Jonny

I have a spare Oxygen 160 Carbon Cap LE, number 1/354. Carbon/kevlar weave with what looks like an Alu butterfly under the topsheet. I have two and this is my backup. Could use a tune but there's no damage worth mentioning - just minor doinks in the base toward the toe - just an older board with what that brings with it. I can take pix if you send me your email address. Smooth, grippy, lively ride. At my weight (215) it's just a fun throw-around board but for someone lighter it's certainly raceable. One or two guys on the board have seen me on it (Bobby Buggs for sure) and can testify that it's an UNBELIEVABLY tight turner. $200 plus shipping seems fair.

I like BlueB's response - it should feel natural when at rest (and tweak from there). I want to feel like I'm in a neutral, evenly weighted position with no strain or tension when running flat (or standing on a carpet for that matter) and like I can drop straight down without automatically increasing pressure on either edge. For me, with my current boots and current stance width, that means a little toe lift on front, a little heel lift on back, and slight inward cant on both. If I went to a narrower stance I'd reduce the inward cant perhaps, and if I went wider I'd increase it.

Nothing wrong with looking like a skier on a snowboard, but with that setup you have almost no choice unless you're super committed. The stance appears to be very narrow and pigeon-toed. Coupled with the huge rear cant you've pretty much got to stay at home over the middle of the board and do all your turning with hip/waist-angulation. Not so bad heelside but very little power toeside, and it takes perfect technique and good snow to avoid losing all your angulation and breaking at the waist. Honestly, I'd start over. Find the thread which suggests stance widths based on inseam and start there, with a moderate cant on the rear (this is one of the reasons why I like Cateks, solid though TDs are in every other respect) and a decent stance width and no worse than equal angles, and experience the joy of having a back knee with you on the dancefloor. Then tweak from there...

The first one I truly loved is my Coiler 180 Racecarve - built for me about 10 years ago! Doesn't have much bounce in the tail anymore but then neither do I. Still silky-smooth and will carve inside most SL boards. No good on blue ice anymore, but again, neither am I. Next year, if there's some luck in between, I know just what I'm looking for - a burlier, slightly less turny, metal VSR version around 185 or so... I loved HALF of my original Hot Logical, but only the heelside half - toeside was always kinda sketchy and it got sketchier with age. I have a lot of affection for my Oxygen SL LE, but that's mostly vanity - it makes the tightest turn at the slowest speed of any board I've ever been on, so it leaves a pretty cool trench to admire going back up the lift. WAY too soft to race on for my 220 lb though. There have been boards I HATED with a passion - a Hot Blast 172, a GNU Raceroom (might as well have been made of two by fours) and a Volant which came unglued in the middle of an epic day.

For just occasional use in powder/crud, at a REALLY low price, it's hard to beat an old Burton Alp - just get the longest one you can find. They float well, and are so soft that they smooth things out a lot. Can't really be leaned on if you find some hardpack, but they'll get you around even there. Torque is so loose mid-board that you can do some cute things with independent foot-action too. I keep one around for when my 180 Racecarve starts nosediving.

Wish I'd had a camera with me at my local hill last year. Sign at the base of the lift (the liftie's a buddy of mine) said: "For your skiing enjoyment, please avoid Upper and Lower Beeline until we have had a chance to groom- Jonny E has been on it all morning" No-one's ever given me a serious hard time, but they really do go out and re-groom after a couple of hours, because that one slope (moderate pitch, fairly wide, right under the lift, slope falls away on both sides so the trenches get pretty deep) does take a hammering. That was last year - this year I have a total of zero days on snow:mad:

I rode from 1993-1998 with a fully torn ACL and partially torn MCL on my back leg, but I wore a custom CTI brace. Strictly hardboots and skiing - no softies and not much jumping, and no riding backwards. The brace beats up the pantlegs but otherwise isn't too cumbersome, and there was no pain associated with the injury. Finally the knee got too loose and I had it rebuilt.

On my little local hill I'll go top to bottom almost always but on a real mountain essentially never when riding - just too much load and after 30-40 turns my legs and feet get wonky. On skis I'll go nonstop MOST of the time, though, and very, very fast, unless I'm with family or something.

I dunno - with a moderate stance and a softish, widish board you can have fun in the trees and steeps and still get the thing up on a rail enough to not get bounced around by the chop in the runout. A wide softboot setup can be brutal in cut-up snow once it gets at all heavy. Some of my best powder days ever, on skis or board, were on a Burton Alp set up around 51-48 with a lot of lift under the front foot. I'll take my 180 Racecarve out in moderately deep fresh - up to a foot or so, but it's basically like waterskiing - low deflection high speed surfing, and if the nose sinks you're getting a faceful...

No inexpensive brace will do what you need done - you need something like the custom-made CTI brace. I rode and skiied with one for 6 years before finally having the knee rebuilt. They're expensive but they work. It's helpful to wear a pad on the other knee to protect you from the hard hinge.

A good repair guy will cut out a regular shape and install a patch which should be pretty durable. P-tex candles and such won't last more than a day at best.

Best looking board ever!

