nils

reading the specs on ebay: Since the 5000 electra does not exist with IMS which currently makes the 4000 electra as its top end base, wondering what really was the previous base.... As for the new one which is supposely 50% graphite! I'm also curious about the specs, since the 4000 electra from IMS has only 12-15% graphite, and is already a hassle to repair... Anyone got precisions on that ( since no one answered my previous questions on same topic!).. Is it such a big secret, or no one really knows? :) Nils!

i hit myself slalom waterskiing when i fell laterally at full speed: almost crushed my ear.. Since then i have cut down a bit but i was going to look into the Gath surfing helmets (made in Oz) for waterkiing, they even come with a visor on certain models, if you are really scared by crushing your face! Nils

Marco Olm can be reached through Aspen Snowmass ski/snowboard teaching system since he is a Aspen certified snowboard instructor. His Aspen mobile phone is 970 - 309 1350 his email is marcolm@hotmail.com but he seems to rarely use it. As for now he is in Brazil until winter comes back so you are not likely to find him now! He is indeed incredible and does tail spins, jumps etc on any race board! Plus he is super nice! Nils

i live just 5 mins from that spot: hawaii sur rhone might be worth trying kayak, never tried! N. :)

surfing is about beeing out on the sea, waiting in the lineup, feeling the salty air. When people paddle out with business like attitude such as enter lineup, take as much wave as they can, then leave ( not to mention bad vibes etc...) they are passing by the incredible chance we have of beeing just there out with the elements. Same goes for Hunting: i'm not a fanatic hunter, but my best days where actually when I watched the nature, the wildlife walking silently unheard, without firing a single shot, and sharing that after its over with passionnated people... Predating mind is not welcome in any sport with surfing spirit, nor in Life in general I guess... N. ps: 1000's in Malibu: i'd have some shaper make me the " fastest paddler ever" so I'd be further out taking the first of each set :)

I used to go to hossegor spend september there when i was a student :), nowadays I paddle out maybe 5-10 times a year max :( this happens when u live close to the mountains and far away from decent beach breaks! Surfin is soo hard to learn compare to snowboarding its something unreal! Understanding the waves themselves is sooo long! Especially when u get to surf breaks with no fixed lineup!! Paddle paddle paddle! Nils

Locals always think they own the place, and shall be enforced when they do use violence / threats / car bashing etc against 'foreigners'. Its funny that a simple priority rule on the wave (closest to the peak) is always gets ruled out by locals with the IQ of a shell. I've had the chance to ride in Tahiti in '93, and I remember seeing locals beeing so nice it was almost unbelievable compare to what europe / cal gets. ( Also got to see the late Mark Foo and crew filling the line up with attitudes and powerboats when we were a bunch of international melting pot riders; I can tell you none of us got a ride back to the island, despite the strong winds and the 1 hour back paddle... was before teahupoo was " discovered" and jet skies and engines started smelling and poluting the line ups...) Since then i start paddling out when its still dark to be first out: its hard for a local to claim he owns the place when u arrived 2 hours before he did! This way u get 2 hours of glassy conditions and can pack home undisturbed! Nils

I play COD and Vietcong fist alpha when I have the time! the jungle is incredible! N.

Actually O'sin wasn't bought by Dynastar, it is a spin off that got eaten back by the mother ship. History is simple, back in the end of the 80's, early 90's, most ski company started to think the ugly stupid fashion of snowboarding might mean big $$$; and it was time for them to eat the small fishes. Out of all the company that were pioneering the 80's, only Sims and Burton really survived that time independant. Meanwhile Atomic, Dynastar and a few other brands started brands ( Oxygen, and Original Sin ) in order to hide behind, since ski industry was considered evil at the time from the snowboarder's point of view. Funny to see that Rossignol kept its name and came out with such good alpine boards ( the shannon R158, the R159/R167 etc..) It was later to eat Hot snowboards, which it is likely to sink soon ( rumors say Hot as only a few years life expectancy...). Now that the ski company rule the market, they are not in need of camo names, so both dynastar and atomic killed their babies at same time last year. The 4807 and the 3807 are now manufactured under the Dynastar brand ( same factory, same molds, uglier graphics). They are among the last boards manufactured in France btw, since salomon, and rossignol are now in morocco, tunisia, spain and Romania for their main productions ( only the protos are still handmade at the factory) Nils

