philw

That one's also designed and built by Ken Achenbach. Is commonly used for MTB and surfing also. The question was specifically about accessories and carving, neither of which are particularly my thing. However for back country snowboarding at least 360 cameras seem to me to be the way to go, because there's no stabilisation issue as they capture the entire 360 degree field, so can do that in post. But more importantly you can crop and frame in post production too, so it makes the camera-man job much easier/ lower skilled. On the end of a pole works best, either for 1st person or 3rd person use. Poles over about 1.2m long are give a big enough usable field of view. Otherwise, I think the "go pro accessory" thing is a bit like dealer-fit car options - a lot of accessories are sold, but I suspect not so many are used that much. You don't need a bag of bits. Most people will be able to cobble something together if you want to experiment.

I just had a look at the Coiler website and it seems true that they really don't seem to cater well for short boards. Other suppliers have this well covered though - Kessler for example.

( I was busy getting vaccinated, now all I need is the law on travel to change in one country, and I'll be on the snow! It's a race between a snowboard-related business meeting in BC and Iceland. So far Iceland is looking like the best bet. I digress..) Yes, agreed. My own path has been mostly Euro SL boards on piste. Other styles and types of board exist: this approach clearly isn't what everyone wants and as stated it does require more rider-involvement than some may want. You don't want to borrow my 162 Kessler if you weigh twice what I do; getting the sizing right is very important I think. At absolute maximum speed you don't get much support from the board, but at a resort I'm probably going to be the fastest person who's not straight lining anyway, within the limit of the board. Metal helps a lot there. However if your goal is only turn performance at maximum speed, then get a longer board. With powder boards, people used to say "go big or go home", and we'd not really let people come riding if they didn't obviously have a big enough board to survive a day. These days boards are designed to still work, but at shorter lengths. I haven't found big or small boards hard to turn, but the smaller boards are I suppose more responsive.

I'm certainly lighter than that. The Kessler 156 SL boards are androgynous and work well. Their size recommendations seem correct. Clothoid sidecuts but tight turners. I have a Donek FC - although not sure precisely which one - those were pretty narrow and grippy from what I recall, so not really the same tool at all. Mine was from the time when narrow was in fashion, so my variant requires steep angles and can feel a bit "locked in" a carve. These are for "carver" people, not people who want to turn. "Pop" is a different deal - there's a trade off to be made there with metal boards. I like pop, but I like metal better, but it may be worth trying different approaches to that.

lol yeah. They think they are a tech company. maybe they plan on a SaaS offering. Snowboard as a Service? Even then, they misread the text-book as you're not multiplying the "annual sales" to get the value! Chinese made snowboards with "retro" graphics... it's hard to see the real value in what is simply a name.

This. Which is why also I disagree that "custom" is appropriate - you can't test-ride a custom board, and you don't really know what you like, so that's a lottery. Trying different things is the best approach, in my view. Length is nominal - it depends how long the board's designed to be ridden. The important thing is if you can flex the board appropriately at your weight/ skill level. If you're buying second hand that's more tricky and you may need to trade a few before you find what you want. I would be exceptionally careful to study the weight range for whatever you buy, and the board's intended use. Personally, whenever I've bought new boards which are a significant change, I've always immediately known that the new board was the right way to go, pretty much first turn on it. So if it was me, I'd try stuff out, and only buy something which is so obviously "the one" that you don't want to give it back.

On the original: whatever floats your boat. I used poles, effectively I think, for skiing, but never felt the need of them for snowboarding. I don't think my stance would work with them, if you see what I mean. But whatever works. You would definitely want to work poles in bumps - that's where I think they were most useful on skis (the balance thing is easily achieved without them I think). Yeah, I used them effectively on a mono, but the stance is symmetrical there. I do wear my goggles under my helmet - they just seem comfortable there, but again, I'm not about to even notice of other people do it differently.

Politics aren't allowed on this forum so no one's going to fight you back, but please try to stay on topic and keep your politics to yourself. I've been around the block a few times and this kind of event has always happened. Vandalism and theft have been common in the Canadian ski business for decades, as you'd expect. If you're having trouble remembering, just google down the Canadian crime statistics.

Today. I did actually put trenches in this down the bottom there, as it was so quiet (COVID-19, numbers cut severely). The slope manager was very interested in the whole Alpine snowboarding concept from Backlands to Kessler. There were some adults there on those kiddie skate board snowboards, but it looked like hard work

No. In Europe managing the pandemic is essentially a public health issue, not subject to "party politics" in that sense. Science isn't political. A virus isn't a bacteria, even if your political beliefs make you want it to be so. Many here have been shocked at what we've seen leaders in some countries say and do. Governments like Germany have achieved low casualties and minimal economic damage. The UK has the highest death toll in Europe combined with the worst economic performance. The difference isn't "politics", it's managerial competence of the respective governments.

I disagree: the difference is that some countries have competently managed the pandemic to minimize both excess deaths and economic damage. It's a matter of management, not politics.

