philw

I took him to task before he had discovered video when he posted a review of a Burton Fish which he'd clearly never ridden in the powder for which it was designed. His "review" was pointless and misleading. There are thousands of "the best..." sites, all delivering the manufacturers' blurb as pseudo-reviews like this. I think it's a good sign that manufacturers are providing him with more speed-oriented boards to push these days. He'll be selling mono skis soon enough if they dare to produce them.

Bring it on. These products could be the route for snowboard boots to finally move forward from being Sorels with tie-wraps. I almost don't want to read about them here though, as the change has to come from someone else. The company appears to be French.

It's interesting how artists can see something and yet clearly fail to understand what's going on. It's fairly common with "technical" things... they see something which looks kind of similar but which clearly is wrong, yet none of them see it. I'm not being rude or slagging anyone off, I'm just interested that not knowing how a snowboard works can lead to failing to see how it obviously works.

Those guys were clocking well over 132km/h. From what I recall the courses are designed not to be record-breaking, so the design maximum is about 200km/h anyway. The guys at 132 km/h were on essentially inflatable boogie boards. I kid you not. I often have to keep my mouth shut when people talk about the incredible [literally] speeds some people [not here] claim to have achieved on open piste. Those speed-slopes are crampon hard and roped-up access is the only safe way. The speed-test section is a 100m bit about 1/3 down. The bottom 2/3 is for deceleration and the bottom 500m or so is protected with massive house-sized bouncy castle barriers to reduce the impact. I only saw one crash, and the guy crashed right at the very bottom. It was the biggest, gnarliest, nastiest crash I've ever seen... I thought he'd nearly stopped (he had), but of course he was still doing the sort of speeds you never see on a public piste, hence he hit those house sized barriers hard. I have no doubt that some of the people here have bigger nuts than me and would be able to ride those slopes, but it is an order of magnitude faster than most people will ever experience. They steer with their fingers, obviously don't edge the board, and aren't allowed to stand up until going slow enough not to be blown over. I seem to recall that there are regulations for the board size/ design, and that the bindings are different. That Kitz crash looks pretty bad, but note that the fences there are small... the seep ski ones are massive for a reason. They have had fatalities in speed skiing, which I think is one reason that they limit the maximum speeds. --- Peter you can get me through publicview.health also if other routes aren't working, but try not to look like a spammer!

No; no experience of that specific, but I learned mostly on dry slopes (transitioning from skis to a board with ski boots) and it wasn't really an issue. I guess I got a fat lip from my one and only "edge related" issue, but that was about it. I think you're correct: if they want to learn, really that's pretty easy. I was older, but if there had been anyone else around who knew how to ride, I'd have asked them for some feedback/ suggestions, so there is that, but if I was watching... I'd wait until I was asked before volunteering an opinion.

Interesting arm action, a bit too active for my liking, reminiscent of early European styles though.

I tried the visor stuff a year or two back, but in powder and cold temperatures they didn't really work for me for reasons already mentioned. The point about not taking them off is key, in my view. I never have a problem with goggles fogging up, irrespective of brand, but will never take them off all day when I'm out. Photochromic lenses mean I don't even have to take them off when the light changes.

Barcelona, eh, cool place. That's an old video of somewhere you'll likely recognise. For Europe, I'd buy a European car and a European snowboard. As people pointed out you can't read too much into length as performance is more about flex and design and materials. Hence you can't expect to compare boards of similar lengths over time, or even across manufacturers, or even within a manufacturer. Not all manufacturers are good on their recommended weight range (they make them broad to increase sales but it makes it hard to choose without riding). I'd look out for stuff which is modern, as I like modern boards better. I'd avoid extreme stuff (massive American boards or very narrow Virus boards). I like F2 stuff a lot, and there's a lot of it about. They have multiple constructions and the designs aren't all consistent, so you really need to check whatever you think you may like. That's a 156 in the video in ordinary use in the video. I haven 't ridden the Rossi so don't know how it may be. If you could describe what it feels like, and what you'd like to work better, then that may give some pointers. I've owned a few boards, but not enough to make any sensible statistics. Personally I like "slalom style" boards, but there are quite a few different styles and until you've ridden a few it's hard to know what would work best. Finally.. there are lots of places in Europe where you can demo boards. There's nothing to stop you "demoing" a new board then using the experience gained to look for one 2nd hand. Check the manufacturers' websites and they may have information on where they are going to be attending things, or look for "Carving Masters" or other similar events. Those events have a second secret weapon, too.... other people who can show you what works, or even lend you gear.

