philw

The newest version of the FIS rules (2016) includes a specific clause for those who like to carve uphill. From page 4, paragraph 2: That seems clear enough. If you read the full text you can see the detailed rules are derived from the first rule: As far as I can see that rule still applies even if someone else ignores all the rules.

I don't think so. That was just something old people used to say, especially when they were trying to outlaw snowboarding, which was and is always against all their rules and stuff.

As a cyclist I'm unimpressed with the concept, which I think is a crutch for folk who don't have the balance skills to look around. It's not really just a "rear view mirror" that you need, you need to know what's all around, because it all plays into the threat. Something on your right may pull out, causing that guy behind you about to overtake to swerve... you need to anticipate, so you need the whole thing. It may be that some people believe that the FIS rules somehow support that mentality. The FIS call their stuff "guidelines", and relying on novices to follow them at all times seems... optimistic. I'm not accusing anyone here of that, just trying to understand why people might think that way.

The uphill skier was clearly at fault. However I'd be "shoulder checking" most of my turns though, and as pointed out the video shows not a single such check. It's a choice, but I like to know what's behind me at all times on my bike and on my board. I also laughably shoulder check even when I know I'm the last person on a back country run. It's automatic. I know bad skiers (and borders) should all follow the rules. I'm not personally going to try to get them to do that by letting them run into me. Like motorists when I'm on my bike, I assume they're all trying to kill me... and don't let them do that.

I like them lightweight. I had a Salomon MTN for a few years which fit the bill. Now I have a K2 helmet of similar weight. They're all the same to me, really. Here's the K2:

My advice would be not to fall over in powder, but I've used both step-in and clip-in F2 race bindings in those circumstances. On balance I'll go with the clip-in today. Rationale: I'm using AT ski boots (Backlands) so the choice is made. In powder they're about the same to engage. You need to clear the snow out of them a bit whichever type you have. If you understand that, then they're the same. Tree wells? Never been in one, but third parties would probably find the clip-ins more intuitive to operate should that be all that's sticking up. Both are quick in/out in a flat traverse which you mis-read. With practice that almost never happens anyway. Flex, well the step-ins are a bit more rigid as there's less play in the mount, but then modern carbon boots are stiffer, so it's a bit of a trade off. I'm not that keen on the internal moving parts of Intec which are harder to inspect/ maintain than a simple clip. I never stop on a run, so don't care about taking my boot out much. I'd pay more for lighter bindings, but I don't think they exist.

Interesting on flat base versus profile base, from someone with a lot of experience with those things. I watched Terje play with an Asmo, which had a very profiled base, and he wasn't that comfortable on it. I wasn't sure why exactly. The Asmo is pretty, of course. At Wiegele you'd probably not get into a public heli as a no-boarder, unless your father in-law owned the company. @Rob - if you're good enough, which I've no doubt you are - can you ride anywhere people with bindings can? I mean, are you good on traverse lines, pillow lines, chicanes through the forests (run-outs), all that stuff? When I rode no-boards in a heli we were "Private" - we had the whole machine, so no one else minded us. Short tails... I brake my ordinary length tail snowboard with the tail all the time, which is why I'm very fussy about the tail flex. The Burton SJ I rode had a short square tail, which I think isn't as progressive as I'd like.

I've done a bit. My "tool" is a helicopter, because then, you don't have to deal with hard pack at all, ever. I was on a Burton Skipjack, which came from the factory with a leash and something to stand on. It worked ok but the tail was too square for my liking; that's not what I'd recommend. The transition process I remember fairly well. I was using Sorels. The first run I was ropey, just trying to figure out where to put my weight and how to shift it, and what stance worked best. I fell over a bunch of times I think. By the second run I could confidently ride in what was very friendly deep snow on easy terrain. What causes me trouble - in the back country - is anything crusty. I've not [yet] done enough to mix it with good riders on standard gear. For me, at my numpty level, I can see why snowboard bindings were invented: there's a lot more creative things I can do with my feet if I have bindings. But I think it's the best thing ever for hardbooters to do. Next time someone asks why you're not on soft boots, you can shoot back with "why are you using those binding things. More seriously, it's all practice.

