nuejam

My room mate went to see the premier of the Nike SB "Nothing But The Truth" video premiere and described the event as devoid of any energy, an odd ritual performed in homage to the corporate attempt at the vampiric leeching of 'cool' from skaters. The corporation had done just that, it appears, taken all the reality from the skaters and their environments, turning itself into a monochrome still of 'cool' because you can't wrap a fluid idea around a product and expect it to remain vital. No doubt that watching videos of 'bigger' and 'better' is fun, and seeing clips from Alaska and the big Canadian mountains is also a thrill. But while that's exciting for my desire to slide down the steeps, the pleasure of meditation that snowboarding also offers -- the calmness of being often the only solid object in motion on an otherwise still landscape; the solitary white bunny scurrying out from within the pines; looking up in silence after tumbling into deep powder-- seems altogether lost, burned as fuel for 'more extreme.' I really liked this year's icon 5 treat DVD...

Word. Appreciating problems as they exist locally is completely necessary before hoping for change anywhere, but on a place like the internet where information is pooled and presented in a global, virtual dimension, when conversations aren't located in a certain specific space, I feel that they drift just as easily as the bits and bytes through which they are relayed... Considering that it's the capital stormclouds, dark with culpability for global warming, hovering over the PRC, to which the factory owners rain dance; the hidden upper-stratosphere of racism and indifference which lend the storm strength, it would seem almost as if the skill of 'westerners' for picking out these injustices elsewhere comes from an intimate knowledge of injustice at home. Hope that's precisely vague enough to avoid any filtering going on... on either sides of the oceans.

the sound for that movie is sick. if ever I have someone I hate I'm going to wake them up with a remix of it blasting on hi-volume. horror. snowy, white, freezing, excruciating horror. excellent.

yea, I was thinking about that and that this coming season I'll be teaching beginner lessons where we ride the lifts all around... maybe all those hours walking in the back country will absorb enough C02 in my lungs and I'll get cancer and die, and save the environment too.

Yea, I'm not concerned about the quality of the boards so much as the labour practices in use at whatever factory the boards are produced... Derf mentioned 'market price,' but paying attention to just the 'market price' at the expense of the human price, the environmental price, and the social price seems incredibly shortsighted. It's unfortunate that in pursuit of a zen-like effacement of self into nature we go riding around on boards that have the detestable capital ghost within their core. : /

Going through the dregs of footage from digital cameras last season... there happened to be some good music bytes laying around, so I spent a few hours and voila... <object width="320" height="240"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=953Bmag0D3A"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=953Bmag0D3A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="366"></embed></object> with niseko in my eyes and next season on the horizon...

like a skateboard with big rubber wheels -- there's nothing physical preventing you from taking it down a rock & dirt mountain run ;) When I bought a malolo for powder riding last season I was amazed by how much easier riding trees in the deeps became. good luck with your setup.

I've heard that Salomon bindings (SPX Pro / SPX 90) are on the stiffer end -- but then again my inquiry was about powder and freestyle riding. Good luck with yer 167, I'm getting a 187 :-)

mwah!, kisses to you all. soon as I get a tanker I'm off to the store for trying out bindings... the ride, burton, and salomon are probably the only ones I'll be able to find in Japan's sport-world-street of jimbocho... but we'll see. cheers from niseko, japan, jamie

thanks tex -- I sent him a mail the same time I posted this, so hopefully I'll be able to find some of these hard to find boards!

hard time finding current models in Japan. Anything from 2002/2003 to present fits the bill. Cheers, here's hoping someone wants to part with theirs... however unlikely that is ;)

Looking at the Tanker... With mondo size 31 feet I'm not sure whether or not to go for the extra 3 centimeters of width on the 167 (versus the 177, which bobdea has lovely things to say about). With a 68kg body and only 173cm I have awkwardly large feet for my size, so I'm not sure whether to go with length or width here.

mmm they slide fine. You just need to lean back a little. More surfy, bend those knees, get a hand down on the concrete wave ;)

no but I'm eyeing the fish... 'more surfy'... working on challenge series to so I can get that $150 off.

once my roommate returns with the high definition camera I'll try to capture some video of me using snowboarding techniques on my loaded, and just how much the wheels slide when you end up using your knees ;)

Which model/year are the boots, and how much is shipping to japan? :)

svr: Nice shot. If we get together I look forward to riding with you. I had my eyes on that area every time I hike the Annupuri summit. :^) Thanks to the advice from the rest of you, it's good to have some many opinions. One problem of living in Japan is that the summers are 30º celsius and humid like a sauna. Another is that I can't try on shoes/boots my size because so few Japanese people have size 12 feet that most stores only go up to size 10, which is still on the big end. So I'm going to do a bit more looking and asking around before I choose any one boot. Chocolate kisses to you all. love & hugs

Thanks to both of you for advice... I'll look through yahoo auctions japan to see if I can find some cheap bindings and boots. ... and a rad-air tanker o _ o ?!

Thanks, that tells me a little more what I wanted to know about the different setups. Let's see if I can be helpful with information about myself: Thanks to a crazy gene pool, I'm 5'8", ~152lbs (69kg), and have size 12.5 feet. The board I'll be using for powder and park (until I have money to buy another, maybe a splitboard?) will be the Malolo, so I'll be hiking up with snowshoes wherever the day takes us. Weight and stiffness definitely make a difference, but I'm used to riding hardboots and plates in powder, so I wonder how something like the Catek FR2 will compare to what I'm used... sounds more similar than the Nidecker 800s or the C60s would be. Since I've heard people talking about the 'surfy' feeling from riding softies in the powder, perhaps something further away (from hardboots/plates) is what they're talking about?

Training to give back-country tours around Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan. Hopefully ride Mo'iwa, climb Yoteizan a few times, find the steep terrain I'm sure exists in Hokkaido, and hit up the terrain park (skateboarding has made me curious!). SVR>> I head up to Hokkaido in December. Not sure how much free time I'll have, but are you interesting in doing any BC together?

This coming season I will be in Hokkaido, Japan, in the Niseko area, training to give backcountry tours for four months. What with Hokkaido's renown as one among Japan's fresh powder paradises, all I've heard about the pleasure of soft boots in powder, and the skating I've been doing this year making me eager to enter the terrain park and half-pipe, soft boots and bindings are on the top of equipment to purchase. I did a quick search of the forums and found the most talk about Nidecker Pro 800 Pro and Catek Freeride bindings, but little discussion of what boots (other than comments about Burton boots being stiff) are good for what. Mostly I'll be using the new setup in knee-waist deep powder and the terrain park. I have relatively large (12.5 US) feet, which may be an issue. If anyone is feeling like they have an abundance of advice on the subject, I'd appreciate replies, especially from those who have done a lot of riding BC and in the park. Apologies if I missed in my search any thread with the information I'm searching for.

I have ridden only the Malolo, but I can say for that board, that it is very comfortable in powder. It is fast, it has a very soft tail, and it 'slashes' quite well. On piste it feels very supple -- it bends a lot. This is not bad for riding on nice snow with the edge in, but on cut-up, treaded-on, flattened snow that sits on most pistes from the afternoon to the end of the day, all the bouncing around may leave you aching for a damper board.