crackaddict

The new Thirst 8RW is the best new thing in alpine snowboard design since titanal. This is an amazing and unique board with design features that fly in the face of what we'll now have to refer to as 'traditional' snowboard shapes. Yes, it rides. But let's talk about the design characteristics first, so we will have some context to discuss the feel. Mark has been building boards for decades, but pretty much in near-complete isolation. Only a select few had ridden his boards before these last few years, and he has himself has hardly ridden any other snowboards. Also, Mark is a free carver and not a racer, so his board designs push towards the ultimate carving experience rather than being influenced by what might get a rider through the gates faster. I like to imagine him like a surfboard shaper, adding a little here and shaving a little there every time out to get a bit closer to that perfect ride. So what has Mark come up with in his black box alpine snowboard laboratory? Quite a few design ideas and assembly techniques beyond my understanding, but at least a few wild ones which I can try to explain. First, the 8RW is asymmetrical. Asym seems to make sense, and Mark is not the first to try it, but the Thirst is asym in opposite ways to traditional asym. Heelside sidecut is shifted forward instead of back, and the toeside sidecut is tighter! The core and carbon layers are also asymmetrical, taking into consideration the fact that goofy and regular riders will apply forces to the board at different points. Second, the variable sidecut is the reverse of what we're used to seeing from other alpine snowboard manufacturers. That is to say, the sidecut radius is tightest near the feet and straighter near the nose and tail! I suspect this is necessary to accommodate the nose and tail shapes, which are straighter and longer than traditional. It is as though Mark has planed off the areas where the effective edge ends and elongated the nose and tail, thereby eliminating those rounded 'hooky' section. So to maintain sidecut depth, the 8RW scr has to be tighter near the centre. (The only other board I've ridden without that hooky nose and tail shape is the Furberg Freeride. Also a wild design, and also highly recommended.) Third, Mark's cores are built up in layers rather than shaved out of a block. The cores also run right up past the effective edge into the tip and tail to help smooth out the ride. Not surprisingly, this board rides quite differently from any other I've tried. It doesn't want the rider to throw their weight forward at initiation and back at the turn finish, and it won't really respond much to this technique. Rather, it wants the rider to stay centered on the board throughout the carve. Without that fore-aft motion on every turn, the rider's upper body is more relaxed and quiet, and you don't need your arms so much for balance anymore. The 8RW also doesn't want you to over rotate. It'll tighten up for sure when you put two hands down, but it seems to prefer just one, and quite often it's the elbow anyway. So rather than crouching down, diving toward the centre of your next steep turn, and putting both hands down before you even build up much edge pressure (to tighten up the turn radius more traditionally), the 8RW want you to remain more upright and just tip it over. It's more of a patience turn than an aggressive push-pull, favouring balance over power, at least for bigger turns. It's a nice easy initiation, a smooth turn with a thin track, and a slow controlled exit to give you plenty of time to set up the next one. To adjust your radius,you just tip it up higher and/or push harder. In short radius mode, the rider gets as low as ever, the board comes around fast and has enough pop to toss you into the next turn. To tighten up a steep turn in a bottleneck for example, you're gonna want to push hard and then use that built up energy to jump a bit in the transitions. It's not a subtle difference. Without having to throw your weight forward and back, and with the reduced rotation required, the 8RW rides very smoothly. One might say it's a board you ride rather than one you drive; the board does more of the work for you so you're not fighting with it so much. It's less fatiguing too with a calm and quiet upper body. You might notice right away that you don't know what to to with your arms now that they're not flailing for balance. You might find you're having so much fun that you don't want to go home even after the cord is thrashed. Then you might notice that the 8RW doesn't care that the cord is thrashed, it just keeps carving smoothly and you're getting super low and taking moguls in the chest! After a few days you might feel your cheeks flapping in the wind and realize that even your face is relaxed now... So yes, it's a killer ride and different from anything you're likely to have experienced. It did take me a few days to build up my confidence and adjust my technique, but the more I ride it, the more I like it (six days now). Whether it remains my new favorite after the novelty wears off, you'll have to ask me mid-season next year. Or better yet, just look under my boots at Turner to see what I've settle on. The 8RW is a medium speed board which will initiate at very low speed for a 185, and will still carve smoothly when you're going pretty fast. It's very forgiving of rider mistakes and it'll reset itself when you do lose an edge. It'll hold it own on ice and blast through chop. What it does best is allow the rider to minimize superfluous movement and remain upright, relaxed and smooth, and it does this far better than anything else I've ever ridden. What I would really love to ride next year is a titanal version of the 8RW. Preferably with the .4mm stuff to add more power to my turns, lower the frequency (Hz) of the chatter and eliminate that loud noise the 8RW makes on ice (like the universe is tearing apart). It's truly amazing what Mark has done with wood, glass and carbon, but let's face it, titanal makes everything better right? I'd also like to try it with a hair less sidecut depth so I can push harder in a wide turn and stay low for longer, and maybe even a little bit of that traditional hooky rounded shape put back into the tail so my carved 360s look more like circles and less like eggs. Great work Mark. Thanks for making my spring! To anyone else who got through this entire review: yes, it's still snowing in Revelstoke, right down to the valley. Lifts are spinning for nine more days and I'm not done yet!

