Phil

Nah, better would have been switch 50/50 or boardslide on said board. ;) :lol: Unfortunately, though, the pic was at MAC Tracks, so we all signed releases. Looking at the pictures, I never would have thought of that. Now if that was the case, (which I am pretty sure that it is not) that idea wouldn't be half bad.

Here is the same thread from last year.

I'll be stealing that quote (and substituting many professions for "rep").:D

Not all current Lib boards are BTX. The TRS, Dark, T-Rice, Skunk Ape and Mullet all come in MTX models. I have no interest in BTX, but I would like to try MTX.

Is there an "envious" emoticon on this board? Can't wait to see you tear that thing up!

...is to hold a limbo competition in 6-12" of slush. This one was on a slalom board (even worse for laying it down in these conditions) and his board came around so fast that he inadvertently hit the cameraman with his board - fracturing the cameraman's leg! None the less, a good time was had by all, even the cameraman. Enjoy. P.S. Is this better than talking about camber and twist?

Indeed I have not, nor do I intend to on an internet forum. We will merely discuss. I have, however, proven this on the slopes thousands of times. I agree. I hope that I did not imply otherwise. I have seen it be taught effectively the other way around, though. I have not met one that I couldn't - especially just standing there on edge. No, there is no forward movement - that would be a sideslip. You could, however, do it in a sideslip as well. Remember, I just said standing there on edge. As you stand there, twisting will disengage your edge toward the front of the board while leaving it engaged in the back. This causes your board to turn into the fall line. It's pretty simple when done on snow - the 'net probably overcomplicates it. I have heard a lot of instructors over the years say things like "put your weight over your front foot" in order to get riders to be able to turn into the fall line. I always give them a hard time and do a (static) nosepress and ask them if I have enough weight on the front foot yet. You can have all of the weight that you want on your front foot, but without disengaging the edge, the board will not turn to the fall line. Staying more centered and twisting the board, on the other hand, makes it turn very easily. Me neither. Maybe I am giving the wrong impression in my posts. The only time I MAY think about twisting the board is in short radius skidded turns. Even then, I am usually thinking about the sequential movements between my front and back foot (if I am thinking at all). Sometimes I think about it in moguls as well. The reason I got on this kick in '06 and started the thread on the other forum and then this one is that I experienced a few trainers teaching twist in carving. I have taught twist in different skills over the years, but I never taught it in hardboot carving. I went to a beginner hardboot clinic and observed the clinician teaching twist for transitions. I thought he was crazy - I would never do that. Then I watched the students get better in leaps and bounds in response to what he was teaching. I learned something that day, but I still would not teach twist to beginner carvers. Then, I attended an advanced hardboot clinic and to my surprise the clinician (a different one) taught twist there as well. Again, I was the skeptic, but again, the students' skills quickly went through the roof. I immediately went home and started discussing this online with some people. A week later, it got ugly with our old friend, so I tried to bring the conversation here in hopes of having a more civil discussion. Fast forward from 06 to 08: I still do not "own" teaching twist in hardboot carving. I am not sure that I really want to. The things that I teach for carving have been highly successful for my students and me. I do, however feel that I have a lot to learn about the topic, and therefore jumped in when you guys brought it up in the camber discussion. Carry on.

Hey Tex, Have you tried a Ripstik or Wave board? I wonder how similar, or dissimilar they would be to your Hyarc. I have really been enjoying my Ripstik this summer. It is very much like making round skidded turns on a snowboard. It is also self propelled, so it is perfect for taking my 2 and 4 years olds on a bike ride.

I guess I could have worded that better. My use of absolutes obviously distracted you from the rest of my post. The debate in AASI is more about it's usefulness, not it's existence. If you are standing on edge with your board across the fall line, you can twist your board (oppositional twist - front toes down, rear toes up) and it will cause the board to turn down the fall line. This is another example of using twist in its simplest form. Is there anything about this that you can debate (and I mean with a purpose other than just to debate it)? The fact that the earth revolves around the sun is provable. The fact that you can twist your board and make something happen is also provable.

I ride evs shorts every day on the board. They have removable hip and tailbone pads that are pretty thin and light, yet do their job well IMO. http://www.evs-sports.com/ Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like lessons would be as good an investment as pads.

