Pow

My uneasyness on the crud with hardboots might come from my lighter weight (160). A large guy with a large board can flatten crud no problem. A guy like me gets thrown around a bit. Softboots give me a little more dampning for all the jostling going on, hardboots are a little tougher for me in crud. I hadnt thought of that before, but I guess he'll have to test out the larger guy theory to see what really matters on the crud:cool:

an all-out alpine board probably wouldnt be best for a guy who wants to ride all over, any condition. There are people who can and do, but its not easy. An all-mountain carver like the prior 4WD would be a great choice... I have no personal experience with the board but hear only good things about it. you wont have to worry about yanking the inserts or delaming the board due to the plate binding stiffness with a board meant for hardboots. If you get deeluxe, you might wind up blowing apart many cant adjusters with your weight and aggression, just my 2 cents. youd probably be happier with a pair of head boots, but you wont know for sure until you try them. The difference in support is great. but hardboots will feel a bit awkward the first few times you use them. You'll notice every little inperfection in the snow surface has a greater impact on you (which is one of the reasons why we love the groom), but after a day or two you adjust and find yourself soaring to a new level of riding, carving circles around your friends, controlling the board at speeds that used to make you pray for mercy, and switching edges with lightning speed. If you want a more forgiving plate binding (better for all-mountain freeriding in bumps crud powder and the like), the F2 bindings on the Bomberonline Store are a great choice. you could also search for Burton/Ibex Raceplates on Klugriding.com. If you want a stiffer binding, go for Bomber TD2s or Catek OS2s (I vote Bombers because of their suspension system, but that's probably the most frequent debate here on BOL:biggthump ). If you find after reviewing the situation hardboots arent for you, Catek makes a great softboot binding, the Freeride 2. The closest you can get to hardbooting without actually hardbooting. Welcome to the hardbooter scene, and happy hunting:cool:

last weekend at Smuggler's Notch I was riding Madonna Mountain in -34 degree weather... get hand warmers, toe warmers, a face mask, and a scarf and you should be good:biggthump

LALALALALAIcan'thearyouLALALALALALA! We finally have snow here on the East Coast... don't jynx it!

Gear: Pogo Blitz Pogo Longboard (2 meter) Madd 158 Donek Axxess Pureboard #2 Swoard ibex raceplates to soften out the binding selection catek FR pro limited Burton Ion boots to upgrade my softboot setup Bomber BTS Trips: SES Alaskan Heliboarding La Grave France ... I think i need a higher salary

That makes sense, except logically softboot liners would also be superior to hardboot liners... What went wrong? No softboot liner Ive found can hold a candle to my thermoflex liners.

Scary as that sounds, I went to Bromley Mountain on a school "ski club" trip last year and noticed an unusually floppy board being unloaded from the bus when we got there. Some kid had a board without any board left in... it was just a topsheet and inserts! yikes! needless to say his day of riding ended extremely quickly.

I did a perfect half-circle around a lift tower near the bottom of jiminy peak and got "woot"s from 4 chairs:biggthump that was one of my first days on an alpine board, and i think it might have been the only decent turn i did all day!

banana a day keeps the cramping away:biggthump I basically eat more of those than donkey kong.

It was late afternoon, when the sun just went down behind the trees. the terrain blended together and the very choppy run looked like a grey blur. I started a heelside turn but halfway through i realized i had just gone over a mogul and i wasnt on the ground anym- I hit the ground. and after a few twists and flips i turned around, looked over to my friend dave who was straightlining towards my general area, and called out "wow, what a wipeout!" at that moment he caught his toeside edge, faceplanted the hardpack and smacked his back with his snowboard. theres my wipeout story so far this season, and i hope i can't top it when the season's over!

