was able to get the board on. Ideally, I would have loved to get it on groomed or packed snow conditions, but I wasn’t able to. I did get it on soft powder to pack powder conditions, and the edge hold was good. The setback stance and shape gave the board some stability and edge hold.

However, the tail felt a little washy, a little loose. Shifting my weight forward on the board gave me better control and took some of the looseness out of the riding experience. Even in powder conditions, I was able to feel some Lockton edge hold during the initiation of the turn, but lost it as my weight traveled to the back of the board.

Flex Personality

Since I don’t have the board in front of me, let’s talk about the flex. The flex on this is a mid soft in front of the board, shifting to stiffer towards the tail. The stiffness in this tail gave the board great pop when riding back heavy and popping through powder fields. However, once the weight shifted forward, it was much harder to get the pop out of the board.

The 3D shaping in the tail is also a variable when trying to pop in powder, it was not an issue, but on pack powder conditions it could actually throw you if you weren’t directly centered on the tail. With that swallowtail, it’d be pretty tricky to do.

Butters/Ollies/Switch

Butters. You may be able to get butter lake experiences in deeper snow, where you can go in that tail heavy, but really, this is designed for deep snow. It’s not intended for use on many flat surfaces.

That’s going to be the same when you were riding switch. If you’re landing switch, you’ll probably feel a tendency to flip around. It wants to be set back. You got almost 9 to 10 plus inches of extra nose there. That weight disbursement is going to go to the tail of the board. And if you flip this around, it’s going to want to flip you back. So just be aware of that.

However, in the air, this board feels excellent, really, really good. And if you set your weight slightly forward, which you can with this board, it lands nicely, too.

Uneven Snow

When transferring from hard, uneven snow to soft, uneven snow, the significant early rise in the nose actually helped keep the board above the uneven snow, and the camber underfoot kept the board slightly stable. Still, I noticed some difficulty keeping the board riding straightforward due to the softer nose and setback stance.

This board likes to turn with a loose, surfy, back-heavy initiation. This is a little challenging, uneven snow, especially as it starts to harden, and in some situations, it would release, and I would wind up on the ground. This mainly happened when the snow started to set up and push back on the board.

Turning/Carving

My favorite part is talking about the turning and carving experience. I had an incredible time turning this board in powder and pack powder conditions. It has the ideal personality for fun, loose turns without compromising stability. I was able to do a variety of turns, including quick slashes to hand down longer carve turns.

Where it really shone was in steeper open terrain, where you can maintain moderate speeds and really lean into the turns. The weight distribution seemed to play a role in how well the turn was executed. Given the reference, since it is already set back quite a bit, the ideal weight distribution was actually centered between the feet. This gave the board stability and reduced the wavering tendency of that swallowtail. But it was a little tricky not to want to lean back into those turns, especially in deeper powder.

Base Glide

I was given this board with a factory wax, and it rode well out of the gate. I did not feel sticky or chalky or slow like some of the other Burton boards I’ve been on, but it would definitely benefit from temperature-specific wax.

Powder

I got the perfect conditions for the board. It was about 5 to 6in of fresh on top of eight inches of soft but slightly set-up snow, here in the Pacific Northwest. We get a little more moisture in our snow, and this somehow creates an almost bottomless effect with just a little something to push off of.

So it didn’t feel like anything was falling out. I actually had something to push off of. It was quick enough underfoot for tighter trees, yet stable enough to hold speed and really push into deep carving powder turns. The terrain I was riding on was moderately pitched. Those areas that flattened out, that happens often here in central Oregon. Bachelor. We don’t have a ton of steep sections, or it will go steep, and then it’ll flatten out for quite a while. And this board really held its own and maintained its speed.

Final Thoughts

Now, what does this all mean? As for the smooth operator, well, I’ll tell you this. Reviewing snowboards is tricky. We don’t always get to ride the board under the exact conditions, so where it was intended for, we usually get a little glimpse, but never the whole show.

And trust me, I don’t typically review boards and powder days unless it’s absolutely perfect. I got a bottomless-pow day where I could push and lean into my turns as much as I wanted. The issue we tend to run into with a bachelor is maintaining speed enough to get through the flats, and not once did I fall behind or get stuck in the deep.

So often, I would set out first to pack the trail for the rest of the crew. I went from Belle to Bell on this board, getting untracked turns and tracked-out powder all day, and actually ended the day by hiking for more untracked turns. It shined and I could not get enough. This was a day where work and play married in a beautiful way, and I’m really excited to recommend this board for any of my pow enthusiasts.