It seems to me that you are missing the point of camber. Camber is not meant to be there once you are standing on the board. The more camber that exists in a board, the more potential energy you are putting into it just by standing on it. The suspension analogies above are good ones. A board with a lot of camber has a lot of potential energy stored up the instant you get on it. Now, as has been discussed above, it will be immediately responsive. There is no need to throw your weight forward, you can utilize this potential energy by staying centered if you want. So if you have two boards with the same stiffness, but one has camber built into it and the other does not, the one with the camber will be more responsive from the start. It will also have more potential energy stored up at the same speed and tilted at the same angle. So if you took two pictures, the boards would look like they are carving the same arc, but one would have more potential energy stored even though they are built with the same stiffness. I think that this is a great discussion, but it is really hard to take only one small piece of the snowboard construction equation and single it out to discuss the merits and drawbacks (as we can all see). As far as twist, I think that this is a great topic, but I don't want to threadjack the camber thread with it, so why don't we all go talk about twist here. That being said, I would like to finish by talking about transitions in this thread. There are so many ways to transition from turn to turn and they make so many different different patterns in the snow. I have been using track analysis with my students and athletes for years and I have learned that there are ways to "cheat". For example, there is one drill that we do where we have people try to make one track the whole way down the hill. An advanced rider can do this well by jumping from their toeside to their heelside edge and actually jumping up the hill into their old track. So, essentially, you will jump from your toeside edge and land in the same track with your heelside edge. I have seen a lot of people do it so consistently that when we travel back up the lift, there really looks like there is one uninterrupted line the whole way down the hill. I have also had them try to go so quickly from edge to edge that it looks like there is a complete board length of overlap. Now if you do this with a hop, you have total overlap and no "flat spot" because your board never goes flat. As far as twisting is related to tracks, I am not as convinced about this, but I really don't feel that anyone has ever proved it to me one way or the other. I am sure that there is some effect, but I think that those who deliberately employ twist probably overstate how much effect it has on transition lines. Oh, here is a new post: Actually, I have found quite the contrary. Reading stuff like this helps me to learn a lot that will transition to the snow. As I read people's opinions on this stuff and try to understand how they ride and relate their riding to board characteristics, it helps me to understand riders, techniques, and their relationship to board characteristics. I then use this to help myself be a better trainer and coach. All of this also helps me to be a better rider because a lot of my riding and learning is very cerebral. That is just who I am. That being said, I am also very active and am in some of the best shape of my life. Wait until the season starts and everyone starts whining about their physical condition and how it is too late to hit the gym. What a lot of people don't know is that efficiency and effectiveness leading to economy of motion in your riding can get you just as far as being in shape will get you. Some people can actually get some of that efficiency and effectiveness by reading informative posts. Now we are really getting off topic.

I am bumping this thread because of the discussion in the camber thread. First of all, there is definitely a use for twist. This is not really up for debate. It is used in snowsports schools all across the US and is one of the four board performances of AASI. A very simple example is a first turn where a beginner goes from a straight glide and moves their front knee over the toes of the front foot. This distributes pressure on the toeside edge at the front of the board while the back of the board stays flat. This is skidded turn initiation in its simplest form. Of course, there are other ways to do it, but twist works in this simple description. The debate lies in whether or not twist is truly useful in higher level riding and how much of it is active and how much is passive. The late Jeff Patterson (RIP) seemed to think that it was passive and coined the phrase "twist happens" suggesting that it is not something we do, but rather something that happens because of other things that we do. The other discussion often heard is whether or not the twist is an oppositional type (eg. heel down and toe up) or whether it is more of a result of pressure distribution (eg. toes of the front foot down rear foot neutral) and sequential moves. You can twist your board by using your feet, but here is an example where simple body position will twist your board: For a recreational hardbooter, when you are in a neutral stance on your snowboard, you should be able to stand on the flat and not have any uneven pressure points. Generally, this will be accomplished by lining up shoulders over hips over knees over feet. We hardbooters have found a lot of other ways to find neutral riding positions with cants/lifts that are especially helpful if you have quirky anatomy. Your neutral position should be comfortable almost to the point where you feel like there is no snowboard on your feet. At this point, your front and rear feet should be pressuring a flat board - no uneven pressure toward the toe or heel edge. Once you achieve this, you can understand twist by rotating your upper body toward your toe or heel edge. Rotate toward the toe edge and stop - say, maybe 30 degrees. When you stop, you should feel pressure on your toe edge on your front foot and your heel edge on your back foot. Repeat the same toward your heel edge and stop (again at around 30 degrees or so). Of course, this is such a small amount of twist, but nonetheless, it is there. Now take it out on the hill. Here is just one example of how this can play out. Imagine you are in a toeside carve and are lined up well with your board right up until the time before you are going to transition. You are going to transition to your heelside, so you allow your upper body to stay static at the end of the turn while the board continues to turn under it. This will allow you to really nail the initiation of the heelside. This is called anticipation. This anticipation is getting you out of your neutral position, which will cause twist to happen as you enter and exit your transition. The reason I am using this example is because of Erik J's post: Instead of going airborne, though, you can absorb the energy from the turn and keep the board on the ground. That is where you will really see twist happen. Twist is done by the body, but exaggerated by ground reaction forces. In keeping with my above explanation, here is a pic of a super fast cross through transition from toe to heel. The turn was made with almost the exact description of anticipation that I described above. Whether or not you think that it is a pretty picture, ;) it shows a torsionally stiff board being twisted in transition. This picture is an example of a turn that incurred twist through passive means. The twist was not intentional, it was a result of the body position and the ground reaction forces (it was a hard, fast transition). The question that comes for instructors is - if "twist happens" then can we teach twist in order to help students achieve some of these higher levels of technique. I believe that we can. I use twist in mogul instruction more than anywhere else, but I have seen twist used in dynamic carving instruction be very effective (although I don't tend to use it for that).

