philw

IMHO different people mean different things by "powder". My experience is that resort powder is very different from back country powder.... the latter is bottomless, unlike the former, which is just fluff on top of a base (even if it's "off-piste"). So if you're riding a resort, even a good one, then you can easily get by with a race board. My Donek ripped Snowbird on a powder day.... the catch of course was that I had to use all my technique and I was working way harder than necessary to make it happen. Not a problem there, because by 11:00 we're all in crud anyway. It was the same deal in Whistler... it looks like powder, and it's even quite deep, but there's this solid base down there somewhere. Sorry guys, but it's not the real deal. But when it comes to real powder things are different. I have actually ridden a slalom board in heli-terrain and although it's possible it's just daft. Your nose wants to dive, and landing jumps is a fine balancing act. If you want to rip genuine steep and deep then you want, as someone pointed out, a Fish. I hate Burton as much as the next guy, but that board rips in powder, no returns. Take a look at the geometry to figure out why. My information is that other people will be bringing similar designs out in due course. If you want to compare soft and hard gear in powder that's a different issue.... Here's how it works. The North American guys see this Euro (me) with these hard boots and bindings and they kind of take the piss in a friendly way. They never saw anything like that and they think it's not going to work in powder. Then the heli leaves and they eat my dust, until I stop to take their pictures before setting off to beat them to the bottom of the run. After that no one takes the piss. I tried soft gear, but it's like paddling with your wellies on [if you don't know both meanings of that then ask a Brit]. I do know some good soft-boot riders.... strangely enough they tend to ride the stiffest stuff they can get. Go figure. Here's a soft-booter on a Fish a few days ago. Shot from a Fish equipped with hard boots, of course... you have to get ahead of these guys to shoot 'em I generally have a fair amount of time waiting at the bottom of powder runs for those soft-boot guys. I try to use the time constructively by attempting to understand why you'd want to introduce slop into a control system. I still haven't figured it out... I want total control in powder just as much as hard-pack. Hell, I'm going to go fast so the last thing I want is control-lag. It's a triumph of marketing over logic.

Sorry if I missed the American politics point here, but it doesn't bother me at all that you can't take lessons in hardboot techniques. Way back I used to be an "expert" mono-skier, and although in Europe we had people who'd instruct in that, they weren't, well, "experts". I guess they just had other things to do. So here we are in another minority activity. As it happens it's pretty easy to move from what I'd call beginner stuff - sideslipping, kicking out back feet, all that stuff - to alpine. Whilst you could make the transition more quickly with an instructor, if you're at all competent you'll get there anyway. Most skiers take lots of lessons and never get beyond the snow-plough, or at least they never fully master turning with their boards parallel. They still have fun, just like the jibbing boarders.

I transfered from racing skis (mostly on plastic) to monoskiing and then to snowboarding as soon as I could get a board with metal edges. Like Baka above, it never occured to me to sideslip the board. It took maybe four hours to transfer from mono to snowboard. That was an Atomic board with Sno Pro rat-traps and floppy "hard" snowboard boots, probably 20 degree angles or something. I didn't think much about the equipment, but I realised that I needed stiffer boots, so eventually I dumped the "snowboard" boots and went back to ski boots. In '94 or something they invented "new race method" with 60 degree angles and symetric boards... I went there because I hated the asymetric concept, and I never went back. The "carve" concept didn't really exist when I started, and it kind of caught me by surprise. Like with skiing and mono-skiing, I just thought that there were those who knew how to do the thing with speed, style and efficiency, then there were beginners. Perhaps eventually another generation will figure out what the edge of the board is really for..

Yes, that's all you do, and they might be quite tight as they have to be to hold it together. If they're old though they might be rusted up or something, in which case you're obviously taking a risk messing with them. IIRC the bolts themselves are easily replaced locally, it's the plates they bolt into you don't want to strip. Guess which is easiest to strip ;-) There are pictures of the broken bits somewhere in the old forums, but specifically it was the white plastic bits which broke. I then trashed one of the four t-nut things whilst extracting the bolts, which inevitably had frozen up. The original break was on my front boot as a result of an ankle-breaking pearl at high speed on a glacier... not something I'd care to repeat. Replacements: I live in the uk, so the closest place for carving gear is Austria: Blue Tomato You need to mail them directly and explain what you want. I now have a small bag of spare bits, although in the three seasons since I did that damage I've had no trouble with the adjusters.

I haven't seen the specific boot models you're talking about here, and I can't find a web picture of the 123s. Most of the Raichle jobbies have a couple of allen keyed bolts on each side of the ankle, set in the centre of grey plastic disks. On my 225s you just loosen the bolts and then the disks can slide about in a slot bounded by a white plstic thing. Set the angle and then lock them. The reason I know how they fit together is that they break and you have to fix them. To me boot cant adjustment is a waste of time for snowboards; a throwback to the ski-boot lasts the things are based on. Then again I don't have funny knees. I set the things to the place they look strongest (at the bottom of the slots) and leave them there. Using cant or toe and heel lift on the bindings is easier, IMHO, although forward lean adjusters on boots are useful.