Any excuse to post a photo, this from yesterday 20th December 2023 in Big White... fresh tracks all the way. And then today, suddenly I couldn't ride. I felt like an instant novice; I could kind of ride, but I thought I was going to crash any minute, and my front leg was hurting wildly with the strain. I took my boots out of the bindings and checked them, all seemed fine, tried again, still useless. Then I took them out again, and checked the springs... the front one had switched into "walk mode". I've had that in powder, but there it doesn't really matter... in resort snow, it really, really matters. I have two pairs of levers: Gen 1 and Gen 2. There's a mod on the Gen 2 which makes the self-switch to walk-mode less likely, but I'd also supplemented that with a tie wrap ("cable tie" in American). Today my tie wrap slipped, and the lever switched to walk... so I couldn't control the front of the board at all. It was actually quite interesting being a beginner again. My front leg had to learn how to soft boot... until I fixed it.

Specifically the forward lean of the upper cuff of the boot: the angle the upper cuff makes to the base of the boot. My F2 bindings also provide 1° toe lift/ 3° heel lift, which I think you are saying you can't get from those Sparks. I guess you have to either figure out how to get some lift from the bindings, or maybe you could tweak the boot base (delta / ramp angle) by sticking a partial insole in there or some such. I'd hassle Spark - they can't be a massive company and lift seems to me at least to be much more useful than cant. I can't visualize the mechanics of the Spark system, but presumably a shim somewhere would do the job... something under the boot heel even?

Yeah, you need the distance of the pole to get the perspective. The first frames there look good though. And you can cut multiple sections out of the spherical video, even from the same segment, so you can make it look like you have multiple cameras if you like. Either hand works well, I've found. Low or high pole heights tend to distort the rider (making body/ legs to short/ long) etc; you have that about right there I think. Another approach is to stick the pole in your backpack, which gives a different angle, better than holding the pole straight up.

The 1st generation levers came with all the springs, the 2nd gen ones you have to tell them which to supply you with. I'm 62Kgs - 140 Imperial pounds - and the gold levers were the default for the gen 1, so I still use those. I've not tried the others; don't want to muck with something which just works. But then I rode everything from ski race boots through HSPs etc and whatever it is I've not ever really worried about "stiffness". I rode the stock Backlands without the levers too, those were fine for me, with one specific exception: the stock levers have two positions only, and I could not get enough forward lean for my back boot. I could have cranked up the heel lift from 3° to 6°, or maybe drilled out the stock levers, but the Phantom leavers have a much wider range of lean available, and those solved my "heel down" problem. I liked riding the stock Backlands, which were at least as good as my old HSP boots, and half the weight. I switched to the springs once they came out though, and those are obviously softer than the stock levers, which have no flex at all. The difference... was me "going softer", if you like... but not as soft as soft boots, and the lateral stiffness is not affected by the springs. I'm not attracted by the slippers, which I think are maybe aimed more at convincing soft booters to make the switch (a very good thing). Phantom do a lot of good work in that area, but I'm not the target demographic, having zero fear of ski boots what so ever.

Apologies if this one's been posted, but even in Europe snowboarding is finding its way back...

Moi. Yeah, I once broke the nose of an SL board in deep snow - hit a log with it at high speed - mine was terminal, but it was glass. For the more general case, you can definitely ride narrow "race boards" at resorts, if you have the balance, and often there's a solid base below whatever fresh you're on anyway. However, hard boots also work great on ordinary snowboards, which is my approach to that problem.

It really is. Koura hit it at the right time, but with a few well engineered videos they pretty much single handedly made the old man sport of carving cool again.

On that theme, there's one thing I always carry.... an old hotel door entry card, for scraping the ice off the bottom of my board. If you sit on a board at lunch time that warms the base, after which snow tends to stick to it. Guaranteed that card gets used every day to remove that stuck snow.

On that... my HH 144 is the best board I ever rode, although I'm not entirely sure why. I've ridden many different ones, but they've all been the same graphics. If you've had four, did you notice any differences in the model years?

