Eric Brammer aka PSR

Glad to see a good 'Gathering' still going on! This is needed, and I hope will be repeated until a group of manufacturers can yet again come together at a 'meet'..

"Wait, Pink/Blue Graphics on a Sims? How old is THAT??" ' How old are You? ' Liftie: "Um, 28" . Me; 'Then you were in 1st Grade the last time this board went up a Lift onto hardpacked snow.' liftie: "No Way!" , me, as I jump onto chair "yup, made in '89, in California!" .. I love Carving an old Sims!!

Yeah, so, as a Draftsman, I had those drawings, and they went to Catek. My 386/7 is done for. Got floppy translation for fast-cad?. As for the CAD-crap of a two-screw bomber-ish binder, you'd better start thinking in 3-D. I see Failure Points in a few planes of force, and a rotation to cant issue as well. This is "stable"? Maybe, but since the over-leveraged spots are quite near current failure zones on TD's , um. . .. So, yes improvement is obtainable. It's likely inevitable. That's Progression, in all things. But, first, put past issues of poorer performance, convience, and durability upon Ocham's Razor, then cull the result as your baseline from which to start. Meanwhile, you'd be wise to see how conservative non-U.S. bindings have been. F-2 only recently had SG 'fix' the issues they built in. Snow-Pro has been doing this whole thing wrong since the day. Ibex inherited Burton's raceplate with it's precisely inept canting. I'll stop there, as Phiokka deserves no mud from our 'tween Winter/Spring Seasons, but, they're not quite right, either. Face it, we've been LIMPING ALONG FOR DECADES, with some compromises that work, but no one binding model that can, with minimal parts, adapt to many skill sets of hardboot riders. And, I don't see an easy, common base merger of hard/soft binding design from the base-up ( as Catek briefly tried to do ) in the near future. It makes me wonder just how many times we can shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot and still ride on?

I've seen FAR Worse, from PSIA Istructors who Insisted on taking Tykes , IN SNAKE-RUN-FORMATION, down through double Diamond Snowparks, putting MANY, MANY, MUNCHKINS Directly in the path of a JUMP-PATH that's blind to the Jumpers! Putting that many, short, slow, hard-to-see & vulnerable bodies in a formational path that is Guanteed to Invite a collision!! I found that COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE, especially from Instructors who are there to Educate, And Protect, their Charges!!! I SAID AS MUCH, LOUDLY, to Peers in many spoken forums. Luckily, I was Heard, though not as well recieved as I had hoped (I guess the whole " who's Responsible in an incident " issue rankled some: BUT The Skier/Rider responsibility Code left it clear that an Artificially Made Obstacle would require PARK EDIQUETTE, something Responsible Skateboarders understood quite well, Lawyers-be-damned), so, a re-education of Kiddie Ski-Instructors had to ensue, to keep Them from putting old-habits as a priority over Safety Of the Client. So, what you're seeing with wedge-bombers on Steeps, or Ballistic-Blue-Bombers doing 30 mph straightline runs, is a poor hold-over of bad teaching, passed on to the next Gen... ('Change, and common sense, they're BAD, they mess this stuff up.. ') Oh, SO Sorry to Create Progression!! NOT!! I'd make better Parks if only Paid to do so, but I am happy with the ones I got to make, especially the few that are still up 25+ yrs. later. The Ediquette needed to safely Deal with such had to form with the Mountain's Approval, but it was Obvious how it is to work, even if that seemed to condradict the Downhill Skier right-of-way in some spots. If you can't See them, you can't change direction in the air to MISS them once you have launched. Usually, a 5 second wait clears an LZ Out. A snake-train of 5 yrs-olds wedging thru a DD Park are RoadKill. The Ski Industry really didn't grasp what was occurring on these slopes for, um, 10 years + . Luckily, PSIA finally stepped up and pushed the message to their Instructors. Parents, not so much...

If in my Dee-lux 325's, and knowing that soft snow abounds ( though, for me, in those nooks my O-Sin or Tanker can get to ), I will swap tongues to soften said boot flex, then ( not using a RAB ) take the 5 position slider, flip the lever to 'walk or driving-a-stick', but turn the knob 90* as the make the cuff stop on forward-lean of "3". DISCLAIMER ALERT! (Oh, and DO NOT DRIVE YOUR CAR IN THESE BOOTS. Not while sober. Badness ensues, and snowbanks appear suddenly while you're stuck on the gas and in the wrong gear. Been known to bend VW's in ways not intended by the manufacturer.) But, yeah, having that ankle flex and 'soft touch' is key to getting Flat-to-the-snow long enough to Float for Speed. If you Edge too much, you simply sink to a slowed death. A tactic I have used since, well, having 3 instead of 2 fins, is to guide in rotation/steering with the Front Foot, and use the Rear Foot for Pressure/Edging. This works even If your board doesn't "twist" torsionally, just by the timing of the seperate efforts involved ( and works really well on a finned Backhill! , too ). Geez, anyone got the ISM Mag with 'Roots' on the title of the cover?? Gave my last copy to Mr. Barfoot, but there was a great explanation in that from Jim Zellers on Hardboot-in-pow riding! (Plus, it's my only pic in a major mag .. I would be willing to trade for a copy)

With an Ibex/Burton, need to get the entire bail and clip, best sourced from Ibex themselves. But, if only the plastic toe clip broke, an F-2 toe piece can be fitted, but due to different size in the toeclip proportions, will need some slight toe/heel block length adjusts, too.