As a foreigner, these days I fly in, hire a car, and go where the best snow is. Early season Whistler's pretty reliable; Banff I tend to favour later in the season. I'd add to the above: Whistler and Banff are the two real "destination resorts", so you could go there without transport and be fine. They also have the best food out of all these. There are a couple of good hotels there, but mostly you pay more for accommodation here than other places: the "value" isn't great. With "Banff" you're doing busses or driving around: the hills are a way away. Whistler is a bit of a "circus" or "zoo" which is either good or bad depending on your perspective. As alluded to, it's coastal so it gets a lot of snow, and as it's coastal sometimes it's warmer than you'd like. Translation: expect rain at lower levels, but the off piste gets "reset" every day or two. All the other places are more "town hills". Big White/ Silver Star are slightly different as they were developed for a lot of Ozzy tourists, so they're somewhere in between. They're not fancy places with dancing and stuff - if that's your thing go to Whistler. The restaurants have been pretty limited during my trips Hotels are always cheaper in the smaller hills, and there are fewer "wannabe" people there so often the powder lasts longer. Revelstoke has "the biggest sex shop in the west" which may tell you all you need to know. Or not. Last time I was there, there was one decent restaurant in the place, but that's not why people go. Golden's not dissimilar. Smaller places like Panorama and Kimberly are fun too. Sometimes I'll drive through and stay a day in each place, moving on after riding. I don't really have a favourite; to me any ski resort is excellent when the snow's "on" and garbage when it isn't.

The last time people slagged off my snowboard like that they were actually skiers, in the early days of the sport.

It depends what you mean. Before I'd got my own 10,000 hours I would go ride plastic in the rain every chance I had, because I knew that was the only way to get good at this. It really works, too - people I know whose attitude was more "quality" at that stage in their career... are still at that stage. But if you spend a lot of time riding good snow, and if you've spare funds, then sooner or later you get to the point when you ask yourself if you also need to ride bad snow. You can see that in most people who live in resorts - the tourists are out every day, but the locals pick and choose. Or like my SLC mates, you take that first tram and maybe a couple more, but there's no need to fight for lines once it starts to get tracked. But I don't take prisoners, so the answer to this dilemma is.... it's not a dilemma at all, you just need to take a large quality of high quality of snow

Hi Peter, Good to hear from you! I seem to remember you offered to lend me one of your boards, but having looked at the steepness of that slope I decided my nuts were not of sufficient diameter for the task in hand. Yeah, I have a bunch of pictures - eg the one enclosed here, if that works. You're welcome to them of course. There's a personal message system here - send me one of those with your email in it and I can get you some images. My system says that was 2005, Canon 1Ds (I need to write that down so I don't have to look for it again later!). P

Yes, perhaps I should have said "relatively poor", or "from an ordinary background". When I first visited Wiegele I arrived on the Greyhound and flew standby. I used overnight bus to get there to save the cost of a night in a hotel. I had to work the numbers hard to make it happen, and it was a "once in a lifetime" deal. Mike treated people with private jets and watch-winding machines the same as people like me. I liked that, so I made some money and went back. It took me a while to earn enough to even deal with down days as a concept: you avoid that if you fly standby.

It wasn't unexpected, this last couple of years. He was still pretty much around until then, although he hasn't been running the place for quite a while now. You can still go if you can get into Canada. He was a crazy Austrian guy, but he wasn't bothered about where you came from or what you rode: his business always treated poor snowboarders like me just the same as they treated the richest old school skiers. That's why he got most of my heli money. In fact he's still got some of it and I'll be there, Covid permitting, to collect on some of it in December. I'm sorry he's gone, but he had about as good a run as any of us can expect.

