eddie

I got a suspicious e-mail through the bomber forum, didn't say who it was from, scanned the e-mail and for viruses and for some reason my virus detection program on my e-mail said it was dissabled. I never opened the attachment but I guess opening the letter was enough. I got through my e-mail's virus detection and my (outdated) one on my PC. So, don't open any letters that say "hello" or "hi". I have been getting crap from all sorts of snowboarding forums.

Wish I could have seen it. Next time I run into you all practicing, I should sit and watch for a while.

Hey Phil, Did the race happen yesterday with it snowing or did it get postponed? How did the team do (if the event happened)?

Try the search for "If you could..." or something like that. Is that what you were thinking of?

I have had my share of passes pulled.

Come to Utah and you will see a few boarders laying down high speed, low to the ground carves (not by me). Who's to say turns that quick are boring. I finally learned how to turn my GS board as hard as a SL board with massive amount of flex control and I find that exciting. So did several people that stopped me to comment on it.

Hardbootin' brother, I am planning on it and super stoked. I am glad they started talking about this early, not like last year.

That good to hear because I just got mine today! :D

Yo right here!

I feel more confident in my riding abilities and I feel it shows. I felt inspired when I went through some of my surfing videos and magazines and found images of surfing world champs Kelly Slater and Tom Curren riding switch at Pipline. So, for a few weeks I switched my soft boot bindings to goofy foot from regular to see what it was like and better my balance. Learning how to carve the edge on my alpine made it easier to do that.

I have seen pictures like these on carvingmachine.com maybe a year or so ago. But don't get me wrong, they are great and also a helpful tool to work with. It's nice to have more photos like them on bomber now and not have to weed through a website in Japanese.

Note in the picture that the person is on a softboot setup. Then, when you look a little closer she is following someone elses trench and that there is another "boardies" track higher up in the snow. It's a little easier to carve when in someone elses trench.

I think that sums up the arguement pretty well for my own opinion but would like to add that the choice is still a matter of preference. That is completely true statement. And when I got Burton's "The Process" video when my brother and I met the team this year they said the same thing. But, in the video, Terge said he was looking for something that was less heavy, easier to turn and eliminated the back leg burn, so, in trying to solve these problems they went back to the designs of the Burton Backhills and Elites, because they worked, and updated the concept with newer technology. It's true that the fish is not a new idea. Not to mention that Custom Craft Snowboards has offered the "powder nose" on their custom snowboards for a while too; similar concept, shorter board built for powder. Burton just came along to perfect it.

This is what I heard about the neversumer boards. Good, very damp but from what I heard, all the rubber to make it damp also makes them a little heavy. That's about the only complaint. eddie

I was doing some thinking and maybe I had to make that stance change because I went from a 171 free carve board with a soft flex to a 185 Burton WCFP with a much stiffer flex pattern. Again, what do you think? Also, this maybe a tid bit of help for some, but when you hold the uphill arm high to keep the shoulders level to the slope, I found that (because of my bad shoulder) I focused on feeling the downhill side of my torso pinching the lowest rid into the pelvic bone as I drove hard into the turn. I can't hold one arm up well so this feeling let me know for a while that I was keeping my shoulders as level to the slope as I knew they could be. This may or may not be right.

Is that for learning to stay above your board and/or relying on the bottom of your feet, not the boot? I did a lot of weird things last season to help myself learn how to rely on my feet and not the boot, kinda sounds similar in principal. Same as riding switch, I think that helped most of all to better my balance and learn how to pressure my heals firmly and into a healside carve. I inadvertently used that technique from reading articles, looking at pictures, and watching videos and would agree that it is the best concept for a new carver to focus on. It worked well for me but as I progressed I found some disadvantages as I started to ride more aggressively. When I started to ride the steepest groomed runs on the resort I found, along with the combination of board and binding issues, I tended to have counter rotation problems and I was applying pressure to the inside edge of my heal on the back foot rather than applying pressue to a heal that was flat to the bottom of the boot. Thus, the result of my error was problems holding the carve at the apex of the turn. During this stage I went back and read "Carving the Steeps" and with a little direction from a friend I made a transition to something more of a racing style which in turn solved my problem. I guess my question is how or when do recognize that this adjustment in riding technique is needed? Or, since I am so new to this, would this be a problem for everyone that learned from "facing the nose" technique? Oh wait, went back and read the Jasey Jay vs. Klug stance thing. Anyway, what do you think?

