Dr D

ITs more you than the board! choose which ever board you are most comfortable running flat on the base. you will need the speed to win and depending on the pond in question stability while running flat on the base at speed is the biggest factor.

In tite situations or in the bumps I find that I point the nose downhill and actually kick the tail back and forth using the nose as a pivot point. works well for me. Its ideal in crowded or narrow runs as well. This is a powder and chowder technique not a groomer technique although it is useful on crowded groomers occasionally.

+1 There is no better place to learn about carving than right here. one of the benefits to having a softboot forum is the ability to discuss the techniques (many of which are new) for softboot carving with other carvers. Perhaps with good moderators we can keep the hardcore hardboot zealots from flaming the conversations about softboot carving as long as they are in the appropriate forum. Its a win win. no more softboot discussions on the main board and a specific area for technique development and softboot carving in general. HINT: IF they learn to carve well in softboots many are gonna wanna graduate to hardboots thus growing the sport.

The 178 is harder to intiate than the 168 by quite a bit. especially the new model due to it being a good bit stiffer and heavier. That said I find that I have to ride with the back foot in the 15 to 25 range to effectively ride it in powder and heavy snow. groomers I bring that angle up significantly but for powder days I open up the stance. It makes the "surfy technique " more effective and easier to initiate. no toe drag worries in the pow. if you are riding from the back foot on the surfy style boards you have to think in terms of a tail fin. steer with the tails and not with the nose. you will find that the tail feels almost round on the bottom instead of flat. essentially you just roll from one tail to the other without the feel of the flat base in between. I ride this board completely different on groomers so take the above advise for deep stuff only.

If I didn't have a swallowtail to switch to on deep days I would want more nose to. This one is good up to about 3-4 inches of fresh. after that the submarine shows up. Its very rideable in pow it just isnt a swallowtail powder board. It rides extremely well in slop and chop and moguls etc. the red one is a beauty! mine is 11.5 sidecut and 158 with a 23.5 waist. so very similiar. I am thinking 168 with same profile just exponentially bigger. maybe 12.5 to 13 on the sidecut and the extra 10 cms on the length. The rocker nose is the best part of the tech and the metal makes a very short board possible to ride in the chunky due to the dampness. X3 is pictured below guy on the left of the group is me

:lol::lol::lol::lol:

yeah bob its really a one of a kind animal for the moment. AS far as I know anyway! need a bigger brother to fill out the quiver

I would also like to congratulate you on this epic evolutionary move! what boots did you ride? I am still looking for hardboots that dont' feel like medieval torture devices.

Hey Bruce! any thoughts on a slightly bigger brother to the x3? I love the lunchtray but wish I had a longer board on really hard groom days or really steep days. I was thinking something in the 168 range with similiar sidecut or maybe the same exponential difference as the 158 -168 jump maybe 12.5-13. has shred built anything that would fit the bill?

Those are the ones!! looked like battlestar gallactica but they were comfy

Hansen has been making exceptional specialty ski boots since I was a kid. I assume its the same dude anyway. used to make a rear entry skiboot that was the bomb. you had to wear nylons and spray the inside with silicone spray to get them on but they were unbelievably comfortable. had a kind of liquid gel between the liner and shell that fit to you each time you put them on. this was in the 80's. I think he has potential here.

I have a madd 168 Bx I would sell. its a full carbon one no butterfly. I find its to soft for me but I am a big boy so it might work well for him.

60+

I am riding the 158 lunchtray and it rides like its 175+ 11.5 meter sidecut ITs basically an inch narrower one off of the oxxess BX. I would heartily endorse it as perhaps THE allmountain board. I get lots of comments on it and I always answer with " This is the future " I said in another thread that, after watching the Olympic BXers going down on that chopped up banked left turn during qualifiers, its to bad they don't have Alpine roots in their technique and my setup. I ride mine with catek freeride 2's at about 60 degrees. Just getting their mass/ass over the board instead of the old drop a doogie duck heelside would have kept the majority of them from going down and most would have come out of the corner as fast or faster than going in. (flamer disclaimer- the board the alpine technique and the bindings are olympic quality. I said nothing about my big butt or my personal skills) I can however ride this board anywhere. I switch to a large swallowtail on heavy powder days for obvious reasons. Otherwise groomer to crud to moguls to several inches of fresh this board is what softbooters everywhere should be riding. It also rides well with plates! Props to the voices in Shred's head for the design and to coiler for a great board:biggthump

Kinesio tape and or spidertech

Depends on new snow. supposed to open main lift at 9:30 but it is often delayed on heavy snow days due to avalanche control efforts. we get one of the beginner chairs at 8:30 (good for a warm up) then a decent chair at 9am main chair to summit at 9:30. likely its a safety issue! OR the patrol hasn't got their obligatory freshy runs in yet!

It may look strange but its the future for sure! I can't begin to explain how easy these boards ride in almost any conditions. the long rocker nose and the metal make almost anything possible.

