Aracan
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Posts posted by Aracan
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Board design has come a long way since your Rossi was new, so any board from the last ten years or so will make big difference. The question is what you want your board to do. Dedicated groomer boards come in different flavors from slalom to GS and EC. Since you are in Europe, the majority of used boards will be F2, with some Virus, Kessler and Oxess in between. These are all renowned brands. Unfortunately I have no personal experience with any of them.
There is also Swoard, which focus on EC but can be ridden in a quite relaxed manner, I am told.
And finally Pureboarding, which are dedicated do-all boards. I love mine, but they rarely appear in the classifieds.
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Ah yes, Felix Wankel. His harangues about "shakemills" (piston engines) and the inherent flaw of a design that requires converting an up-and-down motion into a circular one instead of STARTING with a circular motion are legendary. Also legendary are the two-or-three finger salutes Ro 80 (how far ahead of its time was that car!) owners supposedly gave each other to indicate how many engines they had already gone through …
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As I was doing after-season maintenance, it occurred to me that I don't have a good idea what our equipment actually weighs. Time to grab the kitchen scales and see for myself. Here are the results, in case you are interested:
Pure Boarding Bastard 168, glass board, 24.5 cm waist: 3.1 kg (6.8 lbs)
Coiler Contra 166 (plus off-piste nose, so actually more like a 172), 24 cm waist: 3.66 kg (8 lbs)
F2 Race Ti bail bindings, size L, pair: 1.58 kg (3.5 lbs)
Jack-up plates (pair): .4 kg (.9 lbs)
UPZ RC10, 278/299 mm, shells only, DGSS, pair: 3.78 kg (8.3 lbs)
same with Deeluxe liner: 4.28 kg (9.4 lbs)
UPZ RC8, 278/299 mm shells only, DGSS, pair: 3.92 kg (8.6 lbs)
same with stock liner: 5.3 kg (11.7 lbs)
Yes, those UPZ stock liners are REALLY heavy. Not sure why the Contra is so much heavier than the Bastard. Can it be the metal?
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Not too bad a season, especially considering that it didn't kick off until January for lack of snow. Went out about 25 times, I believe, many of them very nice days. It looks perfectly wintery now here (we had a few days of snowfall until the day before yesterday), but the gondola closed after Easter, and my season ended on Thursday before, due to Covid.
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I just googled Korean Snowboard Carving. Helmets all over the place. Your Google must be different.
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Mine was done by a designer colleague who likes to dabble in comic art in his spare time. I can put you in touch if you like.
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Too cute! Should have thought of that when ours was small.
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On 3/19/2021 at 3:05 PM, Neil Gendzwill said:
It’s a balance. The problem with not mandating seatbelts or motorcycle helmets is that people are idiots, by and large.
Which is exactly the point of mandates. I remember but cannot find an article about the helmet mandate in professional ice hockey. There were all manner of good, solid arguments for wearing a helmet. But the players, being, as a type, young and, by the nature of their profession, not adverse to risk, just wouldn't wear them. As a consequence, they kept getting their skulls cracked, being hospitalized and, in some cases, crippled. Until helmets were mandated, upon which everbody wore a helmet, many players who would have been injured without a helmet did not get their skull cracked and did not end up in hospital and maybe crippled.
My point is that we, as cavemen, are sometimes rather bad at making reasonable choices involving activities that were not popular in caveman times (such as motorcycling or snowboarding). And sometimes it can be a good idea to have reason mandated.
Before anyone asks: I snowboard with a helmet, I don't ride bikes. Where I live, bike helmets are mandatory. Winter sports helmets (and bicycle helmets) are mandatory for children, but not for adults. Everybody wears one on the slopes.
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On 1/7/2021 at 5:14 PM, Mord said:
The kingpin + set screw design seems to be the best way to go in terms of adjustability and rigidity.
The Phiokka H-Uno looks to be designed along similar principles.
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15 hours ago, Chouinard said:
How many laps can you get in a days worth of riding?
I don't usually do days, because, truth be told, my endurance doesn't support it. At least not if I am actually carving. I know skiers in their 80s who will do double digits on that hill, and my wife tells me she used to do the run on skis in about 12 minutes as a kid. Factor in gondola time and you can do at least two runs per hour. But we all know that relaxed skiing is very different from committed carving.
Myself, I do 1-2 runs if it is my lunch break, 3-4 leisurely runs if I have more time, and call it a day. It's only five minutes from my house, so most of the overhead time goes into getting dressed.
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Makes me appreciate my local hill even more. One 11-km-run. One 30-person gondola that takes about 15 minutes up (usually 60 persons, but in these here times …).
Means I would have to be VERY stupid to get hit.
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On 3/12/2021 at 8:28 PM, barryj said:
Under most circumstances I'm finding my rear knee is lagging behind the turn and I have to consciously pull my rear knee in towards my front knee for best heel side results.
Sorry for chiming in late, but is that really a problem? Personally, I usually pull my rear knee in automatically. However, this past season I have tried letting it trail and only pulling it in when necessary. When I remember to that, it gives me a kind of motional reserve to be used when needed.
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I have only a few days on the Contra, but I tend to agree: If you weigh the tail of a Contra towards the end of a backside turn, it may become difficult to change edges.
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Hell, how many carving outfits do you own?
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2 minutes ago, Jack M said:
I am deliberately very careful to time when I start downhill with the ebb and flow of the crowd.
+1
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4 minutes ago, Rusty Edges said:
The skiiers code of "downhill rider has right of way" has been lost for some time.
Skiers (and many snowboarders) seem inherently unable to sense that someone who has already made two turns across the fall line might add a third one. It usually comes as a surprise to them.
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I notice I haven't posted the board Bruce built for me to replace the Nirvana I destroyed after only five days last season. It's a Contra 166, 24 cm wait, 11 m SCR. Topsheet is the same as the Nirvana (second board from the right in the pic). I have already had it out a few times - one sweet ride, and edgehold feels noticeably superior to the Nirvana.
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I don't think that's him. This is his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ETM360/videos
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Here you go. Be warned that one thing the guy has not managed in two years is find someone to take video of him putting his ideas to work. I do believe he'll sell you a board, though.
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There is a guy on another, softboot-focused, forum who seems to have found the holy grail of carving. He is a big guy and swears by boards with about 100 cm effective edge (yes, you read that right) ... The thread is now as long as my arm and I cannnot really make sense of his explanations, but if somebody wants to dig in, I can offer the link.
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I can spend my lunchbreak on the hill.
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If memory serves, a rental Elite was the very first board I ever set foot on, must have been around 1990.
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Memory does serve now. It was a Cruzer, not an Elite. Close enough, I guess ...
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1 hour ago, MNSurfer said:
Interesting. It seems UPZ does have a web store: \
I think that is Dan Yoja's store, not Wolfgang Aigners
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Dan Yoja's site shows one last pair of RC12 in that shell size. He also seems to stock the XC12. Personally, I would prefer the XC12 because the spring system has more adjustability and more travel.
Did you e-mail Wolfgang at UPZ to check availability? I am asking because they do not have a webshop and never had one, to my knowledge (although I, too, have ordered from them directly).
Virus Snowsports still seems to carry 324 mm shells. So does Goltes.
Board Storage
in Carving Central
Posted · Edited by Aracan
I use a different IKEA-based solution, because I wanted the boards as close to the wall as possible (because the passage is narrow enough as it is).
The black brackets on top are towel hangers, bottoms are bathroom shelves made from bamboo. Because it turned out the boards were too heavy for the latter, I added wooden blocks to keep the shelves from sagging.