I have rode many boards from all the major players in the splitboard industry over the last decade. I work as a guide and spend 100+ days on snow in the backcountry a year. The Bonsai has been one of the most agreeable shapes, right off the bat, that I have ever been on.

I was first really excited that the Bonsai has a properly stiff tail, unlike a lot of splits on the market, but even with that stiffness, the board is incredibly nimble. It's some bit of magic how they made such a wide and stiff board so easy to maneuver, especially in flatter slower terrain where a lot of splits struggle. The entry into turns is very calm and not twitchy, it allows you to put the board where you want. Float is excellent. Throwing on the brakes hard into chunder felt composed, not the most damp board I've been on, but for a carbon board it's very good and I never feel like it's throwing me off balance. When you want to open it up the board stays with you and when you lay it on edge it is one of the finest carving experiences I've had on a split, Which is saying a lot because most splits carve like dog-poo.

My experience thus far is only from early season Colorado riding and I haven't had it in the steeps or in corn yet, but based off my knowledge of boards, I have a feeling this will be a really good time throughout the season.

Great work Cardiff, I'm wildly impressed by this board so far and look forward to more days on it this season.

I love it. I got this board to replace a Jones Ultralight Hovercraft 2.0 and I’m so glad I did.

I was not happy with the build quality of the Jones. My first broke, and the warranty replacement board’s halves did not line up correctly and the hardware had issues. It is also marketed as a stiff board but in fact it is one of the softest flexing boards (split or solid) I’ve ever owned. This Cardiff Bonsai Pro Carbon has a much higher level of craftsmanship and attention to detail. It is much stiffer and has a longer effective edge in relation to overall length. It floats in pow but is also an absolute rocket on bigger, steeper lines, while still being maneuverable enough for tight couloirs. It also tours very well. The uphill toe brackets are positioned so the tips easily want to come up with each step making breaking trail in deep snow easier than any other splitboard I’ve owned.

First off I wanna say this board it awesome. Stiff but still a lot more manoeuvrable then I thought it would be. It handles hard pack, pow and slush like a champ. It's easy to get up on edge and when your on the edge it's easy to control. If you want the board to wash out, just let go of the pressure a bit and it will open up, or if you want to rail the turn just put down some more pressure and it will grab hold of most stuff and just continue cutting that turn for you like it's butter.

I love the board when you are going for more serious riding. Shoots, drops, off piste jumps and high speed runs. It feels precise until you don't want it to be, as mentioned before, then you can just let it slide out a bit to bring down the speed, adjust your line a bit or speed check before a jump. It's really impressive how smooth the transition between these two states is.

I think this is the best boards I had so far. And I have been riding the Amplid Millisurf, Jones Hovercraft 1.0, Jones Mind expander, Lib tech Travis Rice split and so on....
The Hovercraft is the one most similar to this one but it was more then 10 years ago I had the deck so it's hard to say. But I'm pretty sure I like this a bit better. There is just something very fun about this board even if it's not that playful. It gives you a lot of confidence i guess.

But there was a bit of an headache too. If you ride Spark bindings and have bigger then size 11 boot I think you pretty much have to order the spark raiser kit. Otherwise you might run into the same problem I had, that my boot hit the puck in walk mode. See photo. I was a bit disappointed to start with to be honest. But when I saw how much the raiser kit helped I'm now quite happy. The only downside to the raiser kit is that now my crampons doesn't dig into the snow as much as before. I haven't decided yet if that will be troublesome in the future or not. I guess I'll have to wait and see.
To Cardiff credit though they did offer me to exchange the board to a Goat when I explained the problem to them. (the Goat doesn't have this problem due to a centre of gravity being further back, you just have to figure out why this solves that problem yourself)

Skinning up the board does it's job very well, but there is nothing that will blow your mind. It just works.

So all in all I'm very happy and I would recommend this board to everyone that needs a stiff yet manoeuvrable hard charging board where it's surprisingly easy to choose when that power should be released.

It's probably not for someone that rides mellower lines and wants a playful deck. (It's seriously hard to bend this board even if I use all of my 85kg)

All riding so far has been in pretty good powder conditions, slush and some hard pack. But I don't intend to do anything else then go touring on this board anyway.