MarkJeangerard

^^ I ride steep so boot forward lean translates to fore/aft pressure pretty directly. More upright front foot equates to faster pressure at the nose. More forward lean on the rear foot equates to quicker tail pressure. The more you flatten the stance, the more boot lean will affect edge to edge pressure. My experience has been that while boot lean is great for demoing or dialing in a little forgiveness, say, on a powder day, you can quickly remove range of motion. Range that will help you be more able to match whatever the landscape throws at you next.

Standard ABS is what the web form said. Saiteik only mentioned that it was ABS. (I went back and edited the post, and put the printers' 3DHubs link, as well.) Would that kind of failure be fairly obvious? I intend to check the bolt tightness, inside of the rubber T-nut 'cap', and snowboard top sheet regularly. The 3DHubs order form specifically asked if I wanted a 300μm or 200μm layer height I did a quick google search and came to the same conclusion so, went with 300. I'm glad to have that point reinforced here.

Very cool technology. But watching the intro video on the website... look at the carving section. I'm not sure it's a good idea to advocate a skiing coach who doesn't even know what a carved turn is.

Ok. So. 3DHubs. Uploaded the STL files, chose materials (ABS Black), searched by closest printer to me (https://www.3dhubs.com/service/saiteik3d in Henderson, NV). 18 bucks, I'll pick them up. He responded that he didn't have enough black today. I said red is fine, chances are I'll ride these one day only and then want to make changes. Print was ready in 2 hours. In my hand in three. (Las Vegas, NV) I told him I didn't expect the labeling to come out so good. He said it was a matter of prepping the bed. But no details. He said he used 15% infill. If you're wondering how I came up with the angles they are very close to the last setup I rode. I took notes on the day. I'm posting pics. I would love know what anyone thinks about the quality. --- I just installed them on the bindings. I'm glad all the local ski areas are closed. I want to ride right now. But there are two problems. I just reread Jim's Thingiverse page. He says to use a high infill level. I did not specify and the guy who printed them guessed at 15%. What would be considered "high" infill? Also, it has become very apparent that the 22mm, 26mm, and 36mm bolts that come with the bindings do not provide enough options. One of the bolts goes right to flush with the T-nut and two others only have 1 or 2 threads holding. (I did not tighten them. I was just excited to feel the stance.) Depending on how stupid I go with revisions, I might want a box with 22, 24, 26, 28, 31, 34, 36, and 39mm bolts in it. I would say don't even start without 31mm bolts in hand. It's not the short and long extents that get ya. It's the intermediate sizes. They fit the bindings as well or better than the factory shims. The tongue and groove wiggle a little on both these and factory. A little less on these depending on the individual shim. Boy, oh boy do the angles feel natural. I need to ride them, of course, but it sure is a lot better than just throwing 4s and 6s at the problem. I can tell that on the carpet.

I was answering this question. There are reasons we ride with steep stances on alpine boards. Likewise there are reasons those who do ride BX with the stances they do. But I would consider both of those setups 1 trick ponies. Sure I can ride switch on a Prior 185 WCR with a 67/67 stance, and while I might try it in pow but not in trees, it certainly would not be my go to board for exploring a mountain in inclement weather. Duck - because range of motion. Symmetry of motion. Predictable suspension system. Repeatable techniques and postures in both forward foot stances. Twin Tip - for the same reasons as Duck. Lemme rephrase that last statement. "Riding in a center mounted duck stance (preferably a twin tip) with a focus on biasing our weight over the front foot in deep powder for the purpose of demonstrating to ourselves that there is more than one way to skin a cat." The single most fun thing about the 'front foot in powder' clinic was that nearly everyone responded, at least on on some level, the way you just did. Every person I went out with was sold, in the end. The question wasn't about hard boots. To address your other points: I have ridden powder specific boards, taper, rocker, spilt tails... I can't remember what else. Not only did I not find any advantage in these designs but I found them difficult in any but their prescribed discipline and in some cases counter productive even wthin their own narrow specialties. Most powder specific boards are horrible switch. Switch - a contentious subject, I know. But if you aren't compromising your ability to pressure, pivot, tilt, and twist... or you aren't compromising range of motion, availability of productive twitch response, or poise and grace, then why not use switch? Center mounted flattish duck stances on twin tip boards not only don't compromise those points above, it's the opposite... they facilitate those qualities. And more. What if you spin 180? 540? What if your are spinning flat on the snow? That stance will maintain a more survivable attitude in both base angle and weight distribution. Wedge yourself into a narrow cute or clump of trees with no way to turn around? Why bother? There is no "front" on a twin tip. Why ride duck center twin? Why ride the whole mountain cranked back in a manual with your hip over the tail? Would that not lead to easily over weighting the tail unintentionally? In those instances when you need to be over the front of the board do you not have an unnaturally long way to go to get there from your manual? Would that giant move not as easily lead to over exaggerated results on occasion? Is a rear mounted board any different than a built in manual? Why not ride duck center twin? The best turns in powder are dynamic. The legs move up and down, back and forth, edge to edge. They twist and porpoise and leap and dive! Why carry more than one board for all mountain riding. It just means you have to come down and go to the locker at some point. Life is too short. Put food and water in your pockets and go ride all day... Center. Duck. Twin. ...or however you want.