Economical to use, not to buy :) Volkswagen Sharan TDi 115 hp 4motion here (german website) I just got one and its really astonishing! Not a sport car ( 115hp and almost 2 tons ) but it's a killer on snow with the proper tires! N. just found the specs of the engine Engine cubic capacity 1896 Fuel Consumption Urban 32.8mpg - 8.6l/100km Extra-urban 51.4mpg - 5.5l/100km Combined 42.8mpg - 6.6l/100km Engine maximum Speed 112mph - 181km/h Engine acceleration 0-62mph 13.7secs Maximum output PS 115 at RPM 4000 Maximum torque 229 lbs.ft / 310 Nm at RPM 1900 the 4WD version takes a bit more gas but maybe 5% more from what I can notice!

that got kind of flammy :) regarding the use of SUV's ! Don't know if its still reachable in the archives, but was worth its weight of flames ! Just to remind that 50% of euro cars take an average 45-50 mpg! why get a SUV when u can get a 7 seater with 4WD and such a economical mpg! You got two ways of getting people use less gas: put price up, or build cars that need less! Take the bike, ride a small car, and we'll all feel better! N.

Well get a strong server and be ready to pay for the bandwidth :) Otherwise its not so difficult to host vids! We get an average 100 GB download /month over the year, but am sure that with more clips you can reach easily 200 gb/month! Finding a cheap host in those conditions tends to get tacky! But would be nice indeed! :) Nils

someone that has the time to do this is either a life sentenced guy, or someone with no internet. crazy N.

The mucho is a 191cm, but Olive the shaper is getting the "tekila" 215 out of the press pretty soon. Cost is going to be rocket high!!But Miuras are easily the best quality made boards in the whole world.. Each board takes 50 hours of work sometimes for the wood work! A finish shaper called Samu makes a 211, and Pogo successfully made and ridden a 230cm this winter at La Grave. A few friends have been riding a "boheme" 222cm who is suppose to like deep pow too! ( There is a guy there who painted his board gold!!) N.

Sorenson squeeze is your friend: It outputs in real, wmv, and quicktime (the later using the sorenson codec which gives the sharpest images, it does batch conversion meaning you just can output 10 different versions without having to be in front of the machine: you come back in the morning and check which get the best results. (works both on mac and pc) xvid is a good codec too. What platform / OS do u use? Nils

Must be the gold plated bindings :) I want them too ! btw looking at the gallery saw this: looks like a Swoard and wow the backside is very nice! who is it? Nils question: are those all the pics that James from SJ took? Or will we get to see them someday? Be able to order some? etc. question 2: why not use a php gallery that would make it way easier to maintain and use ( database driven). We are using this one and it works fine: gallery N.

Well i don't agree with the quality issue on the oxygens... I own a 172 Proton from 2001-2002 season: got hit by a skier going downhill while i was making a frontside: hopefully the guy did not touch be but used the nose of the board as launch pad: both his skiies hammered the nose, one 3cm away from the front binding, and left only two scars from the guys edge that scalped the topsheet over a 2cm length each time above the "sidewall" (cap construction). The violence of the shock was intense since the guy dragged me on 1 meter ( was almost stoped, board 70-80° burried on the edge..). I suffered pain in the back for 3 weeks, and the guy dislocated his shoulder ( i believe not heard anynews after) after a nice 15 meter long jump ( doing undesired spins and rolls in the meantime ). The board had nothing but the two scars! I find the topsheet ( looks like strong ICP) very strong! Nils