I got a new one too! Thirst 8RW WARP185. This is a very impressive smooth ride. Look for the full review next week after a few more groomer days and some more back-to-back comparison riding. Today was day two; my knees, butt and elbows were seeing more skimming action than usual... Tomorrow looks like more killer corduroy high on the mountain in Revelstoke.

Sweet ride. I got mine a few days ago. Full review to come after a few more groomer days. For now, suffice it to say that by the sixth turn I found myself wondering what to do with my outside hand...

Hmmm... How late will they stay open? The snowpack must be pretty deep right now.

@1xsculler: I don't know if you can 'try' softboot carving in your UPZs, no matter how wide your board is...

Shall we take this in a new direction then? Fast-forward to a time when everybody and their dog is carving snowboards. Surely the demand for better turns will produce some killer, high performance, all-mountain, lightweight step-in systems which minimize drag so we can ride narrow boards again. But what about my ego? Being the only hardbooter here pretty much makes me the best carver on the mountain by default, and I've gained a reputation as such. How will it be when the next generation grows up carving? Will I just be another old man taking up too much space on the hill? I like that my equipment and my style are unique and impressive; I get a lot of hoots and high fives, but that could end when everybody is doing it. Sure, someone will call me out for being all about ego, and sure I may be slightly more likely to skid a bad section if no one is watching, but I'm only human and I like the ego boost. While I would like to think I would choose an empty slope over an audience every time, I have been known to lay a track down under the Stoke chair from time to time (read: every morning first thing when there's corduroy, again and again until it's shot). I have to imagine there are quite a few others on this site who are the best carvers at their local hills, also by default. Don't you all enjoy the respect and recognition that comes with that position? Thing is, I've seen this happen in climbing. Access to the sport at a younger age combined with better training techniques and more available facilities and mentors have skyrocketed climbing levels beyond what could have been imagined twenty years ago. As the sport grew in popularity, more people were trying it and the naturally gifted discovered their mutant finger strength and kept at it. Whereas I used to get noticed for my ability, now teenagers warm up on stuff I'll never climb, and I'm just that old man waiting his turn to 'try'. Ego killer. And what about the corduroy? Firm and man-made snow can last all day, but we sometimes get corduroy so soft I can put a three inch trench through it with my hand. It doesn't last long, but it'll last 'till ten sometimes if no one trenches it up. Most skiers and riders will just skid along the top and enjoy the smoothness, but as soon as I lay a track down, those same people are now turning harder to avoid that track, digging their edges in and starting to form moguls. So how will it be when there are dozens of carvers competing for the corduroy every morning? Will soft, fresh groom become as rare and sought after as soft, fresh powder? Will I have to get in line early even when it doesn't snow? On the upside, in this imaginary future when everybody is carving, my friends want to ride the same runs as I do, and at the same pace too. Folks are more aware of arcing carvers and don't try to pass them either. So ya, it's great that more people are carving soft boots, but if it doesn't catch on, that's okay with me too.

