fish

Right now there’s about 50 bros over on sn*wboardingforum who say they desperately want to carve or at least want to learn to turn bent at the waist with their torsos dragging on the snow.

SG Soul is an amazing board on hardpack, pow, and slush. Looks funny but it’s a quiver of one. Not as good at carving as a hardboot rig but damn close.

Snowshoe’s annex called Silver Creek has a couple of nice carving runs I think. I haven’t been there this year. If I’m solo it’s easier to fly to SLC for 4 days. I’m 20 miles north of DC. The drive to Snowshoe gets longer every time I do it! One neat thing about the shoe is the abundance of southern accents and good manners. Seven Springs is good. Good coverage. A handful of solid carving runs. It’s a good destination if you have your family in tow. They have lots of entertainment options. Plus the breakfast buffet at the main lodge is outstanding. I like that the place employs cool locals. Coverage has been solid this season. My closest hills are liberty, Whitetail, and Roundtop. All 3 are working. Everything is covered. Whitetail has the only detachable quad lift. All others at the three closest PA hills are fixed. On a crowd-free day you can get a lot of turns off that quad!

I love it when they crash and leave a 50 ft trail of skier flotsam. I did a quick search for videos of skiers carving (on skis). I didn’t see anything that looked WOW! But I’m open to the possibility. If anyone can show me awesome carving on skis I’d love to see it. I bought skis this season and 2-planking doesn’t feel right. I appreciate their practical value. But I’m not feeling it.

I think you identified the real problem. What if we came together as a group and resolved to stop wearing neon and acting strange?

I often talk to folks in softies who say they like the look of carving in hardboots. I think some might try it if the gear was more accessible. Then again, maybe that’s naive. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever successfully convinced anyone to try riding their current board with a + + stance. People get attached to their stances and styles even when they don’t make a lot of sense. What does the person who is going to start riding plates and buying skinny boards look like? What car do they drive? How many times a year do they participate in snow sports? How old are they? What is their motive getting involved? Etc. Answer these demographic questions and then you might have an idea where to find next season’s fresh meat. I wonder how many new, non-racer hardbooters join the ranks in a given season. Any guesses?

Got both of mine stuck in my hair. Still, cool stickers. Thanks, JM.

Demoed a couple at Ski Roundtop a couple years ago. The boards looked very cool but the weird recesses edge design didn’t suit me. I found that it required more angulation to get an edge engaged than a regular edge would require. I think it might be handy for cheating landings off of park features but that’s not what I’m all about.

Your question about subjectivity is one that I’ve wondered a lot about. I didn’t know that the cross country bros had a way to measure flex like that. Fascinating. I had previously toyed with the idea of comparing boards quantitatively by locking them into various types of support and placing fixed amounts of weight on them as a means of comparing overall flex and section specific flex. It seemed like by measuring deflection under standard amounts of weight and then comparing the measurements of different boards it might be better possible to know what “a stiff board” or “a soft nose” actually means. Also thought about comparing boards by measuring the amount of water they displace when submerged. That would give a board volume measurement that might be useful. Also thought about employing Archimedes’ principle of upward buoyant force (weight of the water displaced by and object equals that object’s buoyancy) as a means of comparing different boards. I wonder if there’s a correlation to buoyancy and various boards’ powder riding traits? I’m not an engineer and I don’t know anything about how boards are actually made. so someone please tell me: do board builders or ski makers do this stuff already? If they do are the numbers closely guarded? Why isn’t there some independent reviewer doing this with the popular off the shelf boards? Ultimately I’d love to have this kind of info to use when deciding on a board.

Hey loner bro, is that a monoski and a full face helmet?

I have one. It’s light and lively. Medium stiff. It carves nicely. It’s fairly long and narrow compared to something like a Burton Custom. I’m not sure I want a long, surfy board like this when I’m in the trees. But maybe you do. One word of warning, while mine is fine, some of the old Tankers are reputed to be a bit fragile.

I never relax. I hate the very idea of it.

Dude. Literally everyone at Snowboarding Forum said that was the sickest laid out carve -EVER-.

Before I started hardbooting I was a skinny weakling with no friends. I got no female attention. Bullies would kick sand on me at the beach. Then I started hardbooting and I bought 6 boards in 3 seasons. I focused on getting low. I lost some toenails. That’s about it.

When this snow season ends I’m looking to get started with wingsuit jumping. I’m 6’00” and 170lbs and I’ve got a 31” inseam. Im usually a 38R but I could probably upsize to a 40R if I put on a sweatshirt or two underneath it. Anybody got one in my size that they’re looking to part with for a reasonable price? I’m not sure if I’m really going to like wingsuit jumping so I’m looking to get started with minimal initial outlay. Hopefully someone has one in blue or yellow without a bunch of ugly logos and ads all over it. Inbox me. Thanks.