Groomers, powder, or everything in between, the Rocket will work and work well. Photo: Lib Tech/…Lost
I am/was a moderately decent snowboarder. I spent a few years doing seasonal work, so when I wasn’t slaving away at the powerhead end of a chainsaw or chucking skids and cones off the back of a D9 Cat on a pipeline, I spent all my money doing fun things. That meant months of surf trips or months of snowboarding trips. There were a few years where I spent nearly every day at the local hill, coming home when it closed to play Scrabble while it dumped snow outside. Still, though, I never got very good at spinning or riding switch, despite my best efforts. I, like many others at the time, rode snowboards that were made to go both ways. But I only ever really went one way. If only directional snowboards were a thing that the general public knew about back then.
Editor’s Note: Check out more awesome boards in our guides to the Best Snowboards and Best Women’s Snowboards.
After a few years off, I decided I’d get back into it. But this time, I had age and (moderate) wisdom on my side. I knew how I wanted to snowboard, and I wanted to snowboard in a similar vein to how I surf. I wanted to ride deep powder through trees. I wanted to do big, slashing carves. I did not want to rip through a park and do switch 900s (although I would if I could). So I got my hands on a directional snowboard from Lib Tech. And I have to say, it was a bit of a game changer. The snowboard in question? Matt Biolos’s all terrain surf-inspired ripper, the Rocket, which is part of a surf/snow collaboration that’s produced a few incredibly pretty snowboards.
Biolos has been snowboarding for decades, and a lifetime of shaping surfboards has given him an eye for shapes that both work well and are nice to look at. The Rocket is a bit wider than your average snowboard, and has a progressive elliptical sidecut and “poppy” early rise.
Notable Features
The Lib/…Lost Rocket has got quite a few things going for it, especially for someone like me. Decent snowboarder, solidly average. I like to go fast. I like powder, look at groomers simply as the fastest way to the lift to get back up to a spot where the trees are thicker and the snow is better. Show me a wind-blown lip, and I’ll hack it very averagely. But the Rocket? The Rocket made me feel like I was better than I am — which, I suppose, is testament to riding equipment that suits you. It’s got this elliptical sidecut and a set back camber and stance that lets you carve in the hard-packed stuff, but an early rise in the nose and an almost ridiculously poppy tail gives tons of float in the deeper stuff and allows for casual, easy little butters, although it does feel slightly stiff. The early rise in the tail makes up for that, however. It’s wide — so wide it felt strange at first, at least to me — but that too makes it a perfect snowboard for riding powder. Featuring a core made from sustainable aspen and paulownia wood, this thing excels all over the mountain.
“The Rocket is our original surf inspired, directional dream machine,” Biolos said. “The board that started it all, for ..Lost x LIB. Camber built and continuously refined and updated, yearly, to stay one step ahead of the status quo.”
How it Rides
For context, I’m 6’1″ and 185 lbs. The board I got is 161.5 cm, which might even be a little too long for me. I wear a size 11 boot, though, so I figured I’d need a little bit of extra width. In retrospect, something a little smaller would have done the trick. It’s incredibly stable at speed, with little to no chatter, but handles high-speed turns like it’s on a rail. That, I suspect, has a lot to do with Biolos’s surf background, because the feeling is similar. It’s a snowboard made to be ridden with a heavy back foot.
Speaking of a heavy back foot, the Rocket floats through powder like a cork on high seas. The large planing area combined with a funny little tail that is sure to have people asking questions on the lift gives it an extraordinary buoyant feeling, but the designers seem to have found a very happy medium between a powder-exclusive snowboard and a snowboard made with harder snow in mind.
In Summary
Directional snowboards are absolutely exploding right now, not necessarily for the park rats or those who like to spin and ride switch, but for those who like to cruise, surf the mountain, and wanted to see some design elements which reflected that style of riding. So if you, like me, are an intermediate snowboarder looking for something that’ll make your day even more fun than it already is, the Lib Tech …Lost Rocket might be right up your alley.
Find the Rocket on EvoEditor’s Note: For more gear reviews and features on The Inertia, click here. For in-depth reviews of the top snowboard gear in the industry, check out our guides to The Best Snowboard Jackets, The Best Snowboard Pants, The Best Snowboard Goggles, The Best Snowboard Mittens, and The Best Snowboard Boots.
Warm, Waterproof, and Ready to Ride: The Best Snowboard Jackets of 2025/2026
