So you wanted to Carve

[Chouinard]

Please participate...need a large sample set to generate sufficient confidence in results.

Not going to move the needle on growth until we know what the root cause preventing participation.

[lonbordin]

I was unaware that carving existed.  Until @Carve234 showed up at my local bump I was just riding my Rad-Air Oversized like I would a surfboard.  Sure I did the occasional carve but had no idea what possibilities existed.  He suggested Donek's website and the Bomber forums... mind expanding!  

In my travels and riding locally I would say this is our sports biggest hurdle.  No one knows about carving/alpine riding (for proof I offer the lift-line thread).  Access to equipment is the second stage problem, IMHO.

Mahalo.

[b0ardski]

none of the above,  applies to me.

Was buying clearance hardboot gear realitivley cheap when some shops still carried them in the 90s.

The real game changer for me was stumbling across BOL and realized I wasn't alone, info/perception is more important than gear availability, the demand needs to grow 1st IMHO

Edited March 15, 2019 by b0ardski

[Corey]

I fundamentally did not know the sport still existed until I happened across Bomber in an unrelated internet search.  

Once here (there?), I read everything I could find and bought stuff out of classifieds and eBay.  It's easier to find stuff today than it was then, at least when you're not near any other hardboot riders.  

[BlueB]

Where is the option about bindings? Board and boots are easy - bigger stiffer "regular" board and softer ski or AT boots can do, but bindings are more of an issue. I got my first ones of @big canuck (thanks bro!) when I discovered the BOL, placed them on my twin tip and took it from there... 

Edited March 23, 2019 by BlueB

[daveo]

@Chouinard I don't think results from this will have any descriptive power for the lack of growth in the sport or participation in general. The sample suffers from textbook selection bias...

Nothing prevented me from carving except my poor skill on softboots. I wanted to carve, so I used a search engine, read stuff, hardboots made sense, got in touch with Bruce and bought stuff. I live 5 hours drive from any snow.

Like most or at least some here, I hunted carving (and hardboots) out once I knew what I was after. The lack of interest is deeper than what prevented current hardbooters from initially carving.

I suspect the biggest problem is a recent one, and presently more people are aware of carving than ever I think. Just look at the recent increase in Korean softboot carvers, but what about hardboot carvers? Not anywhere near as many. So, there are now specific softboot carving boards. The lower the barrier to entry (not just cost, but dauntingness, nerdiness, social outcastness etc.) to carving so much more than hardboots. For someone to get into hardboots, it seems they need to be 100% certain that's the road they want to take, but why bother when you can have the best of both worlds?

Why bother with hardboots when you can have an SG Soul Titan 159? It can ride the whole mountain arguably better than any single hardboot board, can ride powder better than some softboot freeride decks and it can carve better than a lot of hardboot boards. If carving is the goal, I can understand why one would not even bother considering hardboots.

If I were looking to carve now as a softboot rider, I know what I'd be picking and it wouldn't be hardboots, and this is coming from a dedicated hardboot rider who rides 100% hardboots- carve and freeride.

Just my two schmeckles.

Edited March 16, 2019 by daveo

[Buell]

Nothing prevented me from carving. Near the end of my first year I figured there had to be more so I googled "snowboard carve" and ended up at the Extreme Carve website. Then I found BOL. I had boots, bindings, multiple used boards and had made my first hard boot turns before the end of my first season.

If you want to hard boot, thanks to the internet, it is not that difficult to accomplish with a little initiative.

 

 

[Buell]

31 minutes ago, daveo said:

 

I suspect the biggest problem is a recent one, and presently more people are aware of carving than ever I think. But, there are now specific softboot carving boards. The lower the barrier to entry (not just cost, but dauntingness, nerdiness, social outcastness etc.) to carving so much more than hardboots. For someone to get into hardboots, it seems they need to be 100% certain that's the road they want to take, but why bother when you can have the best of both worlds?

Why bother with hardboots when you can have an SG Soul Titan 159? It can ride the whole mountain arguably better than hardboots, including powder better than most freeride decks and it can carve as well as a hardboot board (almost).

I also think this is a bigger issue now. Yes, you can carve harder and steeper with hardboots, but with the popularity of making carved turns by the general softboot community and the improvements and versatility of softboot gear, hardboot gear is less necessary.

[Freezer]

None of the listed options applied to me.  The biggest impediment when I started carving in the early '90's was finding instruction or competent carvers to emulate.  I looked idiotic for a couple of years trying to carve based on still shots of carvers, and it wasn't until I got Cliff Ahumada's first video that I finally could break it down and copy what I saw Cliff, Phil doing on that video.

[Jcar]

Nothing prevented me from carving. I ended 90-91 season carving my Burtom  Mystery Air and knew I was gonna get on HB the next season.   I bought a Kemper Apex 160, and  a pair of burton hard boots on blowout during the summer of 91 

[billyt.]

You tell’em Jcar!  No internet, or cell phone back then.  Show and tell!  When those first asymmetrical s where in the shop they just screamed, this is what you ride when there is no powder!  

[1xsculler]

What I have found is a major, general, lack of interest.  Skiers and softbooters may very, very occasionally, i.e. almost never, stumble upon a carver on the slopes or on a vid but even if they did it just doesn't jolt them the way it did me. 

IF an individual has an interest a Youtube or Google search will provide them with ample opportunities and info on where to start.  Lack of interest is the impediment to growing our sport, IMHO!

If you watch a vid of great carving and it doesn't speak to your soul and make you want to learn to do it more than almost anything else in the world then hard boot carving is not in your future, IMHo.