At least in spirit if not content:biggthump:lol: http://www.tetonat.com/2010/02/the-truth-about-powder-skis/

my personal fave is the "instructor" with 20 7 yr olds in tow going tree line to treeline like a dammmm conga line. This almost always occurs around a blind corner or under a lip/kicker out of sight. Weekends it can be super hard to avoid running over an idiot let alone worry about getting hit from behind. IT amazes me to watch lessons being given with such obvious lack of the basic rules of the road. don't sit down in the middle of a run under a lip don't leave your small child in the above position. If you are a 500 pound canadian woman don't stop around blind corners on the cat track to the parking lot. The odds of most people avoiding collision with you are nill. I missed you because I am good and wary. I scratched up the base of my favorite coiler on the tree I had to ride to miss you. don't enter a run without looking uphill:freak3: seriously these people have no survival insticts. IF darwin was right they would be long gone from the gene pool. I keep a close eye on the Moron ratio and I leave when it hits the critical point. Its just not worth another run to risk somebody getting hurt. I am usually off the mountain by 1 on weekdays and 12 on weekends.

:lol: reading again the first few pages and then the last few that I missed out on last nite, I notice that the two sides arguing arent even divided evenly by yes or no votes. some of you are pissed that softboots are getting relegated to the corner, some of you are elated that softboot carving is finally being given its own place. The other side is split in a similiar fashion. A few of you are just taking opportunity to scream and whine about softbooters in general, never once making any obvious distinction between a jibber and a carver. The terms are all relative. BOTTOMLINE We are here to have a good time not be regimented by bigoted dodo's. I don't mind a bit that occasionally I hear about off topic stuff on the hard boot threads. I come here to converse with friends and to make new ones. We all have common interests and pursuits and thats why we have an active board and a closeknit community. When Fin says how about we add a table to the party and let a few more people get exposed to this, We should be happy. more the merrier. I voted Yes lets have a seperate forum. I could care less which way Fin decides. I will continue to chat about anything and everything involved with the sport of snowboarding whenever the conversation leads me there. I think a seperate forum for softboot carving (nothing to do with Jibbing) is a natural add to the site and a great gateway for more hardboot converts. IT will make it easier for them to transition into the site without being mobbed by bigots. It will also provide a home for a new emerging niche to aour sport. If 3 manufacturers are making these boards then something is emerging. PRaisE the LorD .... IT will get all of us pesky softboot wearing snowman irritants off of the main discussion board. disclaimer: the above in no way obligates me to remember which board I am on when I post a new thread or respond to an old one.

SNowman I don't feel you have trashed me at all. I do feel that your attitude is harmful to our sport. The ONLY reason Fin operates this board is to attract new customers to buy his product. Of course there are lots of other reasons but this is the purpose of this site and it is as it should be. The idea of adding a softboot specific forum is just a natural addition to this mission. The fact that he even asks us what we think about how he runs his business shows the tightknit comraderie of our sport and is a rare a beautiful thing. personally I don't see what your problem is with the idea. It seperates the (offensive) softboot chat from your clearly more advanced hardboot chatter. It provides a midway point or a "gateway drug" that will and does help jibbers become carvers become hardbooters. In a world where we are less than 2-3% of the snowboard population we need every edge (no pun intended) we can get to compete. When the community grows so does the availability of funds for new prototypes and new innovation that our sport so desperately needs. The work that fin and bruce and prior and others are doing on their own dime is incredible but so much more is possible if we can turn a few hundred carvers into a few thousand and so on. your attitude on this is a brilliant shining example of my earlier statement. you are trying to preside over your own extinction and you don't even know it. SHARE THE LOVE BRO ITs all about the feeling of laying over and sucking up the G's not about the purity of the Breed. you come off like some kind of snowboard Nazi and it is offensive to many. I personally could care less about your rhetoric but it is important that someone voice discomfort with your attitude lest those looking in from the outside think we all are like you. hate me if you want to love me if you can man I am happy either way

things grow and change every day. I would suggest that alpine and hardboot are not necessarily one and the same. clearly my set up isnt jibstyle and its not hardboot. But is it not alpine? I would suggest that it is alpine but not hardboot. a forward stance on a directional board high angles ridden with alpine technique ITs alpine. WAIT maybe I should start my own website and trash everyone that tries to log on that doesnt have exactly the same gear as I do:lurk:

Plus I really love laying trench around stuck up hardboot thugs like you with equipment and angles you say can't be ridden:biggthump

Perhaps if I had any interest in riding substandard gear in a duck footed butt hanging stance whilst flying thru the air and trashing said gear on iron objects....... But I dont look at the picture does it look anything like a jibber setup? you need to get over yourself you aren't that cool. I am here because I love to carve period. I ride alpine gear and alpine angles on all but my big swallowtails. I challenge you to come down a couple notches on the hardboot rhetoric and help us build a bigger alpine community.