Interesting anyway. Coming at the thing from the opposite end. I think Backlands are a much better solution, but then I didn't like rear entry either

I started in 1989 in Finland, but there too it was all hard gear at that point. I figured I'd switch to soft as soon as I got my arse kicked by people on those... but they all went to the park and so I stuck with what works for me. Possibly more likely a Kemper? Those were fairly popular at the time but for me at least Kessler came a bit later and were a bit more race oriented than what people were riding at resorts. You may have actually got your timing right: carving is becoming fashionable again.

Thanks. It's an odd thing to say. I'd say if you don't have a minimum of a few hundred days total it's hard to be really good, but I've never heard of a board which requires you to practice quite so hard! Perhaps he just meant "you need to be on your game for this one". I dare say a fair few people here are entirely on their game. I'm looking through the other end of the telescope to you on that one. The idea that hard boots and a 1.8m stiff board designed for flat piste are the best tool for trees and moguls... well we all learned that was wrong last century. Not impossible, but almost no one could do it! Not sure I understand the "joke" thing. Back in the day I couldn't make that work. Now I can. One board to carry around the world. It's like photography: outside really specialized stuff, a modern zoom exceeds the quality of previous generation primes and is the tool for most purposes. Oldsters still insist on carrying bags of lenses, no one else cares. Knapton... you only see videos of him on easy slopes. Might as well be a hardboot carver Thereby proving my contention that it's not really about the gear. I rode with a bunch of people in a Euro equivalent of the US "Turner" thing. There are some folk who are superb steep glacier terrain, using narrow and very stiff boards with massive pop designed specifically for that. When we had powder... they were fish out of water. Their gear was better than mine in that one specific application they rode every week, but not much use for anything else. Jones is selling more general purpose gear, perhaps because that's a bigger market. Which company's going to sell more boards... [a hard boot carving company] or Jones?

As pointed out, I'm sure he knows his stuff and his audience. They're not Koura, it looks to me that the the "all mountain" carving thing is precisely his target market.... The video starts with a long carved turns segment - most soft boot guys would love to carve like that. The second half is "objection handling" the soft booters who notice how easy the slopes in the first half are, and think it might be unsuitable for the whole mountain. The message I think is: (a) it will carve; and (b) it will go anywhere. I suppose I'm kind of in that target area. Except I've got better boots and bindings. Jones was riding better than his buddy who was on the bigger sidecut, but I'd guess that's rider more than board. They were on open piste, so not going fast. My HH 6.6m sidecut is fine on closed easy piste well in excess of the speeds he describes; I can't "blow through" the sidecut on closed easy piste at speeds higher than those discussed. But that's a Burton (!), I'm using hard boots, and I've practiced more than most of his customers will. Having a range of sizes is a good thing and bigger is no doubt easier to control ("more fun") at speed. Try both and pick the funnest is what I'd do. Couldn't find that in the video - presumably it's from somewhere else. Out of context I'm not sure what he's saying - can you elaborate please? Burton has various constructions available for the Hometown Hero. I have the standard, but there's some "FWT" branded version, and I think a "Mystery" one. The difference in cash is easy to see, the actually difference... they don't really say. On those sorts of things, well just "beefing up the flex" doesn't really work as a sales thing for me - I'd just buy the next size up if I wanted it beefier. Can anyone explain what you're buying with those things?

This is how carving wins, in the end.

Machine Learning... not precisely what most people think of as intelligent.

I'm not sure any of this will help the OP, but in Europe F2 lifts will set 1° toe and 3° heel lift out of the box. Obviously other combinations also work and the shims are easily available for those without a bag of old ones. I've never needed more, and you may want to think about your bolt lengths if you want more. I used to ride flat; for me it depends on the boots for what I think are fairly obvious reasons. I'd not recommend step-ins for a novice myself as they're more complex, more expensive, they limit your options, and don't really deliver much which matters. Less is more.

Yeah I'd not be able to ride with underhang like that. Back when I was using steeper angles on powder boards I couldn't ride the things in hardpack for that reason; I didn't like the force I needed to apply to make them track.