Two brand new hardboots in a couple of seasons, although the Mountain Slope is a rework of something old, so this one's the real deal. Probably too soft for the likes of me, but even so, good to see.

I may have told this before, in which case apologies. --- Back before global warming had really taken off it was sensible to travel from the UK to Europe for early season riding. One year I made the trip to Les Deux Alpes. I arrived one afternoon in early November. I bought a new snowboard at the resort - you could buy boards in the UK, but our shops were very limited and expensive. I checked into one of the few open resort hotels which was nearly empty. After an excellent dinner topped off with chocolate moose I and crashed out in preparation for an early start. Les Deux Alpes has the steep runs down to the village, and a big flat glacier at the top. The next morning after breakfasting I headed up the cable car over the patchy lower slopes to the glacier base at 3,200m. I felt a bit queasy, but the glacier is pretty high for someone who lives at sea level and you can expect to feel a bit odd. I completed one run through about 15cm of fresh on the glacier before I was forced to retire to the bathrooms with some urgency. Sensitive people may want to stop reading now. I made it into a cubicle and dumped my gear only just in time for the first set of inevitable multi-orifice violent dehydration events. I was shocked by the force, and surprised when after a short while the cycle repeated itself. Again and again. After perhaps a quarter of an hour a lady concierge came to ask me if I was dying. My French is pretty good on rude words, and I managed something including "merde", which I think was all they needed to know. She left me to get on with it. After an hour or so I was visited by a delegation of pisters, who were not quite so easily dealt with. I'm not sure what their rationale was, but they wanted me out of the cubicle. I explained to the best of my ability that I'd need two buckets in order to leave, and that I just needed more time before I was happy to move. They wouldn't go away, and threatened to break the door down. I figured they were coming for me one way or another, so with my pants around my ankles I opened the door. I was greeted by half a dozen ugly French pisters checking out my worldly goods. When you're fighting for your life dignity loss is irrelevant, so I stared them down and they left, apparently satisfied. I should have asked them to wipe my arse, but I was too far gone. North American readers will need to understand that this isn't a customer service culture. I closed the cubicle door and continued to be very sick. Eventually the original concierge came back, and I persuaded her to lend me a plastic bucket. I knew roughly the time it would take to download to the village, and I knew the frequency of my "events". Once it looked like I had a fair chance, I made a careful descent in the cable car sitting on that bucket, which I left (empty!) with the lifties at the bottom. At the base I was I was in a pretty bad way, close to being hospitalized. I drank lots of fizzy pop for re-hydration and managed to get things back together enough to get myself home over the next few days. My chocolate moose must have been from the previous season and rife with something virulent and disgusting. As I did get one run in this may not technically count as a failed trip.

Yeah. Consider at least using a separate second SIM for 2FA, or a usb key where possible. And keep a list of all the accounts the phone's used as 2FA for as those are the ones you'll need to deal with if it's taken.

Check online, but from memory (no cognitive tests done) the small ones (which I use) go up to about 29.5, so I think they'd be fine.

Well yes. I learned where hard gear makes snowboards work very well. My "out West" mates don't even need to ride in the sort of conditions I thought were "good". Once you learn, skill can make up the difference, either way. That said, there's also a significant fashion influence which affects this type of thing. My evidence is be rear-entry ski boots, and MTB use in the Fens.

I'd fly out there to play, but I suspect the logistics of that may be practically impossible, in terms of getting out of my country, transit somewhere or other, and then getting into a virus-free country. I think the world noticed before that Jacinda Ardern isn't daft.

I started with France, close to the UK and well marketed here. It's an obvious place for "Alpine Snowboarding". Later I discovered Powder magazine and therefore the US and Canada and the helicopters there. I tend to end up revisiting the same resorts a fair bit, but with the good ones does make sense. I have walked over Vitosha in the summer, also spent summer time in the observatory above Pamporovo, plus I've been to a bunch more ski resorts in the summer for whatever reason. I guess you can see why there may be different perspectives on things. ------ Austria: Goldeck, Sölden, Ishgl Canada : Golden, Norquay, Sunshine, Lake Louise, Whistler, Mike Wiegele, Sun Peaks, Silver Star, Big White, Adamants, Purcell, Powder Mountain Whistler, Revelstoke, Hemlock Valley, Cypress, Grouse, Terrace, Panorama, Kimberly France: Meribel, Tignes, Avoriaz, Val Thorens, Alpe d'Huez, Val d'Isere, Courchevel, Les Deux Alpes, Le Flegre, Praz d'Arly, Les Arcs, La Plagne, Chamonix Finland: Serena Ski Helsinki Iceland: Siglufjörður Italy: Andalo, Cervinia Norway: Folgefonna, Stryn Spain: La Molina, Masella Switzerland: Haute Nendaz, Verbier, Zermatt United Kingdom: Nevis Range, Aviemore, Royston Golf Course United States: Winter Park, Brian Head, Brighton, Solitide, Snowbird, Powder Mountain, Taos, Breckenridge, Vail, Beaver Creek, Arapahoe, Keystone,

