philw

I think Kessler's weight ranges are very accurate.

First point, absolutely. Personally I have found that changes are relatively easy to feel, and fairly independent, so moving things a little at a time ought to work. You may need to cycle through the settings a few times as they are related (so for example toe and heel lift are affected by boot lean etc). On the second thing, well depending on where you want to go, you're half way there if you can see what's not quite right. One thing which worked for me (well I think it worked) was to watch people who ride the way I want to ride, and then visualise looking like that when I'm riding.

Yes. The OP can clearly ride, but it looks a bit old school. Most people moved on from tucking the back knee in, it's very rare to see it these days. I think more modern [race] stances are more fun and flexible, but it's just my opinion. <laughs> the one thing I don't like there is the arms, which look unnatural to me. But it's just opinion and fortunately we can all do what we like - I've no idea what's "correct", and because we don't have huge bureaucratic hard boot snowboard school orthodoxy it's not even defined. Watching old snowboard videos reminds me why I try to go for the "gunslinger" position with relatively static arms - back in the day we waved them around like dancers and I perhaps wanted to get away from that. But... this is just a style issue, so long as none of us are waving the things around in an attempt to rotate on the ground (which we're not). I often spent half a run putting my gloves back on: the arms aren't in my opinion required to do anything to ride a board. They will swing a bit of their own accord if you do hard fast short turns, simply because of the mechanics of the system. Back on the OP video. I'm not seeing much up/down. As stated it's a relaxed slope so you could just rock from edge to edge, but a little flex of the legs into the turn would be good if it got steeper at least. Personally I'd be worried about not riding centered - the board is likely to have been designed to be ridden with the bindings centered over the sidecut. If there's a reference stance and you're the correct weight for the board then I'd put it right there. I've never not ridden centered on a piste board. -- I'm not claiming to know anything, just filling in the time..

My Sport Tube once came out in two pieces, with my laundry spewing across the belt. I kid you not. That's why I subsequently put stuff in small bags inside the tube. You could maybe put a label on it instructing them how to do it, but they may take offence as it ought to be a bit obvious that it's the reverse of the disassembly process.

I used a Sport Tube for years, after baggage handlers trashing several new expensive bags first trip out. I carried up to three boards, but more usually two. My stuff is mostly trans-Atlantic. You want your boots and bindings in your carry-on as replacement hard gear is hard to find, although renting soft gear is a great way to remember why hard boots are so good. Stack boards and wrap with bubble-wrap around and between. Fasten bundle with two of those skier strap things. Fill the rest with clothes, preferably in light-weight bags as otherwise anyone opening it (including you) is fighting through your laundry. I always tape a spare closure thing (I don't use locks) by the handle, and tape a couple of tie-wraps ("cable ties" in America) close by so that if the TSA people can't work out how to close it then they can at least use a tie-wrap on the handle there.

"too much stability and control" doesn't really work for me. My car's designed for the track: maximum stability and control. It's not boring. But I'm missing something here. When I rode soft boots I found that steeper angles didn't work at all - my feet hurt, and the whole set up seemed to be designed for significantly shallower angles. So what's different about these guys - how come they're managing to ride basically a hard boot stance on soft boots? They must be doing something to the gear which I did not do.

Wow, no disrespect, but I'd get my feet amputated if I had to do that. I just stuff my feet in the boots and forget them. I guess I'm lucky. Or maybe slower, but every run - seriously, I'd be looking at fixing that, if it was me.

A pizza shim would have been perfect, with the added benefit of being emergency rations should I get benighted. However I located a couple of demountable plastic "spoilers" on an old pair of Indy Suzuka boots. I chopped off the bits of those which stick out, and they give me multiple lean options with up to about a centimeter of forward displacement, which I think will probably do the job. Sorted, and light weight.

I think my phone is bigger than my foot But I tried using my phone to measure the angle on my pinball machine (it should be six degrees) and it didn't seem accurate enough. I kind of intend to buy a little tool for measuring angles, but I haven't had the time yet. I was thinking more about my "forward lean" issue. What I really need isn't a spring - I will try one when I can buy one, but all I really need is a bit more lean. What if I got a small chunk of aluminium and drilled and filed it to fit into the place on the boot where the existing lean adjuster clips in. It would be an extension for that black bit with the metal rod in it. So a block of aluminium which slips behind the rod and sticks up a bit, and which has a similar little rod about a centimeter higher than the current one. Then I could just stick that little block in there, maybe fixing it with a screw, and then clip the orange lean adjuster down onto the new rod, which would be 1cm above the current one. I think I need to invent a "forward lean extender", not a spring system. Hmm, I wonder how much beer I'll need to pour down mechanical engineering students to get that built. -- Or better, maybe if I put a shim inside the shell which just pushes the ankle forward at the top a bit, maybe that will do it. I shall experiment with "internal forward lean increase" systems: IFLI Ⓒ.

Failure Modes Time will tell, certainly. Most hard snowboarding boots were essentially ski boot designs, so also not intended for those loads. Ramps The internal ramp seems small, although I've not got the technology to measure it. Forward Lean I don't want to have a "high heel" on my back foot, which may be one way to address the lack-of-lean on the back foot, but it's not quite the same thing and really I like to ride with that knee bent, which I would not achieve with a high heel. The easiest way to get that would probably be some modification to the place the existing walk/ride lever bolts in. Has anyone built something like that? I'm thinking either I need some sort of interstitial plate to drop the outside part of the lever somewhat, or just drill the liners for a lower mounting point for the whole mechanism. Springs I contacted our own @DRUPI and the Phantom people to see if I can get springs from them. I don't really need "suspension" but I need more lean. Splitboard people are trying to make Backlands work like their soft boots. That's not me, but maybe I can use their adaptors. EC people are trying to make Backlands more flexible, again that's not precisely my issue, but their solutions also give lean adjustment. Binding Interface I'm not sure if anyone's worried about this, but I can't emphasize too much how solid the interface between these and the F2s is. One major advantage of Intec for me was that I found it a more positive boot/binding interface than traditional hard bindings gave. With these boots, that interface feels very solid to me.

I tried the boots on my Kessler SL at our local indoor slope today. Thoughts: They ride fine, the same as ski boots except they sit better in the bindings than standard DIN ski boots. @pokkis's point - that the forward lean adjuster doesn't change much - is correct; whilst my front boot seemed fine at the standard setting (plus 1 degree toe lift), the rear although at the maximum incline was still pretty upright and felt kind of weird. It rode fine, but felt like I had "too much" back foot. This is basically dust on hardpack, all artificial. I didn't try riding in "walk mode" as my riding requires me to be able to push forwards and backwards on the boots. I didn't dick around with the tongues or the power straps, but I don't fasten stuff like that particularly tight, which gives a bit of play in the system. They worked out of the box without modification, but I did learn on ski boots. For perfection, I need to get more lean into that back foot. I could try stacking more heel lift - I have 3 degrees on there - but I think that's not the best approach. I could modify or replace the lean control with one which significantly increases the angle (the boot cuff will easily support any sensible forward lean). Or finally I could install a third party spring system, if those include forward-lean control. Or I could try to build one. I actually only need one (for the rear boot), but there you go. The Phantom springs look interesting, once they start to ship. Meanwhile, does anyone want to sell me a spring kit, or publish a parts list for that? Otherwise I'll have to buy beer for some mechanical engineering students

There is lean adjustment on this year's model, but it takes a while to work it out. If you take the lean adjuster out of the boot, you'll notice that there is a metal backing plate for it, with two threaded holes. If you look closely, you will note that the threaded holes are not in the centre, rather they are both offset in one direction. Hence reversing the plate gives you a different lean to the default. On mine the default is "upright"; I flipped it for my rear boot to give more lean. All that interacts with the toe/heel lift of course... I expect to maybe need to tweak that. As you point out, "walk mode" (which I never expect to use) is completely free flexing, so I'm coming at it from the other end. The back of the boots (the carbon stuff) seems pretty stiff, but there's some flex going forward from the rest of the shell.

Reight, I thought I'd best get some gear bought before my country puts up the barriers, so my Backland boots arrived today from sunny Roumania via Austria without hassle in a couple of days. New F2 bindings (I had to switch back to the old fashioned type) arrived the other day from Austria. First up, let's compare them with the HSPs they're going to replace. They're about 2/3 the physical size, and a little shorter although probably not as much as this image suggests. I can't accurately weigh the HSPs, but I think these are less than half the weight. Here's my Kessler with the new F2s mounted and the boot in place. What I learned so far: These fit perfectly into the standard F2 Race Titanium bindings I just bought. Those were about €150 as they're the 2018 model (black base not blue or something). Design-wise they've not changed since I bought my Intec version 10 years ago. The metal of the disks looks less shiny. To clarify, a 2918 F2 Race Titanium binding and a 2018-19 Backland mate perfectly, there appear to be no issues with snugness of fit of the boot in the binding. That's yet to be confirmed on snow, but on carpet I can't get any slop there. Next up I need to work out how to adjust the forward lean as the instructions are useless. The Allen bolts are the same size as the old Rachlie used, so the tools from those work fine here. These come with a little spanner/ screwdriver thing, but I don't want to use that on Allen bolts. I spent a couple of seasons snowboarding on Nordica Grand Prix race boots, so I should probably go and ride them on indoor snow to see how they feel with their native stiffness. If they need softening then I either need to build some springs myself, wait for the Phantom ones next season, or buy some from someone on here. One step at a time..

Interesting. My take... 1 The Nitro Scorpion SL 162 From a European perspective, this was one of the first "new race method" boards. A symmetrical race board designed to turn at piste legal speeds, product year 1994 I think. Improvements since have included better sidecut patters, decambered noses, and metal, but this was a major step forward which affected the very way you stood on the board. I broke the nose off this board banging it into a buried log in deep powder at Silver Star. The replacement wasn't quite as lively, with significantly more sober graphics, although it did have the first 4x4 inserts I'd seen. Not my image, but this one also shows the type of board it replaced 2 Burton Supermodel 168 1997. This wasn't an industry shift, it was simply the board I happened to ride when I switched from riding "hard boot boards" in powder to riding powder boards there. Switching to something designed for the job was like night and day to me, an epiphany. I went from being competent to being an expert in one turn. I was shocked by that, and since then I've tried harder to avoid the "I haven't tried it because I don't like it" trap. Riding powder boards most likely saved me from switching to soft boots. It's not about the boots: it's all about the board. December 1997 3 Honourable Mentions Metal. Nearly killed me on my first run as I hit a mogul slope at what seemed like a reasonable speed but which was of course much faster. F2 bindings, originally branded Proflex. An elegant design not yet improved upon. Decent goggles. I'd been unable to cope with goggles early in my career, but being forced to buy some with decent peripheral vision I now never take them off in the snow. Now I can ride in storms and still see.

Impressive stuff, of course, and I like that better than the diving for the snow stuff which is common here. I'm just being picky, but now you point it out, I really don't like the action on the heelside that much, it doesn't quite flow as well as the other side. The aerial angles around 1:10 show that lack of flow.

Well, my advice would be don't ride hardboot boards in powder, at least not in significant powder. They're not designed for the back country, in my view. My current favourite tree board is the Butron Dump Truck, but other powder boards exist and will work equally well if they have the right design features. Which for me are taper, and a soft tail well balanced to my weight so I can control speed easily. The problem with this type of board is that they're wide, so whilst in heli-terrain that doesn't matter, if you ride on piste to get to your trees you need to use angles which allow you to pressure the edge. I ride the same on these boards as on my race board (45|45), but I'd need mellower angles to use my Dump Truck on piste. My Dump Truck's in action on Vimeo video # 308223350 (intentionally not embedded).

If you're moving from stiff boots to less stiff boots, that makes sense. I made exactly that move when I switched from very stiff ski race boots to rather more flexible hard snowboard boots. Some adjustment was required. I'm thinking that the stiffness of (say) Atomic Backlands isn't available (?). There are plenty of Atomix Hawx boots with that same walk/ lean lever which have a stiffness comparable to modern piste boots. I guess I could probably "stiffen up" my ride once more if I switched to those, and still lose weight as I'd gain 40 years of ski boot design. Better, I'd get a modern "walk/ride" system I could plug replace to deliver any fore-aft stiffness I wanted. Or did I miss something there? But we're talking here about AT boots, which are going to be softer... I just don't know how soft. People say that using them "out of the box" with the rigid "ride" lever makes them too stiff, but too stiff for whom? For soft boot riders, maybe... but that stiffness will be less than the ski race boots I started out on, irrespective. And the lateral stiffness may be better too. Ah well, there's one way to find out, I'd best buy some (and some old fashioned bindings to go with them) and we shall see.