What he said. You can spend a lot, but it's mostly optional. My care hire was very cheap, although the attempts to sell me over-the-desk extras were exceptionally aggressive. The desk man insisted that just driving in Iceland would result in me being liable for €9,000 to repaint a car which was worth less than that and which already had damage to every panel, some of it rusting. I laughed and suggested he bill me in advance and then my lawyers would sort it out later.... a successful bluff call. Also I actually had to extend my trip by a few days, and my car rental got significantly cheaper (!), so shop around! Americans seem to like being in "tour groups" and you can pay a lot for that if you want it. On the other hand Iceland's like anywhere else, you can just park (mostly for free) and walk where you want. For example up to that volcano in the image. They'll charge you to "lead" you there if you want, but it's optional. The car I did hire was a stick-shift, although in Europe we mostly all started with those so it's no problem. Even so, it took a couple of times for me to remember how the things work. The roads are exceptionally quiet though, so there's really no stress to driving there. Lots of the USA is pretty amazing too, but Iceland's certainly a very different place and worth a gander. There are lift-accessed ski hills, but it's going to be mostly dark when those are open. You can "tour" there to access the snow in the long days, but otherwise it's a heli place really. I didn't see anyone in the hills there at all, not one person, other than us.

I'm still laughing at the pond-skin concept. Yeah, it's not cheap, but then there's not a lot of competition in terms of accessible places with good snow at this time of year. Brown sugar... I think it's a combination of maybe wind-blown dust and dirt from the rocks. It's generally pretty good to ride on for whatever reason. Here's a kit dump. I was riding my Burton Dump Truck which was perfect in this snow (although too wide for much of the stuff I encountered in 2019 I thought). The transceiver is the Arva Evo 5 which I really like. Those things are way better than they used to be. We were using Black Diamond electric air bags (not shown), which are lighter than those I've used previously. There were a few sloughs around but nothing felt like it could remotely slide - there's just the one layer in this, it's all consolidated. And here's a shot from this afternoon from the active volcano, which is about 6 hours drive from the snow, being in the bottom left hand corner and near the international airport.

A little later and a different tenure. The snow here's much better. Steeper than this shot looks, about 800m vertical from the top to the sea. There's a 30m cliff with waterfalls at the bottom, so you can't quite get to the water. There were whales in there, we say three flying back over it. Another camera phone shot. A sponsored local who was pretty good on the soft boots. She was interested in boot technology and, like me, thinks snowboard boots have been somewhat in a rut for 30 years. Looking for whales on the way home. Note the avionics, which are more electronic than older machines.

I'm sorry to hear that. I was reading this as I'm interested in how things are going in Canada, a place I care about. People I worked with in the UK have been "in the front line" of Covid. They were exposed to the virus before we had decent PPE and vaccines, because it was their job to help the sick. Some died. I just walked away from a dinner table where some right wing moron was spouting off about how much he dislikes being told not to kill more of us. I did not walk away because I'm a "snow flake",

Iceland is full of Brits and Americans. One of them has hard boots. They have strict Covin control measures, for which I'm truly thankful. I'm safer here than in my own country, where we have a populist leader. These guys really understand the sacrifices necessary for freedom.

Oh, something new to try. I like the look of that. I guess my main problem as a hard-booter would be the width... riding wide boards (eg my Burton Dump Truck) with 45/35 angles and hard boots isn't great on piste because it's too wide at around 26cm waist. The lever on the edge doesn't work - my heel/toes are too inboard so getting the board on edge on hardpack isn't easy. Of course powder is fine. The waist width is essentially identical to this Kessler, so I guess I would have the same problem. Maybe I can make it work if I go a bit wider. I can't remember what my first ever snowboard boot angles were - the bindings were mounted directly on the board. I think they were maybe 35/18 or something like that. Hmm.

