philw

Someone made the point up there that it depends what style you want to ride... but as you're asking for suggestions... I expect you're going very fast there, but it looks more like you're turning then straight-lining for a bit, then turning again. My own style would be more continuously on edge, with only brief transitions. That would be slower in terms of speed down the hill at least. It may be worth trying a smaller board, or a softer board with a shorter radius, which would make it easier to carve rounder turns on at street-legal speeds. If you drew your turn shape on a bit of paper, I think you'd see why you don't need to crank the board over very far to make those turns. I'm ignorant of big boards, but I'd guess that they are at least less responsive to rider input through the turn than softer boards. There's some "up down" movement through your turns, but it looks more like you're rocking the board edge to edge (not a bad thing), but not then loading up the edge into the turn. I'm guessing it's not a very responsive board, so you'd probably really have to stamp on it to get it to respond, which is maybe why you're not using an up-down movement to load the edge. Or maybe that's just me... but my approach would be that my weight "comes off" the board through the transition, then I push down into it through the turn, varying the pressure profile depending on the type of turn I want to crank out. Your outstretched arms look unnecessary, as your balance is rock solid. I don't know what that board is, but it may be that you're riding it precisely the way it was intended to be ridden, and that different riding styles may be easier on different boards.

I could say what I really like, but it's more honest to look at google books and see what I recently read. These all were easy reads: The Mars Room - Rachel Kushner - US prison stuff Washington Black - Esi Edugyan - Slavery but not massively depressing The Darkness - Ragnar Jonasson - Icelandic series. Well I did snowboard there. Looking back through the thread. I read the 1st Harry Potter to see what the fuss was about, couldn't tell, so read no more. I think there are way better children's books, for example Philip Pullman's stuff. Dirk Gently people may like Tom Sharpe (also set largely around Cambridge), although I'm not sure how well that has aged. Stephenson; haven't read beyond Quicksilver, which was a mighty doorstop from what I remember. I shall have to go do some catching up. Willian Gibson works in a similar area.

April 1, huh.

Double Dog: well it's a good name. Looks a bit fishy, but there's one way to find out (and there's nothing wrong with a Fish). I was never a Flight Attendant fan, but the others I rode (Super Model v1 only) and none of them seemed any good on piste... even my last "Dump Truck", which has a shape not dissimilar to this, was rubbish on the piste. The Skeleton Key was like this in powder, but I never tried it on piste. But this thing... I'm not sure why, but it works really well for both uses: powder and piste. That said, I was riding with someone the other day and he was a good rider on a Fish, but didn't like the HH, so it's all what works for each.... I look forward to hearing if the Double Dog is good... and I'll try to ride one if someone has one handy somewhere

Yeah, the 2022 "connector" bindings appear to be almost 100% identical to 2019 F2 equivalent, for the clip in versions. Below you can see the 2019 F2s top and bottom, with the new 2022 Dlx connector in the middle, not yet drilled for the Burton Channel. I already carry my bindings and boots in hand-baggage, as if those get lost I know I'll have to come home to Europe to get replacements. Now I've a complete spare set of bindings, and I'll carry one in the hold and one in hand-baggage, so I've got both loss and breakage/ damage fully covered. My remaining single point of failure is my boots... but those are AT boots, so there's no real problem with getting them, and I can live without the Phantom extra lean in extremis. So that's all sorted.

I'm not a fan of Cateks because like other US made bindings I believe that they are probably stiffer than I like. I'd not use old gear like that myself because I don't like stuff breaking, and old stuff increases that risk. I do ride regularly on "soft boot" boards with my hard boots and F2 bindings, and that works great, for me. Obviously using soft boots also works well and the majority of people outside these pages do that. However, I certainly ride powder boards with my hard gear, and also my current daily driver a Burton Hometown Hero, which is the only board I've ridden so far which is equally happy ripping up the piste as it is in bottomless heli powder. I would say... most powder boards are too wide to comfortably ride with hard boots & bindings, which is why I've mostly ridden SL piste boards in the past. For me a K2 Eldo would be too wide on piste. That - width - is the critical thing. Thanks to someone here my angles are now 35/40 and with those and my boots I'm close enough to the edge of the Hometown Hero to carve it hard and fast on corduroy. I think that's probably the critical thing.

A minor update... I just took the Hometown hero out for a spin to Lake Louise/ Blue River/ Sun Peaks/ Whistler. That's the first time I didn't carry my Kessler SL and enjoyed riding hardpack. My heli operator happened to have a 148 Hometown hero just like mine, so I took theirs out for a week or so of heli terrain (boards get scratched in the baskets, so it's better to use theirs if you can - you pay for it anyway). The snow was warmer than the best, but we had everything from "upside down" snow through a bit of wind crust through creamy stuff and more than enough face shots .... and the board ripped. I didn't feel inclined to swap it for anything else. I'm not sure why this one works better than previous generation Burton powder boards, and specifically that it works in both "bottomless" powder and on piste... but it does.

Another approach is to simply ride a suitable standard "soft boot" board with hard boots & bindings. That's what I do - I have a Burton Hometown hero which rips hardpack almost as well as my Kessler SL. I don't do the "diving for the snow" thing, but I can crank that little sucker harder than most pretty easily. It's more of a European approach I guess, but, well. As per some videos here, people on soft boots can carve soft boot boards hard... so it should be no surprise that when you take similar boards and put hard boots on them, you can really rip. <dons flame proof suit and runs for cover>

The Spark stuff looks a little agricultural, but that's only looks. Got a picture of the Spark Dyno DH set up? I like my F2 race, but I'm always looking for better, and lighter/ lower is good. I'm unconvinced by: CNC F2 branded bindings. Pretty but heavy I suspect and expensive for no real gain. SG bindings - same as F2, slightly cleverer engineering, probably harder to get spares, expensive Phantom - designed for split, too complicated, no lifts, won't go to 45 degrees. Oh, now I just discovered the F2 Race Carbon LTD. Anyone tried those babies?

Got some new HiFi toy thing so playing with that. Currently listening to "The Smiths" because I really never got them, so putting in some time hoping that gets better. Earlier... "The Sisters of Mercy" which wasn't bad, and a bit of Rush to keep the Canadian fires burning.

Didn't they also "prove" that baggy pants were a requirement, back then? I like that aspect of it, and it's clearly more satisfying because of that. I guess I'm less convinced by the berms and stuff, which enforce a specific type of riding - the compressions and arm flapping - which seems kind of inelegant. For the "showboating" thing Shakespeare had that a fair while ago: "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself, And falls on th'other." To none Americans it was funny at the time. Coming back and nailing it, that's the good bit of the story: redemption in full.

I never use them. I guess I just don't understand the function, it's just one more thing to carry around. I suppose that means I ought to have some somewhere too, but I can't think where.

Yeah you can get what for most people is enough lift for toe/ heel etc with the standard wedges, at least 1 degree front toe lift/ 3 degrees back heel lift is possible with the standard set. That's what I use. Check the binding set up. If you are using toe/ heel lift, make sure they're the right way around (ski shops can inadvertently assume they're identical)! Also check your boots: I ride with my front boot "fully upright" and the rear "fully down", as well as the above lifts. However different boots can require different set up (eg I rode "flat" with old snowboard hard boots). Finally don't forget https://www.frozen-backside.de/

Until now I've always used my Kessler SL 156 at resorts, because it rips like nothing else, and it's at least ridable in 30cm of fresh on a resort base. I'd not take it into heli terrain, because it's terrible in bottomless powder. On the other hand every powder board I've ridden to date has been ugly on piste. Mostly they feel too wide to edge well on hardpack, unhelpful at speed and even in bumps. That's left me carrying two boards, one of each type. Until now. The other week Covid changed my plans and left me at a resort without my Kessler. A mate saved the day and lent me a brand new stock Hometown Hero. We waxed it up and headed for the first chair on a powder day... Category: Freeride + Powder Sizes: 144, 148, 152, 156, 156W, 160, 160W, 165W Shape: Directional Profile: Setback Camber Base: Sintered Rider: 45-68Kg Ridden with F2 race/ Atomic Backlands/ Phantom springs/ 35-45 They offer a lot of sizes, something I'm a big fan of as I think matching rider and board flex is critical. Fortunately the 148 was perfect for my 62Kgs of hard boot aggression. I use a slightly narrower stance than Burton's reference, and ride centered on reference for Burton boards. In 20+cms of fresh and steep Whistler "powder" the board ripped fresh tracks whilst the wannabes queued for Spanky’s. That's not really much of a test though: I could ride that on the Kessler after all. Once that was tracked out we retreated to the cut up snow of Blackcomb's pistes where to my surprise the board ripped. The last powder board I'd ridden here (the Dump Truck) was ridable but not even close to the feel of the Kessler. This was much closer. I'm not sure why it was so much better: if you put the Dump Truck and the Hero back to back their profiles are remarkably similar. Perhaps it's the "carbon" construction. Whatever, it took a while to adapt to it, but over a few days I found I could push the board harder and harder. It ripped at everything from short hard turns through long to carved circles... and it didn't miss a beat. I'm sure the Kessler is sharper and quicker, but this is entirely viable as a piste board. All that made me concerned for how the board would work in "proper" powder, the sort which isn't on top of a piste or base made by thousands of Epic Pass holders. My heli had Covid (seriously), so I wasn't sure I'd get to work this one out this trip. Fortunately an old mate who drops bombs at Big White came to the rescue with a few days of fresh and dry snowfall and no crowds. As my mate opened the pistes we ran multiple laps off Gem Lake, easy with 30cm or so of fresh. The trees there were ridable but in need of a bit more in-fill to be safe. The next day we opened pistes off the Cliff Chair in classic Big White Out conditions - freezing fog and challenging visibility. The top sections were "heli like" - steep, deep, no obvious bottom, dry snow. Proper powder. By then I'd forgotten about the board, so it definitely works there too. So there you go. A board which can do both on and off piste in style. I'm keeping this one, and look forward to not having to carry my race board around quite so much any more.

Sorry to hear that, but bad stuff can happen on lots of types of board. I think that - speed - is why some people like those big boards, which accelerate in a straight line faster than smaller boards. It takes a little more work to get a smaller board running, perhaps, but once it is, it out performs the bigger board in general mixed mountain terrain. My guess would be that hard boot people will mostly probably use steep angles, which I at least find don't work well on short boards, making balance on those harder. Pitch... the one time you'll see big boards at the heli operators I frequent would be in deep snow/ shallow slope (high avalanche risk) conditions, where you're struggling with "penetration" and straight lining the biggest board you can find is the only thing which works. Those conditions aren't much fun. More generally, with practice "looking ahead" is the key to that one. Novices fall or stop on the flats, where as I'll wait until they do that, so I know precisely where I need to carry speed (it's important to always let the novices go first on the garbage bits). When the Burton Fish first came out I sneered at it for that first season because it was tiny. I am "lighter" I suppose. Those and all the Burton boards I've ridden since then I've used the reference stance, although that's typically "back" a bit on their powder boards. Lib Tech and some other (often so-called "twin" even if tapered) boards I found typically required some set back. Anyway, like cars, there's perhaps never going to be one "perfect" thing for everyone, it all depends..

I think that's been changing through the years though. Originally Swallowtails were massive (180, 190?), and the rule was "go big or go home". In BC those were never popular, with the Burton Supermodel being the standard "heli" board ridden at 168 or 174 as needed. The Fish (1997ish?) was radically small at 156 in its day, and some of us ignored it initially for that reason. The Fish was fun and was designed (I think) to just ride, not to float. The Malolo (as noted above) was slashier and entertained for longer with a tail, and rode at around 163. My last board (Dump Truck) was 156; the same length as my Kessler SL but very different. I just swapped that Dump Truck for a Hometown Hero which is 148. So I think sizes, for me at least, are getting smaller. I'm not sure how far it'll go - I tried a Burton Nug the other year @ 142 and it was too small, but I think I'd got the wrong size. => I think it's correct that "float" isn't really what you want if you know how to ride the conditions at least. My mate Gary Wayne used to make reverse-sidecut skis and they worked ok in powder - I watched a bunch of people ride them. On the other hand I didn't see anyone throw away their old skis to buy reverse-sidecut... and Gary's business doesn't seem to exist any more (he was selling in around 2015).