Er, well that used to be fairly common back in the day, although early boards of course generally didn't have inserts. The shop would just install what I think they called "T-nuts". Fortunately things have moved on a bit.

I own a lot of boards, because I'm old and I've been doing this long enough. On the other hand I carry only two boards... any more wouldn't really be practical to drag around the world. Oh yeah, that's one board for the piste, one for powder. The piste board also works fine in resort powder on all but epic days, but it sinks in the real stuff.

Brian Head: done that, been there. It was a small friendly place with a large number of boarders; I seem to remember someone saying that it was big on snowboarding. The snow conditions when I was there (November Comdex Vegas a couple of years ago) weren't that great, but the hardpack was fine. Didn't see anyone else who could hold an edge, but quite a few were interested once they saw it being done. I'll be in SLC in December looking for those other places; thanks for the list. I've beet told to catch the bus from the city to get wherever, which seems straight forward (there's a Utah bus website somewhere)...

It kind of depends what you want to do with the bag. For air travel I'd be a bit careful... soft-sided bags tend to fall apart quickly. My last Burton wheelie bag thing (the sexiest one they do) was destroyed on my first outbound flight. That was particularly painful as I had to do some transfer stuff and you can't actually wheel a wheely bag once the baggage handlers have ripped the handles off it. After going through several of those bags in quick succession I finally discovered the "sport tube" things. You'll find them on the net somewhere. I imported mine from the USA, but you can even get them retail in the UK these days. They sound like the same stuff as the above mentioned ski-tube, except you can fit yer boots in them and also Supermodels (boards not ladies) as well as more svelte boards. Baggage-wise with the bigger bags you might not want to fully load them. It can be easier to handle two reasonable weight bags than one huge one, and the airlines do have a weight limit somewhere for a single bag (presumably it's what one baggage handler can throw on the ground from out of the 'plane).

That's two questions. Helmets: personal choice. Lots of Americans wear them. If you're planning on inverted aerials or half-pipe then perhaps you'd be silly not too. For carving... unless you like to nut trees or lift pylons then crashing on your head may not be all that common (I expect someone will have the stats..). Body armour: not sure you'd want that for carving.

:rolleyes: As a regular visitor to Canada it's good to hear that there are other people with pointy boards there. On the other hand there's not actually any information on the site, and those pop-up ads are just invasive.... I'm afraid that the easiest way to block pop-up garbage is to avoid places which spew it. That's what I do I'm afraid; how else can we persuade the bad people not to do it? I'm assuming already that we're all too smart to actually click any of it.

Brilliant pictures... perhaps someone should create a museum web site. Definitely need some work on that arm-action though;)

It depends what kind of snow you're in of course, but I spray my board and bindings with Silicone spray. I have a big can of it which I think it came from a sewing machine shop (don't know what they use it for). Works a treat, not that it really matters.

All that, plus they're excellent in the back-country as you can get in and out even faster than with standard plate bindings, and without having to reach up quite so far from the bottom of your tree well. Don't get me started on how long it takes 'em to get out of those elastic-band contraptions in the Burton fashion catalog. I haven't [yet] tried bombers, but with other makes I've found that Intec heels at least feel more solid than the traditional wire-bail approach at the back. :p I've always vaguely thought that my esoteric Intec step-in system reduces the chances of my expensive board getting nicked on the mountain. I suppose it's not fasionable enough for theivery, but they couldn't exactly ride away on it, even with ski boots. --- (posted that before I'd finished somehow...) Cant angle and stance width: that's a point.... next time I have one of those boards which forces me to stand like a prat then that's a good solution to the problem. I do pack a wedge kit for my bindings so it's going to be easy enough. Whilst checking my canting before posting this I note that last weekend I rode quite happily with my bindings reversed! It was only indoors, but just as well I checked. I marked the things front & back now so I can more easily avoid making that mistake; you have to look pretty closely on these Proflex things to see where the wedges are.

As far as I can tell the TD bindings use a single wedge to adjust both cant and lift. Please correct me if I read this wrong. Anyway, three degrees sounds like a useful amount to start with. You might bear in mind that if you get the right type of boot you can to some extent trade toe/heel left with boot lean, so that gives you a bit more range to play with.

is your friend. Even when I'm generally very fit it still hurts for the first few days. Othertraining: snowboarding on dry/ indoor slopes. Gym training. Swimming.