Swoard specs: 175cm is: 23.1cm ( running length 156cm, radius 13.3m) 168cm is: 22.1cm ( running length 149cm, radius 12.7m) 161cm is: 21.cm ( running length 142cm, radius 12.1m) So the 175 is kinda wide, but allows 53/46° with a mondo 28.5 thus more pressure on the edge ! Edge to edge is slower than on a 18.5 cm board... but who cares ;). Nils PS: what are the specs of the madds? Found them! here: 158 cm Slalom (race ready pro slalom deck) 147 cm effective edge 8.8m sidecut 18 cm waist 170 GS (Consumer GS, Banked slalom, boardercross, loose slalom) 157 cm effective edge 10.5m sidecut 18cm at waist 180 Super G 167cm effective edge 22 m sidecut 18cm at waist

anyone tried it? does it all time etc.. I'd like some feedback cos am going to have softboot friends try my 177 and wonder how they will like it... Would also want to try to carve on it with softboots ( gotta find a pair of good setup thu...) Would one prefer clicker to flow system on it? Thnx Nils

anyway the crazy stuff here is not the sandboarding, just follow a few links inside power labs website: those guys are nuts! ( making a cannon that launches a golf ball at mach2+ speeds, making a CDrom turn 33 000 rpm on a dremel and let it explode etc...) If you have boys in the 8-18 years old range that site is to be kept secret!!! quote from his first cannon experiment: "The entire device cost me some $100 (not counting the fuel) and 2 days of construction to build; a time during which while my parents were in Germany on a 2 day trip, as I knew they would not approve of it".... Unfortunately, it was raining outside so I decided to test it indoors (OK, so I was not the smartest kid back than, but come on, I was only 14 years old!). I filled the combustion chamber with pure oxygen from a 900CC welding cylinder I got from the same hardware store, and injected the calculated (slightly over stoichiometric) amount of fuel into it using a syringe. I dropped a tennis ball into it, aimed it at my sister's door (a solid wood door, 50 meters across the living room from my room where I was standing) with a slight upwards angle, expecting it to bounce back and stop (never having experimented with fuel/oxygen mixtures before I had no idea of just how much power I was dealing with), and clicked the igniter. A massive explosion ensued and I was knocked on my back with the recoil, which also left me slightly dizzy and with ringing ears from the muzzle blast. Still stunned by the sheer power of the shot (and amazed that the cannon was not blown to pieces on my hands), I looked at my sister's door only to see that there was light coming in through it. I remember being worried about it, but not so much as I was hoping to find the missing piece on the other side and somehow glue it back. On opening the door I was amazed to find out that the wooden door had a foot square (30x30cm) chunk blown off from it as the ball pushed material from the front out through the back at several hundred km/h. The entire room was covered with splinters and the door had cracks on it running from side to side! As you might imagine, explaining this to my parents wasn't very easy..." kid is a world champ !! :) and his experiences a must read: here Nils

Yes we were lucky to meet james the photographer in Aspen: he shot many rolls in Snowmass ( weather not perfect ) and Buttermilk where it was sunny and snow near perfect... Let hope the whole cash we bribed him for publication will sweat in the next issue of the SBJ :) Nils

No flame cos we still have snow here! As for 10% on hard boots its huge !!! Am not even sure germany has that nowadays... A good way would be to do a small comparison of gear on ebay.de or .at and ebay.jp on snowboard... am sure you'd come up with good stats on how the market is in both countries... Nils

Nice clip, they seem to have fun... Just one thought, ( no flame war please...): I do NOT like their style at all... It looks ugly, flapping arms like albatros"s taking off, counter-rotating lots etc... Not my thing! On another point: incredible korean and Japanese market... I believe there lies one of the futures for Alpine since they are soooo many hardbooters there! Nils

I am using a Mac / panther machine :) People sending virus are not it seems :)! N.

yes well its not me or us from ec.com who are sending the emails! Our adress is in people's email boxes, and those who still have viruses are rerouting them to everyone using that adress... Not much we can do i guess... Sorry bout that ! Nils