I think if there are skiers in the group I'd pick Snowbird, just because the snow and terrain are so sick, and the sweetest ski-hill in the word is just up the canyon - Alta - but it doesn't allow boards. For all-boarding I'd have to say Jackson Hole, but you need to enjoy serious pitch. You're more likely to find a posse of hardbooters at some of the east coast resorts - I'd put Stowe first, then Stratton and Loon. Sugarloaf if you're planning on just riding and sleeping.

I ride mostly two - a 180 Racecarve and a 160 Oxygen SL. The Coiler turns so tight (and the Oxy is so stable) that really there's a lot of duplication. I'd love to add something around 190-200 with a variable sidecut for those days when no-one else is around. Totally impractical if there's any kind of crowd on the hill - the really big sticks just cover too much ground too fast, at angles which skiers just can't predict. No money to spare to do it right, so on the cold and empty days I go back to skis a lot - Head RD iGS with big VIST plates - and pretend they're as much fun as a board would be.

Kitzsteinhorn! Above Kaprun and Zell am Zee! First time I skied the Alps was there - June 1972. Super foggy and I didn't realize A) I was skiing next to a huge cliff and B) you can get sunburned in fog. Do they still have that weird tunnel to get to the top from the top of the luftseilbahn? Nice riding, btw.

If you know a custom golf clubmaker, ask for a little "rattlestop" (basically ratglue). Load it on a fluffed-up q-tip and sponge the insert out. Repeat until it's clear. Cleanup with Acetone. Failing that, do the same thing with honey, then cleanup with dish detergent.

Gosh - forgot all about this thread. I'll look into shipping costs and get back to you. I'll measure stance also, but of course those Burtons are pretty adjustable.

I'm a big forged devotee also, partly because as a clubmaker they're just so much easier to bend, and for my playing set went from GI forgings (Maltby M-05 and MTF) to the current Scratch set, which are so soft you can almost bend them by hand. However, if you want an eye-opener on cast clubs, try a Ping S57 sometime. Compact, minimal offset, and the sound/feel is indistinguishable from a soft forging. It's not casting per se which sux, or even the metal, since 303ss is pretty darn soft - it's the clunky design of most cast clubs. Conversely, there are forgings with just atrocious feel (first edition X-Forged for instance)

Not many skilled players are really comfortable with true game-improvement irons. Launch tends to be too high with the short clubs, and workability is really compromised also. Compact cavity back clubs, with minimal offset, would work just fine for many blade players, but real shovels just don't. Messing with bounce angle and camber and also leading edge grind can give a compact clubhead a lot of versatility in varied turf conditions, without going to a big wide skid-sole or a hybrid. Take a look for instance at the Scratch website: www.scratchgolf.com for an assortment of grind options for various swings and turf/sand conditions (look for the "get fit" tab) I play custom Scratch blades in the wedges, and AR-1 compact C-backs through the rest of the set. I do own big EZ-1 GI 4i and 5i, but just find them too clumsy, and prefer the more compact 5i at the very least. In soft conditions I'll play a 26° hybrid instead of my 4i, otherwise the transition is from 4i to 23°. One thing a lot of elite players are doing with the new grooves is to go to more bounce - allows a cleaner strike and also lets them deloft the club without digging. More bounce on a big GI club and you'd skip into the ball a lot.

413 281-6859, hip-deep in taxes until tomorrow afternoon, then let's go kill bugs and/or worms. Too bad it's got so warm, and me with a sheaf of Mt Snow lift-vouchers left, but it's certainly looking like Golf season here...

Was doing laps last week on my RC 180 Coiler at the little local hill. I took a break and they closed the slope down so they could groom it again - completely cut up down to the layer of ice below the slush. I don't really find that I need to get too back-footed, I just try to stay right over the middle of the board and not dive forward to initiate. The 180 works much better than my 160 SL. The only real problem is where two or more ruts coincide - the bottom just drops out.

Two breakthroughs - the first on my first hardboot board, a Hot Logical, in skiboots: hit my heelside edge, hooked up hard and blew straight into the woods. I knew it would turn quickly but I had no idea just how quickly. I realized that even after years of skiing at a pretty high level my fitness was nowhere near enough to allow me to work that board to the fullest. Softer boots and a lot of leg-presses before I could ride more than a few hours a day, but what thrill. Second breakthrough was sort of a negative one, on a Hot Blast, which had an extremely stiff tail relative to the nose. It worked OK, but it was work to make it work, because my instinct is forward. So, when talking to Bruce about my first custom board we agreed on a very balanced flex profile. That board, built in 2002, is still my #1 ride, and as near effortless as any glass 180 could be.

See if you can find a section of trail with a natural crown or spine running down the middle. Then, at moderate speeds, make your edge change right on the top of that convexity with good commitment down the hill. The action your body naturally will take on is about the same as a flat-slope cross-through. Then transfer that sensation to riding on other slopes.

My 7th grade son thought it was funny, but not as funny as calculating the angle of the Hangl.

Comments?? Sure - go after your toeside turn as hard as you do that sick heelside move....:) Seriously, Nikwax is dandy stuff but if you're all the way through the top weave it's time to frame those things and get some new ones. STP has some great deals on Mountain Hardwear lately. Wish I could get some runs in with you at Stratton next week, but it's just not happening:freak3: