Rob Stevens

My current favourite ride is an L.G. 65 cm keyboard, with carpal-tunnel cant. It kills on the boilerplate of my desktop. As for EC vs Alpine, I've NEVER gone out on hardboots without doing both. Usually only a few turns apart from each other. The best riders can do it all. E.C. and racers: Join together in flaming my thread on noboarding. I'm sure you can all agree on how it's nothing new (except for the no rope part) To EC's credit, Nils and Patrice did get it. I'm bummed I didn't get to take Patrice snowmobiling last year to turn him on properly and Nils, you seem like one of the most open-minded people I've ever met in one of these forums. Rob / Keyboarder

Is it still snowing like a bastard in Colorado? I like snow.

Your only problem is trying before buying as no Calgary shop has carried alpine gear since the late 90's. Get flexible boots and bindings and don't buy anything too long for freecarve (160-175). Have you taken a session? There are some good CASI guys at the Lake... Ask specifically for a hardboot / alpine instructor (a Level 4). You have to be specific, because they don't get that type of request... ever? The groomed terrain there is good, if you pick the right run. Yeah to the moldable liners... get them for your softs as well. Nakiska midweek is a good call or Goats Eye at Sunshine when they catch up with the grooming.

Todd; The rider starting this thread said this to describe where her knee was moving. I was replying to her question.

Mike; If you can find the gates in the pow (or your drill for that matter), I think a shred like yourself could get it going.

I got the same reply from this German (delete) guy on the EC site. Snurfers had a rope to hold the board to your feet. Get a light board, some traction and do it with NO ROPE. This is strictly surf-style, with only your skill to keep you on and the rope attached to your leg so it doesn't run away. I suggest the proper noboard pad as their traction pad is burly, with raised knobs that work in the deepest snow. Trac-Top gets packed up in really deep snow. Use the rope if things get tense, but otherwise, don't.

Ingredients: -Forum Street dweller (no edges), Fish, Swallowtail or the lightest board you can find. -Pad from www.noboard.ca or Trac Top, Gorilla Grip, ect. Go to a hill with minimum 20 cms on it and hit it (don't hold the rope if you get the Noboard pad unless you're in the real and then try to drop it anyhow... just don't let it get away!) It's snowing like a bastard here right now, so if we get the needed final ingredient, I'll post a vid. Melt your bindings into something useful, like an ashtray. Latre

Bruce; I like the new direction. He should be more manoueverable and jump better with those tweaks. Would like to still be doing snowboard for CBC... I'd like to call a Canada win in SBX. Give Jasey some propers for me.

I read a little further back about driving your back knee into the direction of the turn. This, combined with the high angle in your back foot could get you pushing your knee towards the tip of your board, which won't edge at all (which it appears you're doing). Setup: While I agree with that Philfella about not tweaking the setup too much, I think you need to do the following... Try backing your rear foot angle off until you have your shell ends over the edges, when viewed from above. You may even want a touch of overhang (a couple of mm's). The Move: Combine the level shoulders-thing and keeping a hand for each side (solid advice) with a knee move TO THE INSIDE of your turn, 90 degrees to your toeside edge. You'll feel pressure on the cuff of your boot to the SIDE of the tongue, not into the tongue. Your hip will not go in as much as the edge angle will be established to a large degree with your leg. Look at pictures where riders seem to have their knees actively away from each other. This is caused by the drive to the inside with the rear knee, kind of like a moto road racer. (see the one guys avatar on the playground pony) One last note on the toeside: Just because you're concentrating on sending the rear knee inside, doesn't mean you should feel all of your weight on the back foot. Try to weight both feet as much as is comfortable. The heel turn is nice. With a stronger core you could run a bit more internal rotation, or "pelvic tilt". Allowing yourself to get "stacked" a bit more, from head to feet. The Move: Feel like your lower abs are firing and your lower glutes are trying to curl up under your hip bones. This is a difficult position to stay in if you don't have strong abs. The benefit here is that if you hit uneven snow, you're aligned vertically and balanced. If you hit a bump overly folded at the waist, you'll huck-buckle. I will take solid stance and pressure control over edge angle any day. I'd worry about that last stuff later, as your heel turn is quite on right now. Thank you for allowing me an outlet for this stuff. Hardly any recreational riders want high-end instruction around here. Latre.

At the X Games, hardboots and square tails are not allowed. I'm not sure if anyone has tried to run a conventionally-shaped board with hardboots and been shut down. Pack riding in alpine gear is definitely more gripping. If you watch Anderson in SBX, if he doesn't gate well and get out front, he looks sketchy in the pack. Swinging that 180+ ride of his around in close quarters probably doesn't help. If you don't get bent out of shape, and are a confident jumper (which not many alpine riders are) you can really do some damage in SBX. As soon as you're out of position, though, it becomes much harder to recover. The stiffness of the equipment and the lack of toe to heel balance can turn against you quickly. I think you'll also see, as jump faces get more boot to them, that angles will decrease and shells will get softer for those riding in alpine gear. Unless you have tree trunks for legs and can absorb pressure at a high level, the last-second kick at the lip is tricky to float with the ankles in a stiff boot, with your feet pointed in the direction of travel. Low angles allow side to side absorbtion with a rocking movement of the feet across the sole. Forward angles force you to take hits along the length of your foot and put the ankles into the formula for tip to tail control. Try this... it's fun: Get the stiffest freeride, wide board you can find with some softer hardboots and low rise plates (like the old Burtons) and go freeride stance, allowing just a touch of overhang (you're not ECing in this game, unless you're panic-recovering). You can power the ass out of the corners (berms or no) and still have the side to side and ankle flex for the puntiest jumps. I think this setup is the future of SBX.