I've ridden a lot of powder boards. The last couple of seasons my "go to" board has been the Burton Skeleton Key, replaced this year with the Hometown Hero. I would say that most powder boards, whoever makes them, are likely to be good, but equally you really need to ride them to know which you like, as the differences can be subtle and your weight/ style are critical. I fully expect to hate 12 of the 13 different sized Lib Tech boards, and love the board which is precisely my size. I always like new stuff so I'd certainly try reverse sidecut and am interested in how it rides. I'll pass on swallow tails and tankers though, that's not my style. I'm a hard booter, although I ride powder boards in powder, not hard boot boards. I used to carry two boards: a heli powder board, and a Kessler SL for the piste. When there's a powder day like the 20cm I had when last in Revelstoke... I'd ride the first fresh tracks run or two on the heli board, then switch to the Kessler for the rest of the day, because riding crud at a resort is like riding hardpack. My Burton powder board was horrible to ride in those conditions as I couldn't edge it well - it felt too wide. At Snowbird I mostly ride my Kessler. This season someone lent me a Burton Hometown hero. I'm not particularly a Burton fanboi, but I know some people who are connected. I've ridden lots of other brands and they work well too, but I can usually find what I like in Burton. Anyway, the Hometown hero (image on another thread here) worked surprisingly well in good on-piste snow conditions (standard Whistler fare). It was much easier to ride than I remembered from Revy with my previous board. There could be two reasons for that: (a) following advice from kind person on here who'd seen my video, I mellowed out my back foot to 35 degrees or so; (b) the hometown hero rides piste really well. [I know, it's a powder board thread, bear with me...] It's not a Kessler, but it's pretty much as much fun - I can carve it really hard, it's stable enough at resort speeds, and easier in moguls. Powder, then. In line at 06:30, first lift, first chair, fresh tracks. Didn't notice the board - it rips in resort powder. We had maybe 30cm on whatever, and you could feel the base most of the time, but that's pretty much non-heli powder, and the board rips it. So now I have one board which I can use on hardpack and also powder.... yeah, no more carrying two boards. But how about deeper snow? Well we went to Big white and rode with an old mate who's responsible for avalanche control there. So that's in zero-length line at 08:45, straight out onto massive vertical powder runs with no people. I love "family" resorts Anyway, the next day things got deeper and fresher, and steeper, so although I couldn't see much, I can confirm that the Hometown Hero was easy to ride in bottomless powder too. So for now, that's my board. I'm hoping I won't have to give it back.

Yes, you can use the standard F2 disks by mounting them at an angle, which is how I did it in the early days. After a while I got bored with that because you don't know your precise angles, so I drilled two extra holes in each plate down the centre line as suggested. Of course now I've mellowed my rear angles (as suggested by someone kind here) and so the back one's off the scale at 35 degrees, but it's still more aesthetically pleasing to have the disks lined up. Got fresh tracks pretty much all morning here at Big White, because I left the crowds behind in Whistler and my mate here knows where the goods are (well he's responsible for them being safe). There's about 20cms or so fresh on top of moguls and old tracked out stuff, so you're mostly riding the base, but sometimes it gets bottomless. The board rips at all that, so far so good. I think I won't want to give it back.

A bad photo, this is a symmetrical board. Burton Hometown hero. This is a 1.48 which is good at my weight, ridden with about 45/35. It's a tapered directional (despite what some of the marketing may suggest). Carbon fibre is mentioned, I'd guess that's for torsional stability (which is good). It's flexible (so good in bumps) but seems to still hold an edge well enough at speed. I've ridden it so far at resort only mostly in hardpack, but I have it for powder. I've ridden the Skeleton Key for the last couple of seasons, and this is supposed to be similar... not sure until I can find some bottomless. On piste it's good - not quite a Kessler SL, but entirely capable of charging hard. Works well with a high edge, handles well, no complaints so far. In resort powder it rides well centred. I'm about 0.5cm in on the reference at both front and back here.

