Erwin

What about a helmet then? Wearing a helmet also weakens the sounds of your surroundings. And is wearing earbuds inside your helmet at the same level of the surrounding sounds okay then? Would be hard to prove in a lawsuit though. Erwin

@philfell: Isn't that what I mentioned with energy dissipation??? So I assume you agree with me. Let's consider a skateboarder who can accelerate from zero speed and turn; the so-called pushing technique. If you do this on a slope, would it be faster or slower than going down a straight line? Probably depends on the turn radius, rider skills, incline of the slope, body position, edge, snow quality etc. etc. I could do an experiment in the indoor complex where we train regularly: have different riders try and go down as fast as possible by carving vs. flat on their base. Let's see if I can get people interested in this! Maybe I can even make a publication out if it, hahaha! Erwin

I do not agree fully on this. To turn is to accelerate in a direction different than the direction of velocity; ie. change the direction of the velocity. This however does not imply you change the amplitude of the velocity. When performing a turn in the real world, often energy is dissipated - for instance by displacing snow (spray).

For initiating your turn it is good to have more weight on your front foot , but during the turn you should put gradually more weight on your rear foot for the board to carve smoothly through the turn. Furthermore, try and stay with your butt (sorry) above your board in the heelside turn. Many people tend to counter-rotate at the end of their heelside turn and put their butt out next to their board. It seems like they start their frontside turn already before finishing their heelside turn! Try to stay longer in the position where you are rotated with the turn and keep your rear hand to your front knee. I hope this will work for you, difficult to see what your exact problem is without pictures/movie. Good luck! Erwin

@Speedzilla: as said before turns in BoarderX are banked and not flat. In this way you do not have to edge that much to supply a centripetal force that makes you turn. Instead, it is supplied by the incline of the course towards the centre of the curve. The more you pressure you're edge, the more it digs into the snow/ice. Doing this of course costs energy. It would be nice to compare a non-treated edge with a waxed base to see the difference in friction with snow. Anyway, they already sell metaljet/steeljet fluid for treating your edges and know some people wax their sidewalls. Erwin

Thanks Bob, that's a good suggestion to try! Most of the times I do not buckle up my boot to the max when freeriding/jumping. I broke my Hot when using my Cateks, next time I'll use a softer binding. I think the eliminator is a very nice board, however it is a little bit wide for hardboots. I've once tested a Sigi Grabner board, the Speed.62. Not a lot of rebound and therefore forgiving on bumpy slopes. It was a very comfortable ride and for sure a board I would take off-piste. According to Grabners philosophy it should be a great board for freeriding. As a raceboard I would like it to have some more rebound, though. However, this board is also pretty expensive: Euro 669.- Two weeks ago, a friend of mine (see attachment) competed in the halfpipe contest at the Dutch Champs in Laax (CH) and did a run on his hardboots. I only heard positive reactions, also from the freestylers. People really look up to this, but it really is not hard to do. After the contest, me (I was on softies...) and my friends on hardboots dropped in, too and we had a lot of fun! I do not care about those freestylers mentioned before and yes I want to prove it is possible to have fun with an alpine deck when not riding perfectly carved turns. The only real advantage softbooters have is a more comfortable walk when they are done with snowboarding.

Look at my avatar, you will notice I was kidding. Sad thing is that alpine boards DO break easier than boards used for softboots. A second frontflip and the board was broken...It is getting too expensive: in August I also hit a fully covered stone when freeriding on my custom-made Slalom board. That's why I decided to put my hardboots onto my F2 Eliminator on a BoarderX race - a friend of mine having the same titanal slalom board as mine nicely bent it after landing a big kicker. Suggestion for hardboot boards for doing bigjumps, halfpipe, etc. etc. are very welcome! I already know that F2s break easily. My Hot Blast lasted for a long time, though! Erwin

I agree you should only use an alpine board for carving...that's what it's made for, otherwise you'll break it...just my 2 cents. Erwin

It's great over here, we will post our pictures on http://www.soulboarders.com !!! Grtz, Erwin

