RJ-PS

Hey Bob, yeah I'll get some up tonight, I'm out of the shop now. As far as being cheap boots, I guess everyone has their opinion. Seems to me they're just as good as my Heads, but again I haven't tried them yet. The real deal closer for me was that there are a number of World Cup riders that are riding the UPZs with the Flo Liner. As we all know everything trickles down from race equipment (see also metal boards :)) If Bordy is sporting them, that says a lot. Since he can pretty much ride anything he wants. I think he's selling them at hardbooter.com too. They do have a lot of stuff that other boots have to be modded to produce.

I'm currently riding heads, and I like them. The stock liner isn't the greatest, but I've got custom footbeds. I just got a few pair of the UPZ and I must say I'm impressed as an initial response. Fit and finish seems to be top knotch and I really like the flo liner, nice leather and conforming fit. Of course I don't have a quality report for you as we're just starting to get snow in the Central Sierras. However I'm going to switch up for a while and I'll get back with a ride report eventually.

Sorry for threadjacking Dave, I just realized that I forgot to answer your initial question. I've run TD2s, Cateks, F2s, Raichle X-bones, and haven't had problems with my 225lb frame. There are no secrets, and most people stick with the recommended setback. However as Abakker said there has been some issues with the Cateks. His was the only Rad-Air board that I know of (and we got him back on the mountain), but it sounds very similar to the problems with metal boards. So mounting up a plate may not be a bad idea. The reality is that Tankers were not made for riding with plates, they're just really well made boards and so we can get away with it. In fact in Europe where hardboots are more popular they ride mostly in softies whereas in the US where HBs are the minority we ride mostly HBs. :rolleyes: Still whatever you are riding softies, HBs, ATs, once you get her dialed in for you, you'll dig it like honeysmacks!

Bryan's got an open house and I wasn't invited......where's the love?

Hey Dan, She's being packaged as I write. Thanks for the business. You can ride her straight out of the wrapper, but I recommend slathering on some extra wax first for better results. Since she hasn't been ridden a PTC tune would be a stellar welcoming gift for her, but you could certainly hold off and make it her Christmas present. :) Some people just have their boards sent to PTC directly, let me know ASAP if you want me to do that.

I'm in.... I find if I don't have an organized sport to force me to practice and compete I'm pretty much worthless. So I try to take advantage of semi-competitive/collaborative stuff like this to help keep me focused. One of my problems with 2 small kids is finding the time. So with the season upon us and sales climbing I've had to split days in the gym with days at home. Since my wife is a CPT she bought us a TRX for home workouts. I laughed when I first saw it and thought it was a waste of money, I don't laugh anymore. There is a lot you can do with these. You can get a great cardio/resistance train in 20 minutes. You will feel your core getting stronger by the workout. Agreed with Kent: I also found the Max incline on the treadmill kicks my heart rate and sweat production up faster than level 8-10 running does. And the sauna can't be beat for post workout relaxin. I'm getting in really good shape, but the wine parties are killing me. Once I shut down on those I think I'll drop pretty quick. Weigh in: 224

Been entranced with this song since seeing Inside Man. Chaiyya Chaiyya with subtitles from inside man soundtrack no vid on this one, but has the MC Punjabi rap from the movie. now how is that for off-topic ;) enjoy

Bordy, You were referring to the previous US Distributor of Rad-Air not replacing the board, they are gone. When I took over the reigns for Rad-Air North America, I sent Dave a board to replace the one that broke, no questions asked. I've never seen pictures or the actual board, just Dave's word. You boys at hardbooter.com are great and I appreciate our relationship and hope to work with y'all for a long time to come. As for my customer service, I'd like to be doing this 30 years from now and the only way I can think of is to keep customers happy. Hopefully that is good enough for my carving brothers.

Currently using (all intecs): TD2s - Co-winner F2s - no comment Cateks - Co-winner Raichles - way flexy I enjoy riding on all of them. Plus I have to agree with the folks who think it is the driver not the equipment. However if I had to choose just one to facilitate mounting on different boards I'd go with either Bombers or Cateks.

I use Fedex. Yes if you mark it as a gift you should bypass customs.

Help a brother out I'm trying to figure out what is going on in our niche market. Head liners are not considered a full-thermo even though they have thermo capabilities, so they are half standard/half thermo. I've heard great things about foam, but I'm not sure I want to carry them if no one will ride them.

Help a brother out I'm trying to figure out what is going on in our niche market. Head liners are not considered a full-thermo even though they have thermo capabilities, so they are half standard/half thermo. I've heard great things about foam, but I'm not sure I want to carry them if no one will ride them.

Also enjoyed DFJ's posts and his depth of knowledge. BOL is less for having lost a brother. Prayers for those who knew him personally. Maybe one of your could hand out some black armbands on his home race course this year? May God bless his family and friends in a tough time.