At the time, this cant/lift was the best engineered set-up (my design, Not explored by Caron, used 3 screws in a tri-pod base: Geoff Smith never saw that Memo, and went with flexed tension over a 4- point "table leg", at the Diner solution, which has been proven to 'wobble' in ways Tri-pods Do Not! ) in variable Cant & Lift. While the stepped disks-in-rotation that Burton and Phiokka explored were very good, the mechanism of securing said stance, well, they had issues in slop and predictability, and overall strength. We've all been playing a Lawyer's Game of who owns what, and trying to make a Predictibly Solid Binding for, well, since the TD-1 came out. I think the TD-3 is awesome for most, but, lacks the "tuning" for slight adjustments that arise. Thus, some riders get a set-up range that limits them biomechanichaly, with no other good options. A fluid range of tilts is the best hope in those cases. CATEK provided that where others could not, and still cannot. Having taught amputees how to carve, I can't overstate the loss of those adjustment parameters, but, knowing What Adjustments are Needed, one can work within the narrower paradigm. I prefer to have Options, though, just in case.

And, No, you can't jump all over International Patents: but, they will expire fairly soon. However, having researched the whole of pivotable canting years ago, there aren't too many ways past previous designs that will NOT. incur royalties.You're better off just Buying Catek as a Corporation, then refining the design from there. You'll want Geoff Smith onboard as well.

JG, all that Trig, and you don't Know how Wide your hand is?? And I always assumed that those women you date were 'loose' ( this may get an edit, so..) ! Lol

An Ibex/Burton, F-2/R-A, or (yikes) Snow-pro all let a boot "roll" against it's elastic soles ( hint, Dachstien V-5's Don't Do This! ). When CATEK and BOMBER 1st did all-metal bindings with almost No Slop 2 decades + ago, you could really Feel the Restriction in lateral play. Now, at that time, CATEK used lil' grooves to seat the toe/heel bits, so there was No Way to 'soften' that lateral play ( er, LACK OF PLAY! ) other than thin rubber placed on top of the toe/heel blocks, which could make a secure latch fit pretty "iffy". I recall K. Burnham coming completely out of early CATEK's (on an early 3-hole PJ-7) in the bumps because of the bits of rubber he'd added to 'cush' those V-5's...KTB and I had been toying for 2-3 seasons with articulated under plates (Burnham broke all the protos: not a surprise, really) that let boot/bindings have some lateral flex. That was '94-ish. FF To '98, and I am at Stratton, using Bombers TD-1's on a Madd, sometimes on a Ride Kildy or R/A Soul. I come up with taking SPS's (recall G&S boards?) pivot-under idea, but w/no actual pivot axle: instead, I put bits of different density urethane under the toe/heel blocks, with the strip between the bolts being rather hard (this showed up under Nidecker's LDS series of soft bindings a few years later, riser inclusive!), and the 'thane outboard of the bolts being a few durometer points softer. I now had Secure, but Plush TD-1's! Oh, and these also had the rubber band heel loop holders, which became springs in the TD-2's . See, it's dangerous to tell Fin things in the liftline without a Lawyer present...

Yeah, I will shut up now....(maybe, or not?)

Yeah, I will shut up now....(maybe, or not?) But, in my defense, I've had to Repost many Repost's that were the stories on the Original Bomber Forum, which often were culled from Freecarve. I may have been obnoxious, too loud, for too long, but I at least kept up a dialouge ( at least when people still replied: now, it's a diatribe . Que echo-chamber sound effects.. Lol-lol-lol). So, a few hallmarks along this a way: 1st Hardboots, Koflach Valugas (yes, PINK!): First plates used were Burton VP's, w/both using heel latches, First Asym Lacroix Eagle (thanks to Gordon Robbins), First plates owned were Crazy Banana on a Gnu Kaos 143 but I used Scott ski-boots (& hated it), First downhill edged Carve on Hardpack (soft snow doesn't count!), Barfoot Ravine, in Elfgen/Gnu bindings, first fully looped carve, on a Joyride EF, same binders as the Barfoot, early that next season ('91-92), first linked fakie carves were '88 on a Switchblade 1631using a duck-stance but still with a cant (? why !?) Overall, I've re-learned to ride through 6 or 7 definitions of what a Snowboard should be, as this thing has evolved..Hopefully, the Norm will still be valid in a decade, but, who knows?? Anyone else (beside Mig) recall using the Rope to help get the nose to bend?

So, 70's we still had fins. You cannot sideslip on fins. My Flite only Carved, but only at fairly shallow edge angles. Too steep up onto edge usually meant you wiped-out. Burton's bevel - bottom Performers would do slidey steered turns IF you removed a fin or two, and would Not "Carve" anything with all the fins removed. My first fin-Less carver was an '86-'87 Sims Ultimate swallowtail with Grell/Sims bindings.

Ow, but glad it was a mere Burton, not the Donek that mined Granite!

SVR is way too lucky...?