fluxgame

I'm in Monday or Thursday. Forecast for Monday looks a little grim though.

Hey, where'd that copy come from, Dave? I'll come if I can really ride for $10 with my season pass to Wachoo... I didn't see that offer anywhere on the Jiminy site though. Anybody coming through Worcester and wanna give me a ride?

So... Is this happening?

I'm interested... Anyone want to carpool? Probably can't swing it on my own.

I'm in. How's the snow holding up at Sunapee?

Yeah, kept looking for you on Wednesday, but alas... I probably shouldn't be spending money on a new board at the end of the season anyway.

What's the flex on that Madd? I might be interested... Can I take it for a couple runs at ECES?

I'm gonna try to make it by... Anyone coming from the Worcester area and want to carpool? Mark Bennett Willy Whit Dave "Espi" Sheedy Colin Matt Roth (50/50 chance...) Dave Howland

Err... Sold. Ages ago...

I've got a zero degree cant disk. I need a 3 or 6 degree. Anyone willing to trade?

Thanks for all the input, guys, I really apprieciate it! Let's see, some responses... I'm riding up at Wachusett, in central MA. I posted up on the Ride Board a couple weeks ago, but haven't been able to meet up with anyone yet. I just posted again and hopefully I'll be able to get some on-the-slope help. I got my bindings used and they just came with 0 degree cant disks. I ordered one 3 degree disk (all I can afford for the moment), but am waiting on that, so I'm flat for the time being. Just experimenting on the carpet in my living room, when I set my angles to where there's no overlap, even my relatively narrow stance feels sort of unnatural. I'll have to try it out on the slope and see what happens. I'll make sure to bring my allen key next time out and play the adjustment game. I've definitely read through the teaching sections a few times. Cross-over and cross-under make sense to me, though I can only seem to manage cross-over right now. Cross-through on the other hand just kinda baffles me. I think I need to see it. I don't think I'm leaning back on my tail too much, but I could be wrong. I'm a pretty experienced skier, so I'm comfortable with the whole idea of keeping my weight forward and in my lesson the instructor commented that I was doing a particularly good job of keeping my weight in the right place. Entirely possible I'm back-seating it when I get uncomfortable though, I'll have to pay closer attention next time I'm out. Anyway, thanks again!

Anyone gonna be up at Wachusett any night this week? If so, would you be willing to take a run with me and take a quick look at my setup? I'm a beginner, so I don't want to slow anyone down, but I'd like to make sure I don't have everything all wrong...

I started out this season as a never-ever snowboarder. I knew I wanted to get into carving so I started out on an alpine setup (Burton Amp 6.0 160, TD2's, Raichle 224's). I took a regular snowboard lesson to get me up and running. I set my stance width at the board's recommended 17" 25mm back (my shoulders are 16" wide and floor to knee-cap is 18.5". Narrow shoulders, long legs? 17" seemed like an OK compromise. though I actually discovered this to be a cm narrower than advertised, the holes in the 3D plate for the TD2 don't seem to be centered.) And, given I was going to be with a bunch of freestylers, I set my binding angles to 15 in back, 30 in front (what I read were typical "beginner" angles for freestyle). Which resulted in a little overlap, but I figured I wouldn't be laying over carves my first couple days out. So, three days on the snow now. I can manage greens without any problems and easier blues without too many issues. If I get up any speed at all I find it next to impossible to skid a turn with this board, it just wants to carve. On the steeper blue sections I find myself traversing the slope and skidding a little to control my speed and then carving a really sharp, fast and--might I mention--panicky turn at the side of the trail. Sometimes it works, sometimes I can't commit to the edge transition and end up turning uphill instead and sitting down in the snow at the side of the trail. On one occasion that I did manage to commit (albeit rather late), I had to make a really, really sharp turn. I think I experienced boot-out and I ended up cart-wheeling and tweaking my knee pretty bad. Not fun. So, my questions. Is there a better way of controlling speed on steeper sections? Was I correct to start off with shallower binding angles? Should I transition quickly to steeper angles that avoid overlap (I can manage 45 front and back)? Is there a resource I should have read that would have answered all these questions (I've been through the Carver's Almanac and all the how-to stuff on Bomber Online...)? Am over-thinking this and I'm just experiencing the learning curve and need to get out on the snow some more? Hopefully this post doesn't sound complete clueless to you all...

