ShortcutToMoncton

How did you get there? I’ve always wanted to go but have only looked at driving from Calgary, which is a bit of a hike.

I feel less stable the closer together my angles get. For me it only works on an alpine board where stability is probably less important anyway. On a board where I’d like to play around with side features, hop on a little BX course, run into some trees and then hop back onto the groomers and rip it, I need lower angles and more splay. 30/15 is the highest I’ve gone on this new board which was awesome for carving, but personally it’s much harder to do those other things at 30/15. Right now I’m trying out 21/3. I did have a bad hip flexor tear about five years ago after catching an edge while carving with a -3 rear foot and it really messed me up for a few years. I do find that lower rear angles are still pretty hard on it. I don’t have Knapton’s flexibility. Depends on what you want to do…..if you’re only carving on groomers or if you’re got superman balance, then there’s nothing wrong with higher angles. My recommendation is the For Sale section Keep an eye on it over the spring as people plan on new boards for next winter! Mine are Coiler snowboards which is a local shop to me, but I’ve owned Donek, Prior, F2 and Virus snowboards as well. For softboot carving, avoid BX-specific boards and go wide. Donek is great. I’ve heard great things about Vaughan snowboards and I’ve talked to Dave about making his Wildcat board in a 28cm version…I couldn’t pull the trigger but there’s a guy on here who has a couple.

For what it’s worth, I’m looking for the “stay out” option unless you’re actually hitting the features. The park is dedicated for people hitting the features. Carvers don’t focus on the features at all—we’re unpredictable by expected park standards. And we make deep ruts. If the people in the park don’t want you there, then why not take the hint? We can safely coexist—they’re not skidding on our runs, we don’t need to rut up theirs. Hit the features on your hardboots or GTFO!

Like I said before, you definitely don’t want any narrower than you have now. With 8.6m SCR, that means your board is even wider under your feet than it would be with a larger radius. IMO at 10m SCR you probably should be looking for at least 28.5-29cm with those bindings. You could also look at some risers to minimize your bootout. For reference, here’s my 28.3cm waist board with 10m sidecut. I’ve been playing around with stance on this new board but the bindings here are a comfortable 27/12, 22 inch width (5-10 here). With the cup-less Flow NX2 bindings and size 8.5 short-length Driver X boots, my rear boot is pretty much exactly over the edges at 12 degrees, and I can get away with less overhang than you have even down at 3 degrees. In contrast, on my old 25.5cm waist board with 10.5 radius I really struggled with bootout and had to use something like 39/24. That’s great for carving, but in my humble opinion not for much else. I’d echo the previous advice on bending your knees more on your heelside and getting low low low, but keep your head and chest up and don’t break at the waist.

Some people just want to watch the world burn

It’s an 8.5 radius….

I’ll go one further and say to check your equipment every week while putting it away. It’s after your ride, you’ve already got it right in your hands, and that leaves you a few days to plan for discovering an actual failure. Last year I discovered a 95% snapped boot wire cable the night before heading on a weekend trip, but a cable replacement ended up taking a few days. I ended up running to Home Depot to get a pack of the beefiest cable ties I could find and literally strapped myself into the boots for a couple hours at a time all weekend.

So I switched the dampers to 6 yellow, 4 red but conditions were so slushy and spring-like it was too hard to take anything from the day. I still felt it was hard to tighten my carves, but going back up the lift it looked like I was cranking them OK in spots, especially on toeside. It might be logical that you can flex the board the same but you just need to work harder…I don’t know, I need to do more riding and do some with/without testing. I do seem to feel that the plates are a little easier on the legs than without, but it’s hard to know whether that’s real or not. Unfortunately they do just end up reminding me of a bowl of cherry tomatoes. And the unintended consequence is that it looks like I’m carefully colour matching my accessories with the red board and yellow boots, which is pretty ****ing lame.

Did you take it down? Not working for me

9:30am: “Ohhhhh, you’re the guy leaving all the ruts”

I’m not sure that new board shapes like Coiler’s Contra reward aggressive fore/aft movement as much

Hello Rob, out of curiosity what is your preferred board/bindings/stance/angles? And what do mean by hit up the middle? I’m trying to figure out how your riding is different. I’m also super interested in a do-it-all type of board & setup, but personally I no longer have the opportunity to ride off piste and/or out of bounds as much as I did 15 or 20 years ago. So for me it’s probably more nostalgia than a reality.

Hahaha the best part is that the lawyers were rolling in dough for getting peanuts for all the wronged….and yet still could only afford a GX drivetrain. They’re only lawyers, not doctors!!!

You want to guess what the lawyers got?

I will say, I did like how they worked once I got used to them. I don’t think I slipped out of a single carve on my third day despite a choppy hill. It felt kind of effortless. It sure if that was the plates or Not. I’m not married to them, but I’m definitely going to try the softer yellow bumpers and see if I notice any difference in how the board flexes.

I completely agree except to say that when you say set/flex matched, you probably mean that stiff alpine hardboots generally aren’t suited for low-angle riding, right? I’ve been watching the ongoing spread of AT “softer hard boots’” with much interest, including that article from a few years ago talking about redesigning the soft snowboard boot. I wish they were building around standard bail bindings though!