Just thinking about this. The OP talks about "carving", which I think probably means riding hardpack, and asks about: For that specific question, I think.. that the best thing to do is to ride a range of boards, or even one board in a range of sizes, then you can see directly what stiffness does. My own views are something like... There's a speed beyond which any board loses it's responsiveness. You can easily feel this if you just ride as fast as you can, until the point that you feel that you can really only fine tune your line by first dumping speed. That speed is easily attained although it may be quicker than almost anyone you'll see would ride. You can ride a very stiff board, but at lower speeds you'll find you have to aggressively down-weight to get it to turn well slowly. That's easiest to observe at the end of the day when you're tired and on technical slopes where you need to turn lots, on demand. In terms of advantages/ disadvantages, well that's all there is too it, really. If you normally ride at resort speeds, then buying an "ultra stiff" board designed for high-speed racing on closed runs would be... a disadvantage. Ditto if you expect to be comfortable in moguls. Equally if you're normally the fastest rider on the hill, you'd probably find a "playful" board less fun than something designed for what you're doing. Note also that a board will have stiffness which varies with load, it's a curve not a straight line. So you really do need to ride to know how a board will behave. Some boards have a surprisingly wide speed range, others an abrupt transition from "responsive" to "overpowered". I'd ride a few boards, forget about numbers and all that, and just pick the one you have most fun on. If you can't do that, then I'd look very closely at (a) the manufacturer's recommended weight range; and (b) what the marketing says the intended use is; (c) what others are riding. Reviews are at best useless and at worst just marketing.

Ride them all and see. I've not ridden any of those other than the T-Rice Pro, but they have so many variants of that, you can't really know what they're like without actually riding them. The T-Rice boards I rode were not particularly fun in powder despite the marketing (they're twins and the tails are therefore not designed to turn well in powder - you need directional for best feel and performance there). I would not get too involved with "flex numbers", whatever they are, as at least with boards I've ridden, that's just a hand-waving relative guide, not something you can rely on, especially as board designs can vary a lot.

I would look at some videos you like and then figure out how they were shot, then copy that. Personally I don't mount cameras on the board, but obviously you could do that, or even on the boot.

Yodobashi Camera was kind of like that for photography. B&H NYC is pretty good, but not very close. Dumb question.. so why is it that Japan / Korea are more carve oriented?

I've ridden the Capita Spring Break, correct size, a year or two back when they had a few distinctive designs at different sizes. The current ones are pretty much that same shape. That board rode ok in powder, but it didn't motivate me much so I moved on to other things. I rode it for 7 days I think and from memory it's the flatness that I'm not nuts about, something other Capita Boards also featured. I loved the Spring Break design and graphics and wanted to like it, but the Charlie Slasher was a better ride for me. It's odd because I actually like a number of rocker boards better than these, so something is not working as I'd really expect. For me I really have to ride them, and in the right length, to know which work for me. I was riding the other day at my indoor snowdome and watching people ride powder boards there - it's indoor artificial snow, hardpack. I'd be uncomfortable with my own powder boards on that stuff, because they are wider than my stance, so getting them on edge on piste isn't fun. If your idea of powder involves some piste (mine doesn't, because I listened carefully at school), then you may want to bear that in mind. Jones stuff seems popular; I've just not had the opportunity but I'd take it if I could. I'm a fan of JG's Burton stuff, but they always have a range of wildly different boards (in terms of performance if not graphic design).

I missed that, but I was watching the "Dear Rider" documentary on Jake Burton, which is worth a look and available via torrent if you need to. Anyway, some of the modern stuff they show is very much aerial ballet, and I was just thinking whilst watching it that the tools have switched from skis to boards, but otherwise it's the same thing. Snowboarding was pretty much invented despite the wishes of herd animals like Mr Angry. They said we couldn't ride too, and look how that worked out for them.