anewell

Re: durability of individual spikes - I use the individual diamond shaped stickies. They provide adequate boot grab, and I haven't lost one yet. As with all adhesives, surface prep is the key. I scrub the board with isopropyl alcohol or acetone, apply the sticky, and then press for 12 hours with a piece of 2x4 and a brick.

Caswell Plating has some good instructions on buffing & polishing, and sells the tools you need. I was a happy customer years ago when I was spending too much time polishing Alfa Romeo & Healey parts. For protecting the final finished surface, you might try one of several brands of floor polish that are basically an acrylic clear-coat. "Pledge wth Future Shine" is the stuff to look for in the US. I've not tried it myself, but it seems promising. As always, test on a small inconspicuous area first.

I love the Safari graphics!

Interesting. That's a technique known as Passive Constrained Layer Damping - the energy is dissipated in shear motion within the soft layer; it probably heats the board up by some infinitesimal amount. Pretty much the same idea as that Dynamat stuff you can buy for car stereo applications. So.. for the damp-is-good crowd: Who wants to buy a roll of Dynamat Xtreme, stick it to their non-metal rock board, and report back? (Those fancy Head "intellifiber" boards would like us to believe they are doing an even more advanced "active" type of damping along the same lines.. instead of simply turning mechanical motion into heat, they are presumably feeding an inverse waveform of the motion into some sort of piezo (?) system, like a big noise-cancelling headphone... not sure I believe that hype, although it does work for electron microscopes... :rolleyes:)

For me, the recharging isn't a bother at all. My Nano goes 4 or 5 days between recharges w/ a 2-3 hours of use per day. Recharge generally takes under 30 minutes. Folks having troubles recharging off computer USB ports - I'd wonder if the USB port was supplying the full milliamperage that it was supposed to. Here's my concern w/ finding an older player that takes AAA batteries - The mp3 player industry gave up on replaceables a long time ago (for good reason, I'd argue) Therefore, even if you find something from the AAA days, if it's flash-memory based, it'll have tiny capacity - maybe less than a full day's worth of listening on the mountain. More likely than flash, it'll use a very small harddrive to achive a few Gigs of space - but the power requirements for spinning that disk will eat up your batteries in no time flat. Neither outcome seems all that good to me. Contrast that with an iPod which I charge fully before heading up the hill for the weekend, and which goes the entire trip without repeating a song.

iPods are essentially disposable - the internal, not-designed-for-replacement battery is rechargeable a finite number of times, and that's it. However, my iPod Nano is still going strong after nearly 2 years of daily use, and I go into withdrawal without it. Also, because the modern-generation devices under 16 Gb use flash memory - no moving parts means long run times. You can play Mp3s gotten from anywhere, or you can "buy" (rent) the tracks from Apple in their locked format. I've never bothered w/ that. Apple makes you use iTunes to load the music onto the device - and it's horrible quality software. However, the iPod hardware is good enough that I put up with the hassle of iTunes. Also note that while the uploading happens in iTunes, you needn't do any other functions - Ripping, tagging, organizing, etc. all can be done better by other software, all of which is Free. I like a program called "Exact Audio Copy" to rip my CDs. I've owned other non-Apple players - a Rio and a samsung; neither were as well-polished as the Apple product.

http://www.spikes-spiders.com/ I've not tried them (yay, Quattro!) but a pal tells me he loves everything about them but the price.

I need to buy... something wider than the 19mm board I have now. How would you describe the Stuf relative to an old Alp? Got a wild guess at shipping / duty(?) costs to San Francisco, CA 94117?

I'll be third in line, just in case!

When I started riding, it was skiboot liners in Sorels. This year, I'm going to try putting the Intuition liners from my ThirtyTwo softies into my hardshells - it feels like a great big karmic full circle. But in any case: Another thumbs up on running the soft boots with moldable liners. For those trawling ebay & craigslist, I think only the high-end ThirtyTwo liners are moldable - mine are the "Tm2" boot w/ the "Level 4" liner, and are marked "designed by Intuition / Genuine Ultralon foam"

If it's not solidly spoken for, I'll commit to the Speedster for $100. I'm in SF, can do cash deal w/ pick up, pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area. All you quiver-padders, cut a new guy a break, eh?

Huh. I'd have thought that someone's entire life savings would have amounted to more than that. What's the question that this thing is supposed to answer? I can't quite visualize the articulation, or what it's supposed to do. But the real question is: Will it fit on the roof-rack of my Tucker?

Hmm... the check I've been waiting for arrived today. /kicks tires, gazes longingly

These guys? http://www.sequoiaski.com/ 1500 El Camino Real San Bruno, CA 94066 Ph. 650.589.8600 Fax 650.872.1266 I'm looking to have my board done too. I'll give them a call. Thanks Sinecure!

I've got the same Thule carriers, and had the same issue. I'm planning to DIY a fix. The local hardware store has cylindrical Delrin spacers that'll prolly work. The spacers are maybe 0.75" diameter, 0.5" long, axial bore. I'm going to need longer carriage bolts & wingnuts to fit the new bolt threads too. Should be about $5 in parts and 30 minutes to put it all together. If you're committed to buying something, I could sell you a set for maybe half of the 1000% markup Thule would charge (j/k)

BlueB mentioned Teflon / PTFE - You can get it in sheets from Small Parts Inc: http://www.smallparts.com/products/descriptions/vt-vte.cfm along with Delrin, UHMW Polyethelene, Polycarbonate, and other interesting materials too.

The article that Crucible links to mentions Buffalo gear from the UK, which seems to be the epitome of the soft shell idea. Has anyone tried their gear, for resort riding or other use? Due to their 'next-to-skin' philosophy, I have no idea how heavy a garment would need to be for riding in the variable weather of Tahoe, but the prospect of one ultra-breathable but warm layer is very attractive. I generally wear an ultralight merino wool base layer, an optional wool sweater and then hard shell - wool being the original high-tech fiber. I was hoping to buy a Cloudveil softshell for this season to replace the hardshell, but the Buffalo stuff has me thinking...

Holmes - I just emailed you.

I'm that local guy, and I'm definately interested in the board. Holmes, you've got mail.

Great, that's bindings taken care of. Thanks, Tex1230. Still looking for board & boots...

Hi Everyone - I'm looking to learn to carve; I've been riding softboots since 1991, and was a skier before that. I'm looking to put together a second-hand carving setup; my budget is roughly $250 for the board and (i dunno) for the boots & bindings. I may buy the boots new, given how personalized boot fit can be. I'm 190 Lb (86 kg), 6' (183 cm) tall. 28.5 mondo / 11 us feet. I'm thinking I want a board maybe 170+ (?) and pretty carve-specific; I'm happy with my softboot rig.. and I don't see any gates or racing in my future, just fast cruisin' on groomers. Whaddya got for sale? What would you advise? Let me know! I'd also love to hear from Tahoe riders... My email is in my profile. Foolish Newbie Question: I have a set of K2 Skylord Clicker boots & plates - Understanding that they're softer and sloppier than real hardboots, is it even worth trying them on an alpine board? Thanks, Andy

I'd like to get in line, in case the 1st deal falls through. My email should be in my profile. Thanks!