That’s where I was going too. When I softboot carve, I’m doing it because I want all-mountain abilities. I know some people can hit jumps and ride off-piste with high stance angles, but I think that’s super niche for the most part. I’d love the same video but say 21/9 or something! In my experience once the front foot is in the 20s and the back foot in the low teens or single digits then it gets functionally difficult to just copy the same alpine stance

I’ve been playing around with Gecko Carve plates on my Coiler Contra AC for the last three rides. I know these are older plates, but is annyone else running them? Any experience on using them with Contra boards or other mid-tight sidecuts? I set the plates up with red bumpers and positioned asymmetrically (toe side plate more forward). First day was a fun disaster. It was my first day of a Banff visit to Lake Louise, hill hadn’t had snow and was unusually icy af, and for some reason we started straight on some steep blacks and I was too excited to think about first sessioning easier runs. I could not get a feel for the board and was all over the place, a rider flying out of the woods almost killed us both in the middle of a carve, it was a friggin mess and I switched to soft boots at noon and had a great time. Second day out I wasn’t an idiot and started with easier greens/blues (this was Lake Louise, so they are still steep), made a few boot/binding stance angle tweaks throughout the morning, suddenly felt a lot better and I started to dial in again. Third day out at my local hill and I nailed it. Grooming was real choppy by noon on a busy Saturday and on our easy blacks I felt I was crushing my snow enemies and hearing the lamentation of their women. It was a great day. However, the one thing I felt was that the board didn’t seem to want to tighten up carves when I cranked it. My turns were super consistent and smooth no matter what, and it seemed to stay that way even when I got more aggressive and started pushing, almost like it wasn’t letting me really yank the board around. I chatted with Bruce and he wondered if these plates might be stiffening the mid-tight section of the board a little, where the Contra sidecut is smallest. That might effectively lengthen the narrowest sidecuts through the midsection. It also made me wonder if it contributed to my first day at Louise, when I was trying to come around quickly on very steep runs and maybe not getting tighter turns. Any thoughts/comments/experiences on the Gecko Carves?

Funny, I got a chance to hop on a Gray Desperado “Type R” for a run two weeks ago. Some Japanese guy from Toronto was also carving and interested in my wide softboot Coiler, so we switched for a run. I think it was a 160, so a bit smaller than my 163. Anyway, it was way too narrow in the waist, probably around 25cm. To me that’s just crazy talk for something that’s supposed to be a softboot carver, but they obviously design them to use a high-angles softboot stance. He had slightly bigger feet than me and was using something like 42/30 or so? Personally if I have to run high forward stance angles and stick to groomers, just give me hard boots please!! With all due respect it was a very nice board but my Coiler crushed it, hahaha. Dude couldn’t get used to the 24/9 lower stance angle I was trying out, but he seemed pretty shook at how amazing it is on the Coiler and he locked in one toeside carve that might have blown his mind. Anyway, rest assured that niche manufacturers like Donek, Coiler, Thirst etc make world-class boards! This Flux is an amazing ripper but you’ll need to consider your foot/binding size and your preferred stance angles.

I’m excited to look at that later, but to clarify what equipment/stances you running?

Was actually chatting with Bruce about this earlier today as I was trying to understand what I was feeling from some Apex Gecko Carves I’ve been playing around with. Compared to the overall radius it’s longer at the nose, tightest on front foot, slightly less tight on rear foot, and longest at the tail. My 173 AC is “officially” an 11.5m sidecut, although the precise radius does change every inch along the edge. But at a high level mine is around 13.5 nose, 10.5m at the front foot, 11 at the rear foot, and the longest 14.5 off the back.

FWIW I’ve tried lots of tweaks but can’t get the stock MS liner working for me. I’ve had two bootfitters help me and both were unimpressed with the stock liner. It is fairly thin and flimsy and the tongue sags down and often pops out of the main liner once you have them on. Plus I just broke the tongue loop in my left this weekend, went to pull up the tongue and yanked the loop right out of the stitching (they are two months old). I’m going to go with an Intuition SBC wrap liner (I tried their regular Pro liner but it is too short). That will also get me a little more volume over the ankle and hopefully lock it in better. Other than my ongoing liner issues, I love the boots themselves. I wish they used a better liner but I suppose there’s probably not a big push to use a more expensive liner since so many riders want to use their own favourite regardless.

I just wanted to reiterate that this person is specifically asking about carving on a softboot board. I understand (and agree) that a hardboot alpine setup would likely be helpful for him to practice on. But that is talking about spoons when he’s just asking about the knife in his hand. @zyzgerry the answer is research, more practice, and also asking when anyone on here is riding at your local mountain. There are tons of east-coast riders on here. See if you can meet up with someone for an hour or so and get some pointers. Carving is a very technical sport, having the right body positioning is important, and it’s often really hard to tell if you’re doing something wrong. You should definitely watch tons of YouTube videos and also check out James’ upcoming YouTube video on softboot carving tips. But getting some real-time advice is the best medicine, and would help you progress faster to a stage where you’re outgrowing that Dart and thinking about something stiffer with a longer effective edge. Cheers!