Thanks for the feedback BOL! To clarifiy, the problem is not that the position is too upright, it's that it has a lot (maybe too much) range of forward motion when locked. The flex is coming from the boot cuff hinging, and the boot is designed to flex that way, I'm just not sure I'm gonna like the ride. I like stiff boards, stiff bindings, and over-tightened boots in good conditions. I even order my boards with round sidecuts and low taper to get that 'locked-in' feel. Set up this way, I can take all the pressure off my feet and ankles, straighten my legs and absorb imperfections in the corduroy with my core. I can carve with a very quiet upper body and make it look like the board is doing all the work. It looks and feels like I'm just leaning and twisting, standing upright. (Not recommended when the conditions are rough; hitting holes or bumps with straight legs and relaxed ankles can put a lot of impact on the spine.) I'm worried that the new boots won't allow me to make this kind of relaxed, stylish turn and that I will have to maintain some tension in my ankles and some bend in my knees (which is what I do anyway when the conditions are less than great or the pitch is more than blue). So I know that "proper technique" involves a lot of movement in the knees and ankles, but my best turns are all made with barely perceptible movements. While I teach new carvers to exaggerate their compression/ decompression, I prefer to minimize it in my own freecarves as the conditions and terrain allow. This is why I started thinking last night that racers (or "racists", as they've been called recently) want that range of motion but maybe I don't. Interesting to see some of them locking out that forward range of motion. Maybe the BTS-like progressive flex is for less aggressive or lower, knees-to-chest/ butt-to-boot-top carving (and 'skivoting')? If there's no one here who prefers the 700T for stiffness and lower range of forward motion over the UPZ, I'll order the race tongues and hard springs and start tinkering. Has anyone switched from BTS to stock locking lean mechanisms and preferred the latter for freecarving? Or do people only go one way and never go back? I know Jack despises the stock Deeluxe mechanism, but that doesn't necessarily mean everybody does. The fit is good, the comfort will take some time and probably new liners. Good chance I'm going to love these boots after tinkering, but it's an expensive first run and then I'm committed. I'm afraid that I may have bought the wrong boots, but it might just be the crack making me paranoid. I can buy a lot of crack for the cost of these boots, but anyway I'll probably need both for great carves. (Anyone in the market for a used pair of HSP 27.5? I need the cash for crack and race cuffs!) Wish I had taken the time to try all the available boots in Aspen last year. I was just having too much fun to do any 'work'. Threadjack: turns out the boot ramp angle is not much different between the HSP and the RC11, despite internet rumours to the contrary. I had my spare cants all ready to mount last night, but the boots didn't feel so drastically different so I undertook some measurements. Methodology #1: place the boot shell against a wall, drop a stick in the heel and mark the top of the stick on the wall. Do the same with the stick near the toe. Now repeat with the other boot. Measure the distance between the two lines for each boot and some basic trigonometry will yield the boot ramp angles. Methodology #2: drop a torpedo level inside the boot and put shims under the front of the boot until the bubble is centered. Measure the shims for each boot and do the math. Results and conclusions: the difference between the gaps on the lines on the wall across the two boot models was about 1/16 of an inch. The difference between the height of the shims was also about the same. With the math, I get approximately 7.7 degrees on the HSP and 8.3 degrees on the RC11. There's some of room for error here, but I maintain the difference between the two boot ramp angles is less than one degree. (With my methodologies, the difference between the boot models is measured more accurately than the actual ramp angles quoted.) One degree is not enough to warrant changing my cants or my stance. There are better ways of measuring boot ramp angles and I encourage the folks at home to try their own method and post the results.

New UPZ RC11s arrived today in blue. Been wearing them around the house a bit and I'm not sure this is my boot. With one boot on each foot I have as much fore/aft range of motion in the RC11 locked in forward lean as I do with the HSP in walk mode! That worries me. With the HSP locked forward I can pressure the boot tongue on my toeside and relax my feet and ankles when the cord is smooth. I don't think I'm going to be able to do that in the new boots. Pressuring the bootcuff of an over-tightened boot is an essential part of my best turns. I don't like riding the HSP in walk mode; I lock both boots in the most forward position and ride the stiffest bindings I can get (TD3 SI). Did I buy the wrong boot? I can still send them back if I don't ride them. It's snowing here, so I have a few days to decide... Is it possible that racers want that progressive flex and range of motion for ice and ruts but some freecarvers prefer a stiffer boot for better conditions? Freecarvers do generally prefer stiffer bindings than racers... Will I be happier in the Deeluxe Track 700T? Is it stiffer? Less range of motion when locked? With a wide forefoot, these two models seem my only options. I do like the performance of the HSP boot a lot, but I've never tried any other snowboard-specific hardboot or BTS. This RC11 seems like a very different boot. So should I order the race tongue set and start cranking the flex adjustment nuts on the RC11s or trade up while I still can?

I was thinking something more like 'master booter'...

Definitely switch out the stock liners. I like something with a high collar and a hard plastic tongue for extra stiffness. High end ski shops stockpile boot liners as they sell custom liners with new boots. These go for cheap, and some are decent. Booster strap sounds like a great idea too. I might try that tomorrow. Off topic: how it that Mig is a Groomer Grommet with 256 posts and 124 points, while daveo is a Rider Extraordinaire with only 164 posts and 12 points? I pushed past 100 posts this week thinking I could finally choose my own rank or at least be promoted, but I'm still a Groomer Grommet. What the heck Bomber? I've been a member for 11 years! How many posts does it take? Why does daveo outrank Mig?