In big bowls I don't think I would mind my hardboots but I tend to hang in the trees to find untracked powder all to myself for most of the day. Problems that I find with hardboots in the trees are that the snow conditions vary depending on terrain features, like if I'm under a tree or in a clearing, so I want to feel the snow and be able to adapt fast. But then again, I have not been riding in hardboots for long and this may change.

Santa left a damn good present. 15" at my place and I only live on the bench. Came home from work and couldn't help but laugh at the two people who couldn't even get three feet from their parking spaces.

Looks like the man is going to deliver.

It may not be about carving, but I believe we can all relate to the surfer soul. Stacy Peralta, the director of "Dog town and Z-Boys" has had his surf documentary "Riding Giants" selected as the opener for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Being a stranded surfer, I am planning to attend and was wondering if anyone else in the PC or SLC area are planning to go. Maybe we can make it a Wasatch Trencher gathering.

I don't know if that is a problem- that's cool. I noticed the same thing for a while and I think it stemmed from wanting to stick that healside turn so bad that it became second nature to push it harder than the toeside. Examine your body placement and movements, it works for me but maybe not for all. Another thing, I used to elongate my turns in the middle of the carve for some reason, I noticed it and so did a friend. It's hard to describe but I had to push harder in the middle of the arc as I crossed the fall line. I don't quite understand how I fixed it but I think I continue to apply pressure to the nose of the board for a little longer to eliminate that pause. Make sense? Off the subject, we talked about your trip to Utah around Christmas and carving but it looks like I can't get on the mountain till next week. There are a few other guy that might like to meet up and ride though. Happy Holidays

But, you did infer that I was a terminal intermediate, and, this post was not a technical discussion. As you can see from Doug's last post he is fustrated that everyone has taken the technical line. Doug If I could ride soft boots and get the same carve I would. There are less things on the boot that can break.

This thread started out as, "if you could carve as hard on softboots, would you" subject. Not the, "Well lets see here according to my numbers... physically impossible to... well you know, I am an engineer so,.." You guys had to come in and ruin his "if you could" post.

I don't expect to ever be taken seriously on BOL anyway. I am not within the "in crowd.";) Discussions about technique are happening all the time on BOL, in fact, the same ones over and over. For a while I was learning much from BOL and after every session that I rode (by myself) I would make a mental note of what I found difficult, come home and search the discussions or essays on BOL about what could be my problem. I would study pictures of American riders, Euro riders, racers, free carvers, just about anything I could find that had just a slightly different angle on the subject to see techniques in a new light. I put foreign web pages through engines that would translate it for me so I could maybe hear something new for more ideas. I could do that forever, even now, but there comes a time when the physical application of what I pondered had to be put to the test. I knew nobody in the carving community when I bought my first board and bindings. I had never posted a question about technique before my first day out. I have taken the falls. I have come home bruised. But Jack, it was your essays that have taught me how to carve for the first time. It was your discussions and debates about carving technique that inspired me to try to approach each turn differently to find what works bests for me. I want to read technical info but, when I try to seek new, insightful information on BOL the same people are kicking around the same subject. Now for my rock climbing class analogy. I searched information about rock climbing in the same method. But after a while of probing knowledge from my instructor he ripped back at me by saying, "No more beta Eddie, shut up and climb!" Harsh lesson quickly learned. To reach new horizions, take what you know and push it to the limit. Bill can be like my rock climbing instructor. I respect the guy and worship the snow he rides on. He can fill me with beta all he wants but he knows that what I need to do is go out and ride. The "terminal intermediates" of this website need to do just that- go out and ride. The best snowboarders in the world can theorize about technique all they want, but at some time they need to just go out and ride. Now when I posted my first opinion, it wasn't sarcastic, nor was it like, "Ride on dude!" But to get my point across about progression I had to be blunt. But if you are going to flame me and cry. Go on cry baby, cry. Ha ha ha ha ha! Besides, anyone who does not want to read my stuff can easily ignore my thread. Umm.. yeahh. Maybe it's the medication I've been taking for the surgery I had three days ago talking, but I feel liberated.:p

I am NEVER going to ride snowboards AGAIN! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! Eddie