I don't really see how that's going to work... The Elites don't have any sort of angle adjustment, so you're going to be stuck at 0 or 90... I'm gonna feel pretty silly if you get it to work though... I've got 2 pair of those and just bought a pair of TD2's without ever having hardbooted.

I'm new to carving (and snowboarding for that matter), but I'd love to meet up and get some help dialing my bindings in and maybe get a few pointers on the snow, if anyone's game... Do most of you guys hit up 'chusett in the evening, or during the day?

I've got a used pair of old Burton "Rat Trap" style bindings for sale. I just bought them along with a board only to find that they won't adjust short enough to fit my bindings. So, I'm selling them to finance some TD-2's, I guess. They seem to be in pretty decent shape, no cracks or obvious signs of fatigue. The cant plate isn't marked, but comparing to photos in the Carver's Almanac, it looks to be the 7 degree model. 3 hole mounting, all around. My boots have a 279mm sole length, I imagine you'd need something at least 285-290mm to work in these. I don't really have a good sense of what these are worth, but maybe $40 shipped in the lower 48? If that doesn't sound reasonable, make me an offer. Pic below.

25 Mondo. But they're Raichle's so they have a crazy short sole length. 279mm. Maybe these are Long bindings? Or just really old and pre- short sole hardboots?

So I went and picked up the board this evening. It's in pretty good shape for being as old as it is. Seems pretty solid. Only one problem. I adjusted the bindings as short as they'd go, but my boots are a good cm too short to lock in. Sigh. I should have known something like this would happen. Everything was going altogether too smoothly. So, what are my options here? Discounting the go ahead and buy myself a pair of $300 bindings before I've even ridden the board option. Would bending the toe/heel bails a bit to shorten things up be considered a Bad Idea? Or perhaps removing the toe bails and cutting a cm or two off, rebending and reattaching them? Neither of these options really appeal to me. Hopefully there's some magical solution that I'm not thinking of.

Hehe, yeah, that's me shooting just underneath the jump. I'm a little more conscious of my own mortality than those kids... 'Course it also doesn't help that I broke 3 bones in my hand casing that very jump a few years ago. See ya out there!

Funny coincidence indeed. All kinds of crossover in the crazy internet forum world, huh? In any case, to go completely off topic for a moment: Definitely still loving the Brooks. It's got dimples a cm deep at this point and is much comfier than any other saddle I've ever ridden on. The sides did start to flare out a bit on me as soon as it was past its rock hard phase, so I chopped and tied it, which improved matters greatly. There are pics in the "Pictures of Brooks on Bikes" thread. And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

Awesome, thanks guys. I'm gonna go for it. Assuming I enjoy carving (and I'm gonna, right?), I imagine the first thing I'll be on the lookout for is a used set of TD-2's. willywhit: I'll definitely find you guys when the snow hits. With a little luck, I'll be working up at 'chusetts this season, so that shouldn't be too hard. Definitely would be great to get some pointers starting off. Though I was looking in the instructor database on BomberOnline and saw that there are 3 (!) instructors who teach in hardboots there. Crazy. I'm not too good in the park on the skiboards, though that doesn't stop me from trying. They're definitely skiboards though, not snowblades. The difference illustrated:

I've been hankering to try out hardbooting for a couple years now and just found an alpine board on my local Craigslist for pretty cheap. Just wondering if you guys could give me some feedback on it: http://worcester.craigslist.org/spo/446525153.html For reference, I'm 5'9", 120 lbs. I come from a background in skiing, but have been skiboarding for 5-ish years now. I ride with Raichle hardboots and Bomber's skiboard bindings, so I figure it's sort of a natural transition. And $90 for a board and bindings seems manageable. I know the bindings aren't great, but they'll get me going right? Anyway, thanks for any advice.