[Eboot]

I don’t think that the options offered apply to people who started in 90’s

[st_lupo]

I think for me it was a lack of motivation/necessity.  From 90 to 00 I rode soft boots and carved  pretty well given the gear (I always wanted to snowboard well).  But I mainly chased pow and rode back country in CO.  I did try an hb setup around 94 and was kinda shocked at how well it gripped, but without proper instruction no real perceived benefit for my riding style at the time and no local hb community it just remained a curiosity.   If I had stayed in CO I probably would still be on softs.

In 00 I moved to Norway where the powder is less frequent and not great, and pistes tend to be hardpack or icey.   Off piste around my local is riddled with mine shafts going back to the 1700s.  They do however groom the shit outta the entire hill every night.  Luckily a compadre at work was already regularly on hard boots, and after hearing of my disgust after demoing a Burton Custom Flying-V he went on the charm offensive to get me on hard boots too.  I’m an engineer and generally frugal so I had access to disposable cash. A few weeks of research and calling around got a pair of UPZs in the mail plus a Silberpfeil+F2 race Tis from Slovenia.  After that there was no impediment.  I’m typically tenacious on things I’m passionate about, and with access to BOL, I had all of the technical riding info/help I needed to figure out what to do.

[AcousticBoarder]

None really apply to me either. My older brother (by 10 years)  introduced me to carving, and I either found gear though him or on the forums here. My biggest hurdles were I was too young to drive on my own as a young teenager so I rarely was able to ride (once or twice a season) , and once I was older my brother was no longer local and I couldn't find people to ride with. I learn best with someone there, doesn't matter how many videos I watch. 

I guess the real local mountain is way too crowded to do anything with, and the next one isn't much better. Both have straight liners so you are likely to be hit too, so fear is a challenge too I guess. 

[TVR]

I blame Atom Ant from in here....

Never knew it existed before I saw his gear

 

[1xsculler]

On 3/15/2019 at 6:34 AM, Chouinard said:

Please participate...need a large sample set to generate sufficient confidence in results.

Not going to move the needle on growth until we know what the root cause preventing participation.

None of the above.  The single most important obstacle to growing our sport is an immediate, intense, driving desire to learn how to carve after one observes pure carving in person or on Youtube, IMHO!  If that doesn't get you hooked nothing else will.  Much to my surprise 99.9% of the skiers and snowboarders I run into on the slopes have zero interest in pure carving on alpine boards and hard boots!  

All of the things you have listed, i.e. boots, boards, bindings, costs, carving hills, can be overcome but it will cost you some $ and it will probably take a couple of seasons to get your boats, bindings and board(s) dialed in...with a Google/Ebay search. i.e. this website, et al.you can find out all you need.  If, because of logistics, one can't work on their carving frequently it probably won't happen.

[barryj]

None of the above for me also......

I think your poling the wrong subset.......really should be asking everybody But us.

I agree with Scully -   " you will learn to carve if you have an "immediate, intense, driving desire to learn how to carve after one observes pure carving in person or on Youtube"

 

[davekempmeister]

i would guess that a fair percentage of people who are initially interested are almost immediately discouraged or deterred by the fact that it is almost impossible to try without purchasing gear.

i assume most skiers' and boarders' first experience was likely on rentals and this is not going to happen with hard boots and alpine boards, in the States anyway.

 

[Freezer]

I'll also agree with Scully.  The last day I skied was the day at Squaw Valley in 1994 when I was on the ski lift and saw a ski patroller on a carving board making perfect controlled carves with his hip on the snow every turn.  It absolutely blew me away and took me back to skateboarding hills, pools and reservoir spillways in NorCal when I was a kid.  I said to myself "I'm going to do that", ditched the skis the next day and haven't looked back.  I think the bottom line for any sport is that if it grabs you at a visceral level, you'll do what it takes to make it happen.  

[1xsculler]

4 hours ago, davekempmeister said:

i would guess that a fair percentage of people who are initially interested are almost immediately discouraged or deterred by the fact that it is almost impossible to try without purchasing gear.

i assume most skiers' and boarders' first experience was likely on rentals and this is not going to happen with hard boots and alpine boards, in the States anyway.

 

This is a good point because IF the carving bug bites you do have to shell out some cash to get going. Sometimes it’s a tough decision to have to buy a complete new set of gear if you already have an investment is skiing equipment and maybe even a softie setup. 

[daveo]

24 minutes ago, 1xsculler said:

This is a good point because IF the carving bug bites you do have to shell out some cash to get going. Sometimes it’s a tough decision to have to buy a complete new set of gear if you already have an investment is skiing equipment and maybe even a softie setup. 

I had actually just bought a new board (Never Summer Premier) and new bindings (Nidecker Carbon 900) just after my season had ended. During the off season I fully committed to the hard life and ended up buying my first hardboot set up. Never looked back. The softboot stuff was never ridden by me except for outside the apartment doing some homemade jumps and for a couple of days by a friend of mine. Wish I'd kept the Nidecker Carbon 900 bindings for the sake of it, though.

[Corey]

4 hours ago, Freezer said:

I think the bottom line for any sport is that if it grabs you at a visceral level, you'll do what it takes to make it happen. 

Well said, absolutely true! You need a bit of dedication and exuberance to get boots sorted out before hardbooting really becomes enjoyable. 

[scottishsurfer]

Equipment isn't the only issue tuition is one also, unless your lucky and know someone who already rides hardboots your going to be relying on the internet and working it out as you go for most part. This situation led to the comical scene of a softboot carver(me) who'd never ridden hard's trying to explain hardboot riding technique to friend who'd just bought a hardboot setup. Fortunately when i did eventually get a  hardboot setup i was very glad to discover i roughly correct in terms of what i told my friend

[lafcadio]

I answered "Local pitch available but too narrow or too steep." However, I don't think pitch came into play for me taking so long to discover carving. There was always some pitch available somewhere to learn. 

For me, it was not even knowing about the existence of carving on hardboots that was the major blocker.