Well, I'm negative about lazy reporting. The reason for that should be obvious: if I want to read press releases, I'll visit Burton's site and read them there. Burton's system?.. A step forward (see what I did there?) from their standard bindings, I suppose. Their current bindings are crude and unreliable though - hardly a high bar. Commercially Burton have little reason to invest in development of strap bindings: they already have the dominant market position. The very idea that they're likely to be a source of innovation seems unlikely - that's not how large dominant companies work. Their "progress" is more likely to be in changing the colours season-by-season, and reducing manufacturing costs, and of course investing in as much marketing dribble as needed to keep the kids buying the stuff. I guess I'm negative about it for the opposite reason I'm positive about the Atomic Backlands. One looks like something new, the other looks like something old.

I'd argue with the very last point there, but you did say "possibly". To me, trees (which I ride quite a lot) are a kind of slalom, and y'all know what works best for that and why. I've ridden with some extremely good soft boot people, and never felt disadvantaged by my set up. That said, long time guides aside, I've probably done more deep trees than even those guys. Of course I don't care what people ride, and I'd actually ban everyone else from using my stance (45/45) in order to ensure I'll still finish first. If I ride switch, it's the real deal though - a trick worthy of the name. If you cheat with your angles before you even start it doesn't really count as riding backwards, in my opinion. I would not use a forward stance when: Riding with soft boots. It doesn't really work, they're not designed to be pushed like that. Riding a no-board or a surf board. I'm still working on perfecting both of those so I may have missed something, but one's back foot at least needs to be there for pushing one side or the other, the action is different from hard boots. So a bit like choosing the right handlebars for one's bike, it's entirely up to the rider. Try it all, go with what works for you. That's 100% what I did after all.

But doesn't "Step On" sound exactly like a binding which you step on, not one you step into? Of perhaps the word "exactly" is being used in a post-truth way? If "white lines" can't be bothered to write their own copy, they could at least proof reading the press releases they're blithely publishing. Wankers. Does Whitelines really think a boot in a different colour is "challenging the status quo"? What a sad reflection on them. There was a time when snowboarding actually did challenge the status quo, but not by changing the colour of our boots. Wankers. Oh, I said that already.

"FIRE" - I'd not come across the initialism, but that's kind of what I did, intentionally. There probably aren't many people who run football clubs who made money from being footballers. Perhaps see a lot of football by serving hot dogs at a stadium, but it's unlikely to lead to financial independence. Then again, I live in a country where people vote to be poorer... it all depends on your priorities and options.

I see here that there are apparently two different F2 heel bail lengths - do you know which you're using for this? I hear you on width, they waggle about, presumably, which is how ski boots used to feel in most bindings I ever used.

PHK appear to have updated their website and also their products, perhaps following what looks to be something of a reorganisation/ rebrand. It looks to me that they've rationalized what was a very confusing product range into three bindings. A hard looking soft binding; a traditional plate binding with retro colouring (Highlander); and then the "Pro Ride" plate binding which looks interesting to F2 fans like me. The plate bindings are manual or Intec, all CNC machined, bails for fat people. There isn't any information on cants or bail heights etc, or prices or availability. http://www.phk-italia.com/en/products/pro-ride-2/

I think there are, in summary, two issues with the Backland Carbon which I'm trying to solve, or determine can be solved: The bail height of the heel The spring mechanism Heel Bail Height... the solution someone suggested here was to use the toe piece from an Intec F2 Race binding as the heel piece for the Backlands. That I can fix, then, although I'd have to buy a traditional F2 Race binding and chuck the heel pieces. The Phamtom bindings look reasonable, but don't have centre disks. Their cleat system has, as stated, fixed angles with a maximum of 30 degrees. I could probably make a disk for them. Spring Systems... I'm hoping someone here or in the EC forum will sell a spring mechanism, or maybe someone will post instructions on how to build one. I suppose I could build one from scratch, but I don't live near snow so I don't really have the opportunity to prototype designs; it'd be better to buy an off-the-shelf solution. Phantom's solution looks good, but doesn't exist yet. I've not yet found anyone (Phantom or forum people) who will sell a spring system today.

450g a foot, and that's with all the split gubbins I guess. Anyone rode those on a 4x4 or Burton track? They have 3.5 degree canting. Doesn't say what or where - both feet, inwards, I suppose. They don't seem to sell a plate for them. Presumably if you have a standard board with a plate you can spin them to any angle you like. Hmm.