negedeng

Concerning the prices Prices for Bindings in Europe TD3 350 Euros Catec OS2 300 - 330 Euros Powerlock 390 Euros F2 Titanium about 150 Euros if ther is a sale, regular price around 200+/- I think if you want to walk away from the "standard binding" you have to pay these prices in Europe. For the European market the price of the Powerlock is still competitive. The Powerlock is the higher priced product, but, as Frank mentioned, you get spare parts everywhere. I my selfe use the F2 Titanium. I never had a problem with the binding (and I am not light weight), not even with the plastic parts (base for front bail, I belive similar one used for Powerlock I). For me it fits my needs and I just did not want to spent more money, yet. But mybe it is like with the boards. Once you have tried them, you are infected. :)

A M6 has got a outside diameter (bolt) of 6mm. The measurement from one thread to the next is 1mm. With one turn of the screw you make a movement of 1mm in depth. .75 of 6mm is 4.5mm. So you should be able to turn the screw 4.5 times/revolutions and have 4.5 threads within .75 of the diameter.

I learned as a rule of thumb: The screw should be screwed in what the screw does have as diameter. Means for a M6 screw 6mm diameter -> screw in for 6mm in depth A M6 screw does hava from one flange to an other 1mm (10 threads per 10mm) Means you would have to make 6 full turns to get a depth of 6mm. I am not sure right now if the binding thread is a M5 or a M6. A M5 does have 0.8mmm from flange to flange . With this you are definitely on the safe side. Maybe 3 or 4 would work as well, but as Donek already mentioned, the top of your insert and the tip of your screw is champfered. So I would not count maybe the first 1 or two threads as stong as it should be.

I don't know how good your German is, but here is a link to a small batch of pictures. http://www.frozen-backside.de/thread.php?threadid=3869&sid= I am sure, there are more to come.

You can watch it now on hulu.tv http://www.hulu.com/shaun-white-project-x?c=Sports

Besides the things which are mentioned in this and the other thread: - Try to get cheap tickets for a show e.g. Blue Man Group at Ticketmaster (when I was in Chicago last August, I got cheap tickets) - Museum Campus where the Shed Aquarium is, is also the Field Museum which is nice too. -Hang out in Millenium Park, there you can find the "chrome jelly bean", in the summer time there are free concerts and a open air cinema one a week or so and before take a drink at the chill out bar at the north-west end of the park, right at the "jelly bean" - Take a tour with the tourist hop on and off busses. I usually don't like them, but there I heard a lot of things about the history of the city and about the buildings Have fun!

Have you tried to contact Ziener in Europe and asked them for their US distributor? Their shop locator on the home page finds the zip of Santa Barbara but does not show any results.

A couple of weeks ago I read something in a German magazin that Japan started a project just recently to see how it works in reality. I found a link to an English artikel. The 30k$ investment gets subsidized in Japan by 50%. But read yourselfe http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/12/08/am-home-fuel-cells If they come down to 5k$ it might be worth thinking about it if you are building a new hose and you have to invest money anyway.

Its an Undertaker Evolution

some more

And one more woody!

I guess I will be at Perfect North the one or the other day. I've never been to Paoli Peaks. Do you have an idea how it is there?

