Dr D

CATEKS can't be beat if you can afford em:biggthump

Around here we get painted as extremist terrorist types when we videotape the powers that be abusing said power!

you should be fine with that board. The split was a manufacturers design and the board was originally designed for hardboots. the boards you would worry about are the big powder guns nitro swallowtails etc. they are to soft through the center of the board and hardboots would likely destroy them sooner than later. Prior makes a nice hardboot swallowtail as well its one off from their powstick line. inch narrower and stiffer. Dredman rides one.

be great for the pond skim:biggthump:biggthump:lol:

I ride a surf stance in the pow. 45/ 10 or so. We get groomers that are sometimes soft enough to cut a trench 6 inches or better. the power of a hard boot can bury the nose and launch you into next week. I don't have the problem with high angle softies. I can ride them in pow but usually get out the big swallowtail and surf on those days.

four experiences with 4 different ones? which state? I ask because state law in some states attracts the bad ones. yes there are bad ones just like any other profession. Washington has a fairly good chiropractic law and has many fine Chiropractors. Thats not to say there aren't bad ones there as well. I know Doctor Chin personally and would vouch for his professional skill and honor. no worries tho. If its not your thing I understand. I wouldn't go to an orthopedic unless I had been hit by a truck. I have an 80% tear in my left rotator cuff that is fully healed without surgery and has bench pressed over 400 lbs. the body has an amazing capacity to heal. hope it works out for you best of luck:biggthump

ITs all in the gear and some minor style/technique adjustments. you have to get lower and there is lots of rise and fall. I find that as long as I have room to drop lower I can hold an edge. when I bottom out with my legs the edge is gonna get loose. ITs all about driving my weight down into the edge.

The stuff that folds noses and breaks boards is what I am refering to. The technique is different it is much more active in the feet and ankles. If you try and drive it with your quads it won't work. you gotta feel the board and just go with the flow. I can lay the lunch tray over until my ass is draggin with no problems at all. So it can and is done! Come out to the WTF at big mtn I will give you a clinic :lol:

45 degrees is the most difficult it gets easier above and below that. I ride a surfrods occasionally with near 80 degrees due to the narrow board width. feels just like my skwal with hard boots. 45 degrees is the worst for sure. I think most people just havent tried it above that. you have to have the toes on the edge and the heels on the edge for maximum edge pressure so you have to be willing to change angles from one board to the next. I find this useful if I am getting burnt out I can switch boards and angles and find a new set of legs to finish the day. This is not for the ice coasters or boiler plate riding. It excells in conditions that are to soft for hard boots. I can carve long after the hardboot only crowd has called it a day due to conditions. We can go a month with nothing but powder here and bottomless soft groomers. I still love the carve so I have adapted.

malamutes and cateks. the adjustability of the catek allows you to tune out the heel lift problems etc. the technique changes a bit and you use different foot pressure but it feels more like a skwal or a waterski in the rear foot when pressuring a toeside edge. I ride the x3 that way with huge success.

I ride the board. so the angles vary by board. I ride whatever is required to have toes and heels tight against the edges. wider boards mean lower than 25 degrees narrower boards as high as 60 degrees.

THat said I do it regularly at 6'4" 275 Lbs. IT helps to have the adjustability of the catek freerides. A little tweaking on the heel lift etc and you are good to go

Try a consult with Perry Chin DC in seattle downtown first. might improve your season and avoid a surgery later. He is an excellent chiropractor. often knee pain is due to misalignment. left unattended the misalignment can cause wear leading to surgery later.

http://www.sixwise.com/Newsletters/2009/December/23/H1N1-Vaccine-Recall-and-Severity-of-Swine-Flu.htm?source=nl

I was up thursday it was most excellent. got a few runs in saturday on the x3 burnt my legs pretty quick tho. working my ass off mostly. I will be in the groove by WTF:biggthump

season pass:biggthump I have even gone up and hit two runs and bailed over a lunch hour when its good:biggthump

Catek freerides and solamon malamutes. work exceptionally well for me. I think a lot has to do with the gear. a good stiff soft boot and good bindings are very comfortable. crappy boots and half pipe bindings will ruin your day. Flow makes a good binding but you need to pick the stiffer higher support all mtn model. not all flows are created equal. johnasmo knows the best flows ask him. I ride the x3 lunchtray with cateks and malamutes at high angles with no problems at all. very responsive and fast. really high sidecut boards arent a good match for this set up tho.

:rolleyes: Geez Bob been holdin that in awhile? Management would be nice. It would even be possible without ding dongs screaming about the evils of eradicating every time a hunt comes up. We manage Grizzlies wolves and mountain lions and would do so more effectively without whacko environmentalist whiners screaming about the death of every vicious beast that gets killed. You can't have it both ways Bob management means killing the excess numbers and the individual animals causing problems and danger to humans. I value the life of a child over that of a predator, no matter whats its race or species, Bob. No one ever suggested killing them all or eradicating anything. I did suggest that we had way to many here. Some of them need to and will be killed. Whitetail populations are exploding all over the USA in suburban and urban areas precisely because there is no predation in those areas. humans dont hunt and for the most part until recently the wild predators don't either. That is changing as the cougar etc follow the prey into urban areas and learn new sources of food. Cougar in this area are in urban areas because there are so many of them that no new territories are available in the wild. They move into cities because they arent big enough to run a mature cat out of his territory. i will take the title conservationist over environmentalist any day Bob. I can at least say without shame that I love the land and will always try to do whats best for it. Environmentalism is a twisted sick pretender to the world of protection. The only thing environmentalism protects is politics and power Bob. Things die and are renewed again its the circle of life and the last time I checked, I was at the top of the food chain. People come first.

If it kills a child we will all hunt it down and remove it from the planet bob. We have plenty of wolves here and the elk population is so low it may not recover. We have cougar as well and the mule deer population in western montana is near non existant. any more predation and we won't have ungulates in the lower 48. always kills me when some bleeding heart from the city whines that we don't have enough predators out west. Take your bucket biology and install it somewhere else please.

:lol: Agreed on all points accept the affording them part! They need a BTS mod to go with the walking part.

ITs got everything I need for my style!

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potential for a great snowboard boot:biggthump

I ride with an old school big wave surfer its all in the board selection. He is partial to Dupraz and the legend autodrive. its also probably surfier in softies. I ride a 4807 on the days I am feeling surfy. the fishtail feels like a fin in the right snow conditions. usually the days its just a little to soft for hardbooting.

ask dave redman for hardboot advice on the swallows. he got a prior special made and inch narrower and a good bit stiffer. loves it <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5y7b2ogs40&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5y7b2ogs40&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>