There is only one way to ride effectively. * Centered * Duck (lower angle better) * Twin Tip (wide enough for feet) Especially in deep powder. But if we are talking about a general all around riding stance, in all conditions and most riding styles, being centered is the best place from which to dictate changes in weighting and angulation. Not being preloaded, so to speak, in either angle or inclination gives us the most opportunity in speed of response and range of motion. Which in turn gives us the most immediate transference from intention to reality. Do we need to learn new techniques? Not so much as simply repositioning those techniques we already know. In the end we become more stacked, relaxed, poised, and fluid. As well as less prone to getting all loaded up in unproductive postures and off weight scenarios that are hard to recover from. I used to have a killer - riding on the front foot in a centered stance position in deep powder - clinic. I wonder if I could still remember it.

Jim, this tool is awesome. I am not a programmer. Nor am I an engineer. It would have taken me a month to figure out how to create a single cant lift shim in SketchUP. I probably never would have found success in OpenSCAD. Now I'll have my first prototype in a week or so. Your adjustable wedge template in OpenSCAD is astonishingly easy to use and you and others explanations in this thread and elsewhere on the forum give all of us desperately needed solutions. And I don't think that is over stated. The implications of uncommon parts never being out of stock alone! @Jack Michaud I think this type of effort is going to revolutionize binding setup, among other things. Some sort of sticky will probably become appropriate, guiding those who seek towards threads focused on self generated solutions for their particular boots and bindings and whatnot.

Well, you already mentioned that you have Diode parts lying around so I'm going to assume you have tried those and it's not what you were looking for. I'm a huge fan of the split baseplate. I mounted the Diodes after taking a few runs on the Carbons that I was replacing them with and the freedom of the board to follow it's more natural curve was unmistakable. I understood the concept, buying them. I did not expect the dramatic results I got.

I often use a quote I read here, actually. If memory serves it is from Jack Michaud: "Do you like roller coasters? It's like riding a roller coaster. You design the track."

How is this topic off? topic... The lift and cant that I have for the F2 Titanium are 6* and 4* respectively. Those specific values are not what I need right now and this technology is a dream come true. I have no CAD skills or software. If I were able to mock up cant/lift shims in SketchUp would that work? It does export to STL. I'm assuming there are no shortage of places on the internet or in larger town that will print ABS parts from the appropriate files?

"We're not ready announce the technology yet. Please... no pictures." "Did you see Ester Ledecka in the olympics?" "Yeah, I guess it is oldschool by now... it was designed March 15th and pressed March 20th." "It's a snowboard. Works just like yours only better." "Greenish blue?" "Nice try. No one steals my french fries."