Nice Z1 BAM on that bike. What a classic fork. The original Z1's were so far ahead of their time. Everyone else, sorry for the interruption.

Sorry, after checking it out, it seems that there is not much in the way of PJ history.

Bumpyride posted this a while ago: http://burton.emptybottleworks.com/

For those of you who do not check out BOL in the summer, you may want to visit THIS THREAD.

At night, when someone is driving behind you with their high beams on, all mirrors should be strategically aligned to shine the high beams back at the offending driver.

5'18" and some change. If you lived near me and rode the trails that I ride, you may understand FS XC a little better. Then again, at your age, it probably does not matter. When I was your age, I used to jump flights of stairs fully rigid. I knew guys who were dropping roofs fully rigid as well. Now I look back and think how stupid that was. O.K., it was not stupid, I was just young and my body could take it. All of that being said, I have been riding FS XC for the last 11 of my 20+ years of riding XC. In fact, I have not ridden less than 4" of travel on both ends since '99. The only reason that I was willing to go down to 3" now is because of the 29 hoops. That makes sense, but on a 26, I am not interested. I do have a rigid single speed, but it just collects dust. My trials bike is also rigid, for obvious reasons. My dirt jumper is a hard tail, but I would not have that any other way. Dirt jumping on FS is just too much work. My FR is sporting 6" on both ends (short by today's FR standards) and my DH is sporting 8" on both ends. I use every inch on both bikes. I understand all that you are saying and I have heard all of these arguments before. They are all of the reasons that I would only ride XC on a 29er. I have ridden with countless guys that are running your setup. It just does not interest me at all. I am glad that these bikes exist for them and for you, but it is not my cup of tea. In my opinion, on the trails around here, they have to work too hard. In the rough, they end up having to ride like trials bikes. The other thing about single speeds is that they just cannot be pedaled as fast. I like to kill it in the big ring and am always amused at the guys spinning squares trying to keep up. As far as out of the saddle efforts, I also keep them to a minimum except on downhills. Just too old for that.;) Let me know if you ever get to the Mid Atlantic and can ride. I'm sure we'd have a blast. I am not far from Diablo Freeride park. That place rocks!

My buddy who is my height (freakishly tall) bought a 29er and said that it was the first time that he felt like a bike was made for guys our size. I test rode it and ordered one for myself. '08 Kona Hei Hei 29er 22 inch frame. The thing is really nice. I still would not ride a 29er for my other rides (DH, FR, DJ), but for XC I will probably never go back to 26. Enjoy yours, they are a blast. I am not sure I would like the single speed or the rigid, though. I am too old for that kind of beating - even on a 29er.

the sound of inevitability...

The mental game involved on both sides must have made it so hard for the Lakers. The Celtics were backed into a corner in the first quarter. They then had to up their intensity and had three quarters to get it done. The Lakers, on the other hand, had to have relaxed. Who wouldn't after the greatest lead ever at the end of a finals first quarter. Inside, they must have thought that the game was certainly theirs, so they let up. Big mistake obviously.

Technically, Lakers in 7 is still POSSIBLE. Game 4 IS the greatest comeback in Finals history.

Wow indeed! Next prediction?

Next prediction?