New Snowboard

I bought the snowboard on the left at the annual SkiCo garage sale last October. It had been part of the resort's rental fleet, and I think it was 2 or 3 years old at the time but was still in great shape. It is a Rome Flag 157. The Flag is Rome's extra-wide all-mountain freestyle board. You see, my feet are too big to ride normal snowboards, so I can only use wide models. This is slightly irritating; as most companies only produce a few wide boards, I have always been limited in my selection. The Flag, though, turned out to be the best board I've ever ridden. It's responsive, it's nice and poppy, and it is tough as nails. I rode it over massive booters, through bottomless powder and over lots and lots of rails and boxes last winter, and it always performed beautifully. I also managed to do some damage to the board, though, and repairing it would have cost almost as much as I'd paid originally, so at the end of the Aspen winter I began looking for a new ride. The day before I left town I bought the board on the right. It is also a Rome Flag 157, but it is the 2008 model and it is much prettier. I was wary to use this board during the early season in New Zealand, because there were exposed rocks everywhere. However, the coverage finally seems adequate, so yesterday I took my brand-new snowboard to the slopes for the first time. Surprise surprise, it rides just like my old board. The sidecut seems to be a little different, resulting in slightly slower edge transitions, but it's barely noticeable. What I do notice is that sharp metal edges carve into the snow much harder than dull ones. Shocking, aye? Overall, I am super stoked on my new snowboard. Now I just need to avoid breaking it...