:p I can't remember when anyone last overtook me on my board. I'm sure better hearing will always help, but listening is only one way to know what's behind you. Those with ear-warmers, helmets, iPods, or those below me (I don't side slip) have to rely on knowing what's behind them. Although of course we're all aware of where the responsibility lies in these circumstances. I do occasionally shout, for example at idiots attempting to start out in my path on a black race-course. I can hear my own shout, so I guess I'll probably catch yours too:D I note that tunes are banned at major heli-operators (you have to listen to the guide a fair bit and they like to know you're concentrating). I also note that deaf people aren't (those I know are pretty careful). I have seen one guy who would have died if he hadn't been well shouted at (it was a very big cliff he was on top of). Each to their own. I'm with you 100% of the way on the ciggie smoke: vile.

No question, I have to have tunes on the piste. It helps with the rythm. Let's not have a poll on which type of music works best. Just got one of the new iPods for this season, so now I can carry hundreds of CDs right there in my pocket and listen to anything I want.

IMHO it kind of depends how stiff the board is, how much you weigh, and how you ride, and what you ride on doesn't it? Right now I ride a 163 Slalom which is fine for legal speeds. I have a GS board somewhere which is I think 167, but that's a plank and isn't really sensible anywhere that's not roped off as it needs lots of speed to camber properly. I have a big floppy 168 powder board, but I've switched to a 156 Fish which works the same way for me. I suppose this is a carving board (?) so I have to answer 163. Make of it what you will.

That's what I'm saying, and I guess I'm saying it because it sounds wrong, does it not? SLC ST: I will look out for them in December. Heli-wise, you're right that they're heading towards the Fish. I haven't checked CMH for a couple of years, Wiegele's is pretty much Burton/Solomon Supermodel-style boards plus the Fish. The place where the Fish excels is in the trees; in the wide open general knee-to-waist deep stuff it's not that much different from anything else (possibly because of the way you turn in open fields). As Nils pointed out, I've watched but I haven't participated, so I can only guess. I'd say that in the back woods you need something which will work on everything from large glaciers through trees to log cuts and logging roads. I get the feeling that the STs are designed for open powder fields, which are the easiest type of terrain you're likely to find. I'd say that the Fish is more successful because it tackles the hardest part. I'd add to your "why Freestyle boards don't work in powder" with "they're too short". The Fish is the only short board I've found which works in powder (I use a 156 versus a 165 Supermodel etc). Although I've no urge to try an ST in big powder, I have tried both GS and SL boards in heli-terrain. GS boards are fine, especially in wide open powder fields. They're tricky to balance (too narrow), and they don't help you in tight trees (turnable but not enough tail flex). Landing jumps is hugely difficult. SL boards just sink, which makes life very dififcult. You need buckets of technique, a lot of balance, and a strange sort of machismo to bother with this. Of course you can also go too big on ordinary boards. I've boarded with a few on 2m boards (Lib Tech Dough Boys) and although they're clearly rideable, it's survival rather than fun. It may be the same thing with STs: the ones I've ridden with were both 195cm I think.

:) Your mileage may vary, but in the spirit of chatting about this stuff.... Just to nail the caveats: (a) These people were expert heli-boarders with several million vertical-feet under their belts. We weren't riding tourist terrain, and I do know the difference. (b) They were riding their own S/Ts which they were happy with to the extent of comitting helicopter time to. They knew how to ride the things. Yet still they dumped them, as did the chap who held the daily-vertical record. You're right that they start beginners out on shallow slopes, but that's not really relevant to experts. Once you've proved you're up to it, you'll find that you're not restricted in that way. Or you're thinking of resort-based helicopters, which are likely to have a high proportion of novices in them all the time. A group's only as strong as the weakest person there, so you have to work hard to find a good group. Most novices don't actually own a "regular" board which is suitable for this type of terrain: they would be better advised to borrow a powder board from the operator. If the avalanche risk is high I'll be in the trees, although maybe I'll be in the trees anyway. There's not much room for 200m turns there of course; is that a problem? You can of course carve as large as you like in the open; no one seems to have much trouble with that. As far as conserving snow goes, you may occasionally get a refuel-run where they put three groups down (say) a narrow ridge line or something like that, but it's rare and I've never been asked not to carve as large as I like.

Well this one's been done to death, but you did ask. In almost twenty years of helicopter-assisted snowboarding I've only ever come across two people on swallow tails. In both cases the people in question dumped the board and went for something else on their second day. Their reasons were essentially that they weren't going to waste that over-the-head powder. These were good riders once they got on the right equipment (one was Drew of Salty Peaks in Utah IIRC). If you're seriously into powder I'd try to check out a Burton Fish. They are also odd-shaped boards, but the difference is that I have not yet come across anyone who took one out for a single day and didn't then keep it. Here's some bs about the Fish from last year. Don't get me wrong, it's great that there are lots of different types of board out there, and swallowtails are very pretty. Just don't try to get in a helicopter with me if you're intending to ride one; the days are too short to wait for you :p

Figure it out. You might find a dictionary and look up "parochialism" whilst you're at it.