“Well! If there was ever a week to test the Jones surf-inspired powder stick, then once-in-a-lifetime Morzine – where literally every home run was blitzed in cold, fresh powder – was it. The Storm Chaser was the first board I set up, and I could have happily ridden it every day of that week. But would it be any good for everyday use?

“This was so, so, so rad”

I’ve tried a fair few powder boards in my time, and this one is pretty far out. Nug-ified (I mean, 147!?) which I love; virtually no tail to speak of, and what stubby bit of board there is behind your back binding is swallow-tailed, meaning, in the deep stuff, you can wheelie it to slow down. This was so, so, so rad. It’s perhaps the one missing dimension in snowboarding that snowboarding needs.

And the spoon nose means you only have to think about turning it and it’ll zip through the trees like you’re a stormtrooper chasing down some Ewoks. Anyway, my review is that this is a great, great board. I’d buy one in a heartbeat. Yes it’s a one-trick pony, but, you know, what a freakin trick!

Do you really need it? Well basically, if you lived in a cabin in the woods, and snow-shoed everywhere, and were allergic to pistes, then this is the board for you. For everyone else, it’s an extreme quiver addition, but a damned sexy one. Stand in a lift queue with it and you’re saying to the world “fuck yeah bitches, I’m about to get shacked”. Unless it’s icy conditions of course, in which case you’re gonna make everyone feel a bit awkward.”

“It is unfair and perhaps a little naive to expect a fair, impartial review from me on the Jones Storm Chaser. I was going to love it no matter what. And I did. It is perhaps even more unfair that I got to test it in exactly the conditions it was designed for. Virgin pow and clean corduroy.

This injustice is compounded further by the fact that I’m a surfer and I ride fishes. I shouldn’t be allowed to write this review. But this wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve done which I’m not supposed to do, so here we go.

“I can’t remember exactly what happened or where I was. But I do recall a lot of white room, a lot of choke, a lot of spray. It was insane”

Another tester had managed to snag it the previous day, much to my irritation, and he rode it like he stole it. This inspired but also worried me a little, as the board looked a touch petite under him (someone shorter and lighter than me). I had a genuine concern that it might be way too small for me.

I should learn to chuck it in the fuck-it bucket and worry less. The board was a dream, start to finish. The tail is tiny, hardly there at all, but beautifully formed. And even though I had placed my bindings on the manufacturer’s recommended setting it still drew comment from the crew that that was a ridiculously small amount of tail showing behind my foot. But that wasn’t a problem, at least not for me.

Maybe, like some of the other fishes on the market, the Bataleon Surfer and the K2 Cool Bean for example, the Storm Chaser might have a slight tendency to ‘wheelie out’ when dropping off anything with more than four feet of free-fall to it, but honestly you’re just having way too much fun to care about that.

Seen from afar the board has that 1950’s Flash Gordon Ming the Merciless rocket ship vibe. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see that firecrackle fizz of smoke coming out of the back of it as it cruised across the mountain.

“The board was a dream, start to finish”

In powder I can’t easily describe how much I enjoyed it, probably because I was having so much fun I can’t remember exactly what happened or where I was. But I do recall a lot of white room, a lot of choke, a lot of spray. It was insane. And it was just as good on piste, carving, gliding, slashing, and miraculously, an ability to chop through lumps and crud. How, Jeremy, how?

However, I must give it a healthy less-than-zero rating for switch. Even the Cool Bean has a little bit of switch in it’s game. Not so the Chaser. It just bites in like it’s digging for gold. End of ride.

Who is it for? People who like fun, really. Specifically, pow hounds who also dig a corduroy day. And maybe not the park rats or anyone looking to spin cab off a big kicker. But, yes, pretty much everyone else.”