DC Tone 2014 - 2011 Review by The Good Ride

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DC Dropped the BDR and replaced it with a different type of semi-continuous rocker that is called the Tone.  The BDR was flat in the center and then has a little kink up after the binding mounts.  The flat section made it easy to one foot and flat base.  The tone has a very mellow pinch in the center but mainly is flat until after the bindings.  This provides a rather stable ride and a good everywhere in the park kind of performance. The Tone didn’t blow us away but after getting over the Good Wood Award expectations we felt it was a fun, do anything freestyle kind of board.

Ethics Statement: We don’t get paid by the manufacturer to write these reviews.  We do make money from the “Where To Buy” links, but this is our best attempt at an honest and objective review from an average riders’ perspective.

Size: Lauri 156
Bindings: Burton Cartel Re:Flex
Boots: Burton SLX and Burton Ion
Riders: James and Jimbo
23″ wide centered 15 front -15 back
Conditions: Mostly good and soft with some harder patches here and there.

We had high expectations for the DC Tone mainly because of the Good Wood Award and the fact that we loved the DC MLF as much as the Good Wood crew did.  We weren’t disappointed but at the same time, we didn’t feel that it blew us away as the DC MLF did.  So here is the review.

On Snow Feel: Stable and fun without being catchy.  This is great for one footing and flat basing and a fun board for riding around the mountain regular or switch.  It can cruise or pick up speed and feel pretty comfortable at both.  It didn’t feel dead but also didn’t feel lively either. It’s the kind of board that can butter and press as well as pick up some speed.

Powder: The Tone does a good job in powder.  It’s not effortless but it does a good job for a Twin in most powder.  It’s fun for a freestyle board and like the DC MLF it does better than you would expect.

Turn Initiation and Carving: The Tone didn’t have that super easy edge to edge transitioning that many hybrid rocker or hybrid camber boards have but it is not sluggish in any way.  We like this type of ride because its fun to work a little more with your turn.  It’s fun to make medium turns on this board and a little better than average when leaning into a carve but it’s no show stopper.  We all had much more fun on the Mega and Ply when making a more committed turn.

Speed: The Tone has a medium flex that borders on stiff and a pretty good base so you can point it and have relatively low chatter.  It’s not a bomber board but is pretty fun to pick up some decent speed with.

Uneven Terrain: It’s not terrible here and can absorb a little shock when dealing with crappy conditions. There wasn’t much uneven or bumpy snow we encountered but what little we came across made us feel it could still be fun at the end of the day as well as the beginning.

Approximate Weight– Pretty light for its price range.

Edge Hold: The day we rode the Tone we also rode a few other boards that day from Mervin, Rome, and Capita that had better edge hold.   We felt the Tone was fine for the medium soft conditions we didn’t feel like it had the grip when we came across patches of harder snow like some of the other boards we rode that day. So this is a little more than fine for good conditions but that’s it.  If you ride in hard to icy snow you might want to look somewhere else.  We would call this borderline average but still on the good side.

Flex: The flex is more aggressive than you would think and it wasn’t a super playful board.

Switch: Twins are perfect switch

Rails/Jibbing: This isn’t the most Jib friendly board but you can take a lap or two through the jib park without too much pain.

Pipe: If the Tone had better edge hold it might be an excellent pipe board instead of good.  As long as the pipe isn’t icy you’ll have fun.

Jumps: Not super springy but not lifeless either.  We had fun on small to medium jumps but didn’t feel it had the spring we would want if you lived to ollie around the mountain. Still, this is a fun board to hit jumps with.