Holy necro Please don't make me read back through all this to remember which boards were rockered and which weren't. I do remember riding rockered boards when they were in fashion - Burton and Lib I think. I didn't really find the rockers much different, other than that the noses had a tendency to wander a bit if you didn't discipline it. Not a big deal, but you don't, in my view, get the benefits which skiers seem to get from their rockers, possibly because of the difference in load as applied to a board versus a ski. The board I actually liked was the Burton Joy Stick which was playful and maybe had less pronounced rocker, or at least not so much as to be annoying. I did ride with people who were on banana and similar boards, none of them could ride, but that was probably not the fault of the boards which no doubt would have been fine if the riders were good enough. Me, I have two boards, one for piste & resort powder, and the other for the deep stuff. It's not a significant issue to fly with two boards (I used to fly with 3), and that works well. For powder I want taper and width, for piste I want Mr Kessler's finest.

That's pretty much answered that one - thanks. I'm thinking that I'm at the point where it's remarkable that I'm doing this stuff at all, never mind doing it with excessive style, so I think I'll start building gently. My drop there wasn't huge so carving out in the one feasible direction was straightforward. I'm not much of a "grab" person in so much as it seems a bit affected, but maybe I'll give the tail grab and the shifty a shot. (In other news, it's still illegal to travel from here to the snow, but that may change this month, and there's still snow in Iceland and Greenland if you know a man with a helicopter, so all is not yet lost... )

Snowbird - one of the lifties just gave it to me. I think it was because I was ripping the place up somewhat, and at least from what various regulars said, they obviously get a lot of learner snowboarders there. It's a good sticker though, the only one I have on there - if you know why it's funny then you can probably ride.

Actually for that one I used the same pole - a Delkin KaBoom, which is multi-segment but fixed length. Google tells me that one's 50.8 – 152.4 cm, or 20″ to 60″. I broke that pole after many years and ended up with a Rode microphone boom which is three simple carbon fibre sections. I like it, and shot the thing below with two of those sections. As both sections are necessarily long, it's a bit of a hassle to transport. The edit posted earlier was my first attempt with the 360 camera, so I experimented with a few of those editing things. It is pretty neat in than you can effectively create your angles after the event. The difficulty in editing was more that with that camera (the now obsolete Rylo) you had to do the 3D editing on the mobile phone app. So I crop and pan segments out of the 3D sphere using the Rylo phone app, then export those as ordinary 2D videos. Then I use DaVinci resolve to cut those together. So the edit process has that extra mobile phone based step, which is the difficulty. Now you've reminded me I'll go and check if there are free plug-ins which will edit 360 video in DaVinci Resolve - that's what I really need, so I don't have to bother with the phone app at all. Other people may be happy with the phone on it's own, but I like the big desktop editor toys. Overall, as you end up dealing with video optimized for mobile devices, and mostly (in my case) lower resolution that 4k once it's cropped, you actually need less compute power That said, these days power is no longer the issue it once was: computers are mostly powerful enough. Note that the spherical video from these consumer 360 cameras (including all the current "action" ones) is typically 5.6K or some such, which is obviously bigger than 4k. However if you are cropping a conventional 2D video out of that sphere, then you're not using most of those pixels, hence the actual video quality is not very good or clear - it's much lower/ worse than the 4k you can get from any modern GoPro for example. Hence I'm waiting for a lightweight 360 camera capable of being cropped down to 4k: then I'll be happy. Well for a while

Or: "Jumping for adults". I know how to jump with my snowboard. I mean, if there's a cliff or a pillow I'll ride over it with a bit of speed and then try to deal with the landing, mostly by ensuring there's at least 3m of powder where I'm heading. After that it's just a question of if I ride out of the crater or not. You can't really see it in the image below from today, but bottom right there's a small ramp. It's maybe a meter tall fashioned as a mellow "roller". It's "passive", in that it doesn't do anything to your balance should you hit it (there's no "kicker"). If a hard booter his it full speed there's just about enough space down there to put in a turn before the fence at the bottom. Soft booters generally spin just above the snow then crash or sideslip away - I've no desire to do that. I'm trying to get straight in my head what the best technique is for hard booting a roller like this is. I can simply suck it up and take minimal air; I can hit it straight or hit it at an angle; or I can extend violently as I get to the lip. I'm not really interested in tricks at all, but I am interested in the best technique for rollers, for I suppose (a) height; and (b) length of air, and maybe (c) maximum hard boot style [which has to be very different from spinny tricks]. Anyone got any tips?