Hi Barry, I own a Garmin GPS device (model: Foretrex 201), which I bought to use for speedsurfing, but it also showed to be a very nice "instrument" when snowboarding. Using hardboots and my slalomboard (162 cm, 9.2 m radius), I noticed the speed you easily ("recreationally") reach doing carved turns is around 40 mph (60 km/h). On my GS-board (182 cm, 15 m radius), the speed is higher: 45-50 mph (70-80 km/h). When doing a downhill run on my GS board on an empty(!) slope, I managed to get a 100 meter average speed of 80 mph (130 km/h) - and a top speed of 86 mph (139 km/h). These speeds were calculated from the downloaded track data, see below: Best Speed n°1 = 139.1km/h [75.1Knots] (38.6 meters in 1.0 sec.) 100 meter run n°1 = 131.2km/h [70.8Knots] (109.3 m. in 3.0 s.) 200 meter run n°1 = 120.5km/h [65.1Knots] (200.8 m. in 6.0 s.) On my softboots (which I only have 1 month right now), I stayed below 45 mph. Flat on its base, my board (169 cm BoarderX) is really stable, but while carving it on its edge (even with hardboots) it feels much more unstable at high speeds than an alpine board. Due to lack of experience I also handed my GPS device to a few friends - way better on softboots than I am - however, they did not reach speeds above 50 mph then. One of them told me, he once clocked 80 mph on softies using a GPS, which I do not question seeing him riding. So, personally I think that when doing fully carved turns, a hard-setup is better controllable, more stable and has a better edge-hold compared to a soft-setup and will allow carving at higher speeds. Only few riders can ride a SL or GS course as tight on their softies as others on hardboots. However, if you are crazy enough on your softboots, it is also very well possible to reach high speeds, but I question if you want to turn the board at those speeds...hahaha! Erwin

There is a local race at Snowworld Zoetermeer (another Snowworld indoor complex besides Landgraaf) this sunday - October 2 - starting 2PM local time (Amsterdam time) in which the racers from Steamboat Springs Wintersports Club will participate. At http://www.snowworld.com/webcam.aspx?cam=3&pid=23 the race can be seen. The WorldCup race is held at Landgraaf, the bigger indoor complex located in the south of the Netherlands (the hills are bigger over there). Webcam used for the race (it better be working then): http://www.snowworld.com/webcam.aspx?cam=9&pid=23 The program: Tuesday 4 october 2005 Training 08.00 - 13.00 @ Wedstrijdpiste Wednesday 5 october 2005 Training 08.00 - 13.00 @ Wedstrijdpiste Thursday 6 october 2005 Training 08:00 - 13:00 @ Piste II Friday 7 october 2005 Official Training/Warm up 10.00 - 15.00 @ Piste II Inspection 10:20 - 10:45 @ Wedstrijdpiste Start prerunners 10:55 - 11:00 @ Wedstrijdpiste PSL qualifications 11:00 - 13:00 @ Wedstrijdpiste Start prerunners 17:55 - 18:00 @ Wedstrijdpiste PSL Finals 18:00 - 20:00 @ Wedstrijdpiste Price giving ceremony after finals @ Wedstrijdpiste Have fun watching the show, Erwin

I am looking for softies, too! A friend of mine advised me to buy the Salomon F24 - they are about one size smaller than other boots. Especially for carving you don't want to have any toe or heel drag. I think I will go for these boots as I have pretty large feet - mondo 29. I don't know how stiff these boots are, but I think you could adapt your bindings if you want the interface to be stiffer. Deeluxe has a softboot in which you can put extra plastic strips making them stiffer. Hope this helps you a little! Grtz, Erwin

First of all, my best wishes to Joel. I hope you recover fully from this horrible accident! This raises the question: Is this equipment failure or not? As mentioned in the Intec topic, I've once broken my intec heel, too. The plastic exactly below the pin was blown away, however my foot was not ejected at once. This happened during normal riding, however I do not know if the heel was already damaged earlier. For your stats: I weigh 188 lbs. Fortunately, I only needed replacement of my intec heels to be "happy" again, however things could have been much worse. After this accident a friend of mine told me he damages his intec heels quite regularly and therefore he replaces them every year. However, this should certainly not happen to a brand new product. It is too bad that a company like BomberOnline gets sued, as they are one of few companies paying attention to what we need; ie. companies who listen to input from us hardbooters. I get the feeling other "big" companies don't feel the need to change their outdated designs. If I had the option to choose different Intec compatible heels, I would immediately drop the F2s! However, I do not trust normal bails either, nor do I trust the part of my hardboot that hold the bails. Until something better comes up, I inspect everything very regularly and just hope for the best...maybe a case like this will cause things to change... Erwin

A few months ago, I have broken the Intec heel part of my back foot. The plastic below the pin had broken off and I could pull my foot out of the binding without opening it. When I noticed something was wrong I stopped boarding and decided to walk - luckily nothing happened to me. The Intec heel parts were replaced by F2 of course. They should indeed do something about the construction and materials they use. Today many bindings are made from metal, but we still rely on such a tiny piece of plastic... As far as normal bail bindings are concerned: they destroyed my Deeluxe Indy's. The plastic part which the heel bail fits around started to rupture... Erwin