I'm gonna have to call you out Sol. You use phrases "little buddy" and "9 out of 10" to put others down, then tell us we're the yentas. You describe precisely the single style you accept as a good carve "getting low without using their arm as a complete crutch", then slag on others for "rhetoric of what snowboarding or carving should be". You brag about your skill "been riding since 85' at every level except WC's. Getting low on hero corduroy (like these vids) without using my arm as a complete crutch is a non-issue, daily.". Then deny it: "My comments here are about my observations, not my skill". Skeezrule? No. More likely he's a Russian bot designed to divide the hardboot snowboard community and breed distrust of institutions.

That's why we want video proof...

I warned you Sol, it's not appropriate to use "goofy" in such a context. You haven't been here long enough to judge everybody in one fell swoop. Social status here is determined in large part by your contribution to the hardbooting community; by how helpful and welcoming you are to newbies, by how you handle your sales of used gear, by whether you show up to gatherings and events, loan out your equipment, and promote the sport generally. You want to come here and bash riders who can't keep up with you? Or who you perceive to be overstating their skills? Most of the best snowboard carvers on the continent have accounts here. Who's going to vouch for your riding? In the absence of video proof, you come off as exactly what you pretend to despise. Your trolling has gone a bit far. It seems you're the biggest yenta of all this week. For the confused: "yenta" is a yiddish word for a loud old squawking woman.

@SolRosenburg: Nice first post, just coming out swinging eh? Welcome to Bomber, troll away. No need to edit out the politics next time, a lot of us appreciate the entertainment value. But please be careful of using "goofy" in a derogatory way. Some of my best friends are goofy.

Here's another van pic then. 1981 E-250 4x4, full custom. Queen bed, deluxe coffee maker, propane fridge, oven and furnace, solar panels and emergency pee tube. Crack-ho magnet... Though it would seem that I'm past my van dwelling phase, I did take it to WTF last month. Maybe going back next week for the nipple drag if the cord is better.

Hey West, Ya it started out as my usual loop around the "slow" sign, and then continued stretching out as I looked for fresh cord to scrub speed on subsequent runs.. I might try the olympic rings on the next sunny day, then we'll have to start a "trench art" thread and see what folks can come up with.

Need some new liners and these are a favorite. Did five runs on this chair yesterday morning..

Do not just fill it with wax as suggested above. Snow and water will work their way into the wood core which will eventually warp and your board will never ride the same. Keep it waterproof. Any local shop will fix that for not much cash. Costs ten bucks up here for base repair.

Bump. Still available.

oops

True dat! Witnessed Rob riding that thing yesterday at NES, just ripping up the steep hardpack, dragging his butt with a duck stance! Savage for sure. We're gonna set him up on a Coiler in Revestoke on Monday and watch the magic happen. Back to the main thrust of this thread, I ride a custom Donek Sabre SRT Twin 165 with a 12m sidecut and 31cm wide waist. Yes, it's a beast but it rails hard with no boot out. The cord here is often quite soft and deep, and on those soft days I'm glad to have that extra width. Driver X size 10, 15/30 degrees. IMHO, appropriate waist width should be determined not only by your foot size, but also by the type of snow you ride and your carving style. I like to push really hard in my turns and make big boards turn tight. I also like to straighten out my legs whenever possible which causes more boot out than a lower, bent knees position (but looks and feels cooler). Bottom line: don't be afraid to go wide if boot out is a problem for you. A lot of intermediate carvers can get away with a slight boot overhang on firm snow, but if you're a ripper and ride soft cord, don't be afraid to go 30cm or more at the waist. Sure, it's a bit more work to transition edge to edge, but once you get going it's less noticeable and you can push as hard as you like without fear of the dreaded boot out. On the flip side, a 30cm plus waist is not an all mountain board, it's a dedicated soft boot carver. Floats on pow for sure, but there's just so much surface area there that the impact from landing jump turns or hitting buried moguls is intense. Not recommended on inconsistent snow, but sooo fun when there's a few inches over groom.

Hey Barry, Don't give up. Put the zero cants under the plates, and try some more normal soft boot carving angles like 15/30. That Moss should be a riot even without any plates. But sorry, no refunds. J

Good to know. Thanks for sharing. Now I'm super psyched for WTF. I'll be there as long as the cord is good... Targhee is still on my top one list of funnest places to ride.

Corduroy Report for Nakiska Issued Thursday, January 11th 2018 3:20pm: The corduroy is excellent. Firm but diggable; not icy. Very smooth. 9/10. Also very cold and sticky. Bring your big boards, apply your hardest wax tonight. Hot tub report coming in one hour.

C'mon Dredman, what are the other two? I gotta know what's better than Targhee?