There are many places in this world I would rather be. Obviously the lack of powder here really has me down, and the lack of ocean waves has me dreaming of owning my own piece of California. but there are other things I still don't like about where I live. The industry of my city (gloversville) has shifted overseas, leaving the majority of its people poor and hopeless, and over time lazy, careless and bitter. Needless to say you wont find very friendly neighbors here. Most of downtown is run down and deserted. Many beautiful neighborhoods with great old victorian houses have become filthy slums. Walmart and McDonalds have become such popular stores here that some of my peers (teens) hang out at these places for fun instead of going to movies/parties/games/concerts/skate parks/mountains etc. How boring can you get? In short, gloversville has become a dirty, boring eyesore. However, it is in a a good location as far as giving me access to the mountains, lakes and forests of the Adirondacks in one direction, and the malls, airport, train station, and highways of Albany in the other so relief is only an hour or so away from where I'm sitting. Of course there are many cities and towns like mine out there, and there are some far worse than where I live, but I don't plan on settling down in any of them.

Pogo Longboard, if you have the cash to buy it. Makes a great all-mountain hardboot board, and an amazing powder board as well. It can be ridden with hard or soft boots, and i ride either depending on the conditions and my mood. You'd be looking for a 180.

you probably wont find too much feedback, it's a new model this year. but its designed to function just like the swoard extremecarver, which is made for extreme carving (linking fully laid turns).

I can carve very well on my softies and longboard combination, way better than any other softboot rider i see on the mountains, but i can carve so much harder and get so much lower on an alpine setup. Basically i use both now, i ride the alpine until im tired and conditions get sketchy, then i ride the longboard for the rest of the day.

better:cool: I'm just hoping for the mountains to open again at this point... the local hill was open for 2 days this season. I bought a season pass there! I've been on my alpine 5 days this season, barely even enough time to get accustomed to the new width/sidecut/stiffness/angles :(

Nooooooo... Let's cross our fingers and pray for a huuuuge SNOW storm!

There's no place to ride!!! I had a bus trip schedueled for tomorrow to Pico Mountain. they cancelled it yesterday. Ive got 3 free passes to either Gore, Jiminy, or Bellayre and it looks like I wont be able to use them:angryfire

Often I find that the smaller local shops are more careful with my gear than the bigger shops. You hand them gear, tell them "it's expensive, and ill know if you f*** it up" the little guys get cautious, the big guys don't care too much. If you hand it to a pro I'd suggest give it to an experienced pro in a small shop. Then again, im pretty sure my experience with shops is fairly limited compared to most of the members here so somebody back me up or shoot me down:)

Flip up the lever, lean the boot to your liking, flip it down... 4 or 5 positions, but i think the 5th is at an unusable angle or somthing. I had Winds, and just stopped using them yesterday when i switched to deeluxe tracks. off topic, but i noticed through the clear plastic that burton boots have springs under the heels... do deeluxe boots have this too? It doesnt seem like it because my new boots are about half the weight of the old burton boots.

1) Play It Loud - MXPX 2) St. Jimmy - Green Day 3) Surf Colorado - Bowling for Soup I'm not sure if it's all available through itunes... while i have and use an ipod I still buy the CDs.

151??? woah, that's gatta be terrifying at high speeds! my 162 is a little hard to work at higher speeds... but for the narrower runs here on the east and the slower speeds i prefer to go at this point in my progression it suits me fine. I think the 163 speedster would be a good choice, but youd have to ask somebody who's ridden it or who has more experience.

Great post Brian, and thanks for all the help on BOL... I hope to ride with other alpine boarders sometime this season, and hope this comunity lasts for many years.

Two things have cured my problem: wearing flannel pants under my snowpants (denim or cargo pants bunch up under my snowpants and cut off circulation) stretching after riding. Now my legs feel ready for another 6 hours of riding! Too bad the local hill is all dark after 2:00, making it difficult to see the terrain.

Don't rule out taking a lesson first... sounds to me like you've yet to master skidding, so a lesson should clear up some of the basic issues. After your lesson is over, it's time to start the norm:cool:

no... there is slush, ice, and small rocks on top (WTF?!). The runs are narrow. Therefore, you will go slow, not be able to complete your turns, slip on the ice, your base will look like one of Freddy Crougar's victims, and when you fall it will hurt.