Awsome pics Phil! I'm jealous - have fun over there! Erwin

The best indoor complex is Snowworld Landgraaf, see http://www.snowworld.nl The WorldCup course info (they say the total slope length is 500 meter): Organizer Course Data SnowWorld Landgraaf Jury : Technical Delegate GALLER Christian AUT Referee HOELLER Alex FIS Chief of Competition WEISS Franz AUT Chief of Course OP DE KAMP Reiner AUT Start Referee Finish Referee Course Setter WIGGERUD Anders SWE Forerunner #1 C. VAN HARTEN - M. BRAAKHOF Forerunner #2 B. VAN LIESHOUT - B. LAGAS Forerunner #3 R. WITVOET - E. HEERES Forerunner #4 Name of Course SnowWorld Start 220 m Finish 160 m Vertical Drop 60 m Homologation 7279/10/03 Nber of gates 24 Course Length 260 m Start Time 11:30 Finals 14:30 Weather "Covered Temp. Start -5°C Temp. Finish -4°C Snow Packed Also a Snowworld complex in Zoetermeer (near The Hague) exists. This is where pictures from the link in my previous post were taken. It is a little steeper than Snowworld Landgraaf. Other indoor snow complexes: Snowdome, The Hague Snowplanet, Spaarnwoude (near Amsterdam) Skidome, Rucphen Montana, Valkenswaard

Does anyone know where I can still get the step-in (Intec) sytem for the old Catek World Cup edition (black) bindings? I have the non step-in system and my bails bend after a few runs; they seem to be too wide for my boots. After breaking the bails, I received new bails from Catek, but they are all bent and I would like to switch to the step-in system. Catek did not have the Intec parts anymore. Can anyone help me? Thanks, Erwin

To get an idea of what we do inside those big fridges check: http://mcm.capcave.com/foto/thumbnails.php?album=8 Erwin

I like to do 180's on my old asy Hot Blast over smaller big jumps (~15ft). Bigger ones I just hit and do some grabbing. I do have to say that I didn't clear a table two days ago - just a few feet were left because lack of speed - and I landed very hard on an icy table. Although I bent down when landing I felt something in my knee, but until now everything is still fine. So I was lucky - be careful! First try some straight airs to get used to the kicker before trying anything crazy. If you clear a good shaped jump you will hardly feel anything when you come down! If anything goes wrong - try to relax when crashing. Until now I didn't have any major injuries because of jumping with hardboots. Erwin

The Swiss have a guy from Kessler at the race. I heard they really do loads of testing.

I noticed custom Kesslers and Tomahawks this morning. I myself ride Tomahawk, too. But such an event is al kind of new to me - I'll be forerunner this weekend - so I have to apoligize I don't know all the names. Snow was much softer than 3 weeks ago = too bad! Just after a few runs already many ruts in the course, I hope they will have it better for the weekend. But outside the complex it is raining and pretty warm today. Erwin

I will go to Landgraaf, I can tell you what it's like if you want me to. I had a race over there two weeks ago, it's great things like this can be done in a flat country like Holland... Erwin

This summer I went to the sandboarding world championships on Monte Kaolino, Hirschau Germany. I didn't know what to expect, but I had a great time over there: sun, sand, boarding and partying! I can recommend this event to everyone, it is held every year in the beginning of july. Erwin

I like my Tomahawk 182 :D ...nuff said...

Hi all, I'm seriously thinking about buying a new board - its length should be approx. 185 cm. I'm thinking about buying a Donek Race, F2 GS or Hot Blast. At the moment I ride a Hot Blast stiff 158 and a Burton FP 173. Although it is short I really like the Hot for its aggressive reflex; the FP is a little too soft to my opinion. This years Hot Blast is only available up to 178 as I saw on their site, I would prefer some extra cm's. Does anyone know if this is the maximum size? :( I also heard about a custom board builder, called Tomahawk. It should be in Italy, but I can't find anything on the web. Anyone??? My length is 195 cm (6'5") and I weigh 80 kg. I like to ride very aggressively on any type of slope and use Catek bindings to put the thing in the right direction. I definitely need good edge hold, but who doesn't? As I live in the Netherlands I can't try a Donek cause nobody over here has one. So all your opinions on this are welcome as I want to make sure I buy a good board. Thanks in advance, Erwin