In my opinion fuel efficiency is a combination of different things. Depending what your goal for fuel efficiency is and from which kind of a vehicle your are coming from, you can still drive a safe car and safe on gas. In Germany I drive a 2001 Volkswagen Passat with a 1.9 Liter turbo charged diesel (TDI) engine. On my trips to the alps I drive it on the autobahn in Germany pretty much pedal to the metal. Reaching the top speed of 200km/h (~125mph) for about 1.5h till I reach the Austrian or Swiss boarder, gas consumption goes up to about 7.5Liter/100km (~31mpg (US)). When I drove in Switzerland or Austria with speed limits close to the US with between 110-130km/h (~70-80mph) the gas consumption dropped under 5 Liter/100km (~47mpg). As an average (city, overland and autobahn) I drive it with about 6 Liter/100km (~39mpg) and still have fun with it. Means I am not only barely pushing the throttle while accelerating or overtaking others. I would say with the Passat I do not have a unsafe car and I get relative comfortable from A to B. But the diesel makes it possible. I think for my Passat the diesel needs about 2-3 liters less per 100km than a comparable gas engine. And the modern turbo charged diesels as well as the common rail diesel engines have nothing to do with the old diesel technology which is still used in the trucks like a F350 or similar. The small 1.9 liter engine has still 350Nm torque and is able to run faster than you are allowed in they US anyway. The engine runs maybe slightly louder than a gas engine but really just slightly, still not that loud that I would complain about it, compared to a F350, the F350 runs more like a tractor. So the first step to safe gas would be to downsize the engine. But you should watch out for a weight power ratio. A too small engine in a too heavy car could mean you need more rpm which has influence on the gas consumption. For what do you need a 6 lieter diesel in a F350 with a technology which was used already decades ago? If that 6 liter diesel engine would be nicely engineered and turbo charged you would probably reach torques which blow up almost every gear box. So a nice 3 liter TDI with the same or more torque like the old fashioned 6 liter in the same car would safe already gas without reducing the trailer hook capacity. Honestly, how many days a year do you need the trunk of a Pick-up to transport something which would not fit into a trunk of a smaller car (Mazda 6, Passat,...)? In my Passat station wagon I get 3 people (comfortable seated) plus ski equipment and luggage for a week inclusive my Virus Undertaker (192cm). If I take a 4<SUP>th</SUP> and 5th person with me I throw a ski box on the roof. For the other 10 – 20 days a year you can use a trailer hooked up to the “small” car which is still powerful enough to pull it. Maybe you will not win the Daytona 500 with the trailer combination, but you will get from A to B and you save a bunch of money the rest of the 335 days of the year. So another thing after using modern engine technology and downsizing would be to reduce the car size and with that the weight of the car. You do not have to switch from a Truck to a Smart. The switch to a mid size car with the right engine technology can be already something. An other factor would be the driving behavior. Since gas prices are “slightly” higher in Germany than in the US (one gallon regular gas is right now at about 7.55US$) a couple of driving schools offer a “How to save gas” training. Things like, watch not just till the head lights of the car in front of you, watch a couple of yards further and roll to a red traffic light, turn off the engine while standing at a traffic light, remove every unnecessary weight (snow chains in the summer time,...), etc. got taught. In a couple of tests they proved that people save a tremendous amount of gas (I believe it was in the area of 10-15%) if they follow this rules. So there are things which you can do to save gas with the car you already possess.

I took my boards now twice in the airplane from the US to Germany. I bought myself a roller case from Red-Air. It is about 2m long, 25-30cm wide and about 20cm high. Check on the homepage of the airline, what their limit for sporting goods is dimensional wise and weight. With Delta it was in the past a 2m length limit and I think it was a 50 pound weight limit. That might have changed in the meantime. In the bag I had two boards with bindings, boots and some small stuff like gloves, pants,.... just enough to get as close as possible to the weight limit. I took some insulation stuff which is used to insulate water pipes (pre formed 1m long foam tubes) and wrapped with that stuff the nose and tail of each board to give extra protection. The board bag has got some extra straps insight with which I can strap the boards down into the bag plus outside straps.I never had a problem to take something with me on a plane. As long as the baggage tag stays on the bag, the bag will make it. I personally would have a worse feeling shipping my boards with UPS/FedEx etc. There your parcel gets loaded and unloaded so many times and touched by different people till it is at its destination.

Hintertux in Austria should be open. http://www.hintertuxergletscher.at/en/home/0/home.html The glacier in Soelden also in Austria is closed during summer. I think Saas Fee in Switzerland should be open too, but I am not sure.