Talked with Harry about some of the concerns posted and he submitted his reply: Everyone at Rad-Air is a rider, and we have always focused our goals to improve the riding performance of our products. However, from the business point of view, margins are continuously getting tighter for dealers and wholesalers in the global snow sports industry and it was crucial for the Rad-Air brand to switch to a factory that offered the same quality at better pricing. This was not an easy decision and was done not to make more money, but to make sure the brand will survive and to have a budget for future product development, design, distribution, etc. Snowboard production at the factory in Germany was not profitable as they primarily concentrated production on hi-end ski’s, not snowboards. We will continue to provide the best product we can to all of our customers around the world and the factory in China where the boards are currently produced has many years of experience in snowboard and ski manufacturing and continues to produce items with very high quality standards utilizing both American and European engineering combined with an efficient and effective production process. The past two seasons of riding on the boards from China have met or exceeded all expectations from the Rad-Air community of riders both old and new. Thank you all for your continued support, Ride On! Harry Gunz co-founder Rad-Air – Snowboarder Driven

The correlation here is not necessarily your board or bindings or boots. The issue is surface area by weight.. You didn't mention your weight or the board dimensions. In carving your Axis is a great tool because it doesn't have to hold your weight on top of snow, just hold an edge in snow. In soft snow (like water in surfing) the amount of weight you carry must be directly related to the amount of surface area that has to float you. If a 200+ pounder is riding a chip (small, thin surfboard), you can bet it won't be a good day on the water. However if he borrows his friends longboard you can bet he'll be riding with very little effort! Of course there is another direct correlation between speed and float, but like someone mentioned earlier you can't make that work all the time in trees. Bottom line: You can ride the hardboots/bindings in pow, just get a board with more surface area.

Buell, Are you competing for board whore? Just counting up in my head you got to be approaching 40+ boards now. Hope you're still healing well.

Sorry Spil, for some reason they weren't deleted from our automatic inventory system when they were ordered. I fixed the problem. Unfortunately I don't have any old Catek bindings at the moment, just new. Let me know if I can help, RJ

Thanks DT and Rebecca, I sure hope so, I've never tested poorly before in my life, even hung over. Although unfortunately I can't use that excuse for my poor testing on this one. I think I'm gonna go for the class. It always seems like if I have to sacrifice for something ($1400 class plus time/gas) I put more effort into it. Weird. I'd like to be one of those folks that can buckle down on my own, but I work with what I got. Thanks for the encouragement. Rebecca, totally impressed that you taught for Kaplan. I understand you have to seriously rock the test to get to teach test prep. No wonder you and Buell are taking the landscape design world by storm.

Took the GMAT and bombed it, not the good way. I was closing down a business at the time and instead of rescheduling the test to concentrate on studying I took it anyway. What a waste. Now I'm going for round two and trying to decide how to go about it. Has anyone taken Manhattan's GMAT prep? Any suggestions on other companies/classes/study. There is no way that I'm going to bomb it again, but I want to give myself a real go this time.

You'll be fine. Only problems are double black super steeps or full layout carves. Nice setup.

Call Fedex and ask for their great rates line, its an 800 #. When you call ask for the best rate and they'll tell you which day is the cheapest to send it. You have to sign up for an account, but it's free and you'll probably get it less that $156.

I think I'd be worse off if someone "slinkyed" me down the stairs.

Bomberforums have little influence.....that is about par for the course. The fortunate thing is that most of us are aware and it does not change our behaviour. Most of us are also 2-3 times older than the average age of the forum members on those sites. Height is definitely a factor in board size decision making. I constantly get asked about this from bigger (taller and or heavier) guys that are getting mixed information from shops. Because they have had to live with being bigger their whole lives, it just doesn't seem right what the "prevailing wisdom" is no matter who is dispensing it. Perhaps the mods aren't really snowboarders as much as they are responsible for handling the forums. In that case they may just be redispensing info from someone they believe is correct. It even happens here on Bomber. <insert shameless plug for longboards here> Size matters, Go Big, Ride a Tanker!

Yeah, I'm not into doing backflips anymore. Already have hardware in my body from snowboarding, so I know whatcha mean. I'm respecting them. What I like about them: unique challenging workout I was on scholarship in Uni for springboard diving. So I miss the jumping around. The trampoline we have is acceptable for the kids, but it just doesn't give me the thrill it once did. Now I have a way to jump and workout at the same time while looking totally gnarly. Plus everyone over 30 should just do some crazy stuff once in a while to stay fresh.

The problem that I've run into shipping 200cm Tankers is that the Post Office workers are inconsistent. One actually told me he wouldn't even try to send it. Others just sent it and said I should pray, I did, it worked . Other times I've been charged very differing amounts even when I argued and showed them past receipts. It got too frustrating to be worth the speed and sometime savings. I stopped using them. The most consistency and least issues I have had is using Fedex and I still have issues. They have rectified 90% (guess) of the issues I have had though, so they keep getting the nod.