(Just waiting to be unlocked...) I think it's also worth remembering that much of non-novice snowboarding has a fairly uncertain future. Take half-pipe, for example: once very much something for kids to aspire to, now I've not seen anyone in a pipe for years. Parks.. well they are still there, but I'm unsure they're really significant outside the magazines. Magazines... not much of a future there, I'd say. The more balletic type of snowboarding... really that stuff comes and goes, but broadly it's not relevant for most participants. Dropping cliffs... same thing. I think then that it's probably a mistake to view the world this way at all. If you were a competent skier who could rail a turn or two, you could maybe worry about the fact that most skiers aren't competent, and perhaps end up thinking that "competent skiing" is dying a death. That would probably be wrong. Carving's hugely healthy taken across the world, with the far east leading the charge at the moment. Maybe this is actually the golden age.

If you look at old videos you can see how people were riding. They were certainly good, but they were not generally all that good by today's standards. Arm-waving through to Craig's knee-tuck, we were trying hard to get that old gear to perform. Personally I can't' see me ever going back to skiing. Well I suppose I might if they make hard boots on snowboards illegal or something

Each to their own. It's funny. Here in the UK cars were almost all manual until very recently; automatic cars were looked at as a weird American thing. There were very few automatic cars around here. Those we did have typically had three gears and were significantly more expensive to buy than their more efficient manual equivalents. The only place most UK people came across automatics was when renting them in the US or elsewhere. There was definitely a sneery attitude here to automatics, which were seen as expensive, slow, and not for "real" drivers, whatever they may be. To me, those US rental cars made sense on American roads, but not here, where roads are very different. All my own cars were manual as were those of everyone I know. Until the PDK came along. Seven speeds and embarrassingly quicker than the manual alternative. Our motoring journalists are very traditional - the last time I looked they were still mostly reviewing manual gearbox cars and insisting that those are what "real drivers" should be driving. I suppose their predecessors bemoaned the arrival of Synchromesh in a similar manner. I find the PDK really good, and don't feel any reduction in control. I'm not sure exactly what they're doing with the management system, but it's tuned so that you can control things very well simply with your right foot. The paddles are there, but I use them much less than I'd have expected. Each to their own, but I don't hanker for the old stuff.

I like the idea of being on the dark side of the dark side... people who are "mainstream" feel safe and comfortable and try to get others to conform to their approach. I'm not like them, so I don't care if they choose to ride slow snowboards. As far as riding style.. I suppose I'm about as far away from the super-narrow-stance chuck-yourself-at-the-snow people as I am from the cowboy-stance rail-riders. But most snowboarders are holiday skier types and happy to bumble about, mostly side-slipping, with little ambition to ride hard or fast. I would like to think that I'm in a different group, which isn't defined by footwear or being cool. My mates ride well, almost all of them on soft gear, although no one ever talks about gear. I do think those guys are right to focus on racing, although not particularly because you need good boots to do it, just because it's about being able to ride well. Racing isn't fashion dependent like half-pipes and rails, most of which seem underused where they still exist. Or "tricks" even, which may appear cool to 13 year old lads but not to the rest of the world.

It's a selective and unrepresentative anecdote. If you're familiar with the NHS in Wales, then you'd know that hospitals don't work individually. Here's the top level data. The NHS's advice (see below, my bold) suggests those who are most at risk. Individual NHS clinicians aren't statisticians and they will only see patients triaged into their care, which is why we collect and use data. If I sound like I care then possibly that's because my software collects and collates some of these data. source

My season was somewhat truncated, so it's not a high score for me this time... Kessler 156 SL One day only. I rode the last day of the season at Vail Resorts' Whistler... mostly on Blackcomb but also the other side a bit. The venerable Kessler was doing its thing, leaving pretty much everyone behind. It was bitterly cold, but quiet, on-piste snow was perfect, off-piste wind hammered. Fast but versatile and playful. Burton Skeleton Key 154 Probably the previous season's model, I'm not sure. This one's a keeper - it's a bit like the Dump Truck I own except a bit prettier and more pointy. Taper, set back, stuff you want in powder. Not like the Flight Attendent and similar Burton boards, the style of which doesn't work well for me.

I'd be a bit careful with that quote, which can be misleading without significant qualification. Spiegelhalter has a good summary including UK stats on risk versus age from ICL. I have worked with them and their data is NHS, absolutely everyone' in the country is included. https://medium.com/wintoncentre/how-much-normal-risk-does-covid-represent-4539118e1196 If your point is that no one's guaranteed to survive, that's certainly true. However that risk increases with age, and this has not changed. Spiegelhalter points out that the ICL risks are "averages". So for example if you're on the Long Term Conditions register, your risk is significantly higher, which is why those 1.5M people are getting special care at present. Unless something changes, sooner or later we're all going to get it, but the risks are not the same for everyone.