Days 3 & 4 I kept pursuing a bunk stance. Going off what was evident on my existing snowboards that handle differently and which I haven't ridden in a number of years. Day 3 was ski-over-mark's-new-snowboard day. Twice, about an hour apart, two of the cutest 6 year olds you've ever seen skied right into the tail of my board. (I was, of course, off to the side, well away from the top of the lift, sitting stationary at a bench.) Because daddy had ridden around me and stopped on the other side of me, both girls, after being stopped abruptly by my snowboard, saw no option other than to continue to skate across my snowboard. 4 or 6 tiny adorable little steps each, skidding and scraping across my topsheet, jabbing at my boots and shins with their cute little poles. Oddly, the girl who did the exact SAME THING on day 4 was fully 35 years old and it wasn't cute at all. End result: Barely noticeable dulling in the finish. No identifiable scratches. You really have to look close in the right light. Carbonium FTW. Finally on day five, I nailed it. Days 5 I went with TD1s because of their ease of adjustment on hill. Now that I know what I want I am going to go back to the F2s. Length: 172cm Waist Width: 18cm Side Cut Radius: 11m Stance 65/65. Natural center @ 19.7 inches. 3° cant plates running 90°, across the board. Front cant low on heelside, rear cant low on toeside. So, around 2° cant and a little less lift? Conditions: Spring slush groomed into roy in the late afternoon/evening, hardened over freezing night, turning to slush in the sun. It stays pretty cold at Brian Head so the slush comes on slowly. It's rideable most of the day. One of the first things I noticed about this board is the feedback. Carving on the frozen roy was a loud affair. Like a heavy canvas tarp ripping, or something, and a distinct scraping sound not unlike a skidded turn. The turns felt heavily skidded, about the same way I'm used to when the Madd does a 4 inch or so wide skid. But looking at the tracks, there was no skidding. Pencil thin lines from start to finish. Round turn shapes. When the Donek skids, it actually quiets up some both sonically and kinetically. Skids are predictable and easily controllable after just a few "test" skids to get a read on when and how the board breaks loose. Resetting the edge with any speed is a dramatic affair as the board sets immediately. Wherever the weight is is where it's gonna grip. When I didn't feel comfortable driving the board back up the hill I was very confident letting the speed in and shallowing up larger turn shapes - skidding off excess speed when necessary. Although, I rarely found it necessary until hitting slow or lift zones. The board responds very quickly to any input. Is it critical, I would say so. Several times I found myself having to deal with energy I had injected into the board through over exuberant gestures. Andre, a local hardbooter, suggested that I may be riding it as a larger board, that I just need to resize my movements. I thought that was a pretty cool observation. Thinking along those lines I noticed that my mistakes were mostly fore/aft. Bingo. One thing that really stands out for me with this board is the ability to manipulate the turn shape with tilt and twist. Diving in to high edge angle is extremely predictable. Being thrown to the hip by surprise seems to be less common on this board than any other board I remember riding. What did catch me by surprise was how tight the carve was once I tipped the thing up. It rides so well at larger radii that I had forgotten how small it really is. I experimented more and found it remarkably easy to move from large open, to small closed, to medium closed, small open, etc. with astonishing symmetry in size and shape toe and heel. Looking at the lines from the lift showed carves to be pure, start to finish. No bobbles while changing turn size. Flex between the bindings is really excellent too. This is one of my favorite characteristics of the board. It is very easy to create big differences in edge angle, tip to tail. Somehow, though, it's not so easy to do absent mindedly. There seems to be just the right balance in torsional stiffness nose/waist/tail that, just like the edge angle, it's easy to predict how much gas I'm giving it without nasty surprises. Looking at my lines from the lift again I'm noticing specific "kinks" that I purposefully put into my turn shapes. Above, at, and below the fall line it's literally simple to influence a change in turn shape or direction. I don't remember having that kind of mid turn control on any other board. The board really responds well to "Ivan" type maneuvers as well. It is really easy to accelerate in a variety of situations on this board. It seems like no matter what I was doing, if I needed the speed it was right there. Small gestures creating big returns. Like the toeside/heelside symmetry we are all always in pursuit of, I have to have crossover/crossunder symmetry as well. I don't tell the hill where I'm going, the hill tells me. Sometimes I don't know what type of turn I'm going to make until I'm mostly done with it. While this board is a crossover titan, the crossunders don't seem to have the type of pop that I remember getting on other boards. That being said, I'm not charging. It's been a while for me and I haven't let myself into situations that necessitate that type of split second decision making. Next year. At this point in time I rate the board really highly. It will be my go to stick until my Madd 170 is repaired and then we will see what the differences are. So, after all that blah-blah... If you are looking at this thread because you want a longer Madd Killer, this might be the board for you. But! This is an extrusion of the MK. I don't know the details, but when I ordered this board Sean offered me what was, at the time, the latest prototype of the 170 Madd Killer. So, that indicates that the board they are working on is different than this extrusion. I chose this board based solely on this thread, believing I would be happy with the board I read about here (I am!), and having little other information about the new prototype. It will be interesting to see what they come up with. You may want to wait. Not that there is anything wrong with this board. Just that... who knows what they like better about the next model in the line?

And I forgot to mention: I found a great machinist here in Vegas. He makes beautiful bike parts and he's a fully accomplished carver. He's got that Madd 170. Says insert repair is totally doable. Has link to this thread. Can't wait.

@jim_s Ha ha! Yep. 2006 or 2007 Madd 170 F2 reissue (as identified by Jack) over the 2018 Donek Custom (MK) 172. No trickery. Not the ground. Did the same thing in the kitchen, just with less light. @1xsculler You can call Sean and ask. Mine is 18cm waist down from the 19cm that workshop7's board has. But you could also wait for a little while.

Day 2 I had a bogus setup and never rode the board correctly. Brian Head, Utah. 29 degrees, partly cloudy. Hero Snow. The first two runs i made sidecut turns, mostly crossover, mostly by leaning. Every turn was exactly the same size. Big too. Like, the typical turn on my 180. Deep trenches, smooth and silent. The first pitch on the hill was groomed perfectly. The second looked and felt like they just took one quick pass at a fairly chopped slope. The second slope felt rougher, and there was some undulation but the tracks looked exactly the same. Round and symmetrical. The Hero Snow wasn't helping I could feel the stance was nowhere near decent but I kept completing turn after turn. I wore out in about in 3 hours. The F2 bindings were too much for me to deal with on the hill so I went over to Bombers for day 3 and 4. Day 2 impressions: It is really easy to dictate turn shape on the board. Shallow/completed or finished, large/small, opening/closing, all with pretty much nothing more than edge angle/tilt. On Hero Snow the thing runs silent. It's really cool how quiet it is sonically. Still haven't ridden the board properly. Oi... I hit a rock and gouged the base from tip to tail. Ouch. Only about twice the depth of the structure.