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James Thank you for taking the time to explain your thought process and experiences, it makes a lot of sense and helps to understand your review even more. I can't believe the idea that skiers would try to ban hardboots, unreal! What I find interesting and a bit ironic is that we have similar problems, but solved them in different but similar ways. The resorts up north are nothing like the steeps of Revelstoke, but the 10cm on top of crappy grooming on a blue slope is VERY much like what I see often as well. As I am like many on this site, old, I stuck with the hardboots until recently. Where we differ is I have spent a lot of time trying to tune my HardBoots to carve with much flatter stance angles and much wider carving boards ... or the stock 26cm wide boards you can get every where. My feet are also too big to lean hard into a hard carve on a standard SB board, so slap on the HB's and go! I think that I was very lucky to find my Northwave Point 900's about 15 years ago, the overall design smoothes out a lot of ruts. I have put so much time into adjusting the boot binding interface to match flatter angles in bumpy conditions. I don't believe that really wide hard or soft boot boards are a problem at all as long as a firmer SB interface and a softer HB interface is adjusted accordingly. I agree ... get the width you need for the stance you like:) Bruce almost had a coronary when I told him I wanted a 24.8cm double wide dedicated carver! Thanks again Rob

Hi James Thank you for your review and video, nice turns! It is nice to see some of the Revelstoke terrain! I too am a wide board fan, but really have only turned to softies and a wide waist (28cm )for powder. It is my understanding that the problem is getting P-Tex in wide enough sheets is why it is so hard to find wide boards. I have also heard that a board that wide and softboots is too hard on the ankles with the lever created and too tiring as the effort required to lift the wide width on edge. Are you able to comment on any of these ideas, did you find these ideas to be accurate, misconceptions, true but not a big factor, etc? How wide is your double wide at the center of the rear insert pack? You also have a really cool quiver of boards, a lot to choose from. What did you find was not quite right with your alpine set ups (ie VSR AM 171) that inspired your softie carving purchase for the conditions you mentioned? Just curious:) I am really curious what specs you would order if you were to get a second Exegi Double Wide? The 14m SCR sounds really big, but the turns in the video look like a great size/ shape. Thank you again for your review, it was helpful to read and fun to watch. Rob

Hello This short video 'Turn of Mind' highlights the Korua rider Nicholas Wolken riding back country hardboots and plate bindings; different as in all of the 'Yearning For Turning' videos he rides Softboots. Check out the 1:38 mark and the 11:12 mark if you just want to see the riding. No jumps or flips, but as far as the turns go I don't think you could tell whether he had hard or soft boots on if you didn't look closely. The angles look pretty low as well, the bindings look like the Phantoms so maybe 30 degrees front? Cheers Rob

Hi Scully Reading some of your latest posts that explain your recent heart surgery and your request in this thread inspired me to suggest the Concept Rowing Machines as a way to both rehab your heart and build snowboarding legs. Your Login Name makes me wonder if you already know about this rower? Regardless, the best exercise is one that you will actually do! For me, rowing while listening to music, watching Netflix or watching boarding videos on YouTube has proven to be an exercise that is both great for snowboarding and one that I'll get off of the couch and actually do! There is an entire community of rowers, that usually has some 70 year old Swiss guy that has rowing results that kick my ass:) Best of luck with your recovery! Rob https://www.concept2.com

Why the Contra: When I read that Bruce was going to slow down, I jumped at the chance to get board that I was thinking about for quite awhile. I simply asked Bruce for a board that would turn tighter than my Nirvana (10.5/12.7/12) for steep, icy, narrow runs, particularly when riding centered! I was looking for another Nirvana, Bruce steered me towards the Contra, trusting him paid off in spades! As a frame of reference I'll compare my Nirvana Balance 171 with an approximate SCR of 10.5/12.7/12, I say approximate as Bruce explained to me that this board was made by hand. The Contra 166 has 148cm of effective edge and a Side Cut depth of a 10.5m SCR. Bruce sent these SCR numbers as a guideline for me: 15 nose - 9.5 front foot - 11 between the feet - 10 rear foot - 16 tail, done on a depth equal to approx 10.5m SCR. The actual Contra SCR is what I call Coiler PFM 'Pure Frickin' Magic!" Green Runs - Getting to Know the Contra. The first run on the Contra 166cm was my first run of the year, not a lot of snow means limited places to ride. So day one was on a Green run with super soft hero snow. There was zero getting used to turning the board, the centered technique that I prefer, as my best guess, meant that I did not feel any change in turn initiation at all. Turning the new SCR for me felt very natural, zero pause or change in technique that I had heard about. Doing easy casual turns on the Contra, on a Green run, made the board feel very similar to my Coiler Nirvana - Balance; it would be hard to tell the difference if I didn't know the build details. I mainly noticed the damp, smooth feeling of the metal and rubber magic that Bruce creates. Not sure, but it seemed like the new Coiler of magic rubber and metal was even more damp than my older coiler. The first time I felt something special about this SCR was doing toe and heel laydowns, where you don't get back up type Euro carves at the very bottom of the Green run. The snow was so soft that it is my guess that most of my boards would blow out of the carve as the really soft snow created trench's silly deep. The Contra 166 was able to make tight turns on the way down the run, then make a big swooping EC type laydown turn, on flat ground in really soft snow, and kept on carving like you were tracking on good, firm corduroy!! Really fun! Blue Runs - Pushing harder, the Contra feels like a trusted old Friend! When compared to my Nirvana 171 the Contra 166 turns much tighter, but not so tight that it drives you crazy or tires you out. It turns sharp enough that you can play with the natural rolls and banks in a run that are fun to slash a carve off of. If you let the board run and draw bigger arcs it does very well at holding the speed of a bigger carve, not as good as my Nirvana, but very good. Early season conditions have been a bit weird, one day in particular was characterized by a couple inches of soft stuff on top of hard stuff, mixed in with areas where the bottom seems to drop out; makes a guy think twice about making a hard turn where you might auguring the nose in deep and go over the handle bars! In these conditions the Contra requires less energy to stay in a turn and you can ride it in a surfy manner off of your rear foot. Riding off of the rear foot works great and felt very safe in crap snow conditions. I noticed quite a difference between the Nirvana and the Contra when making a turn while pressuring or standing hard on the front foot in firm snow. The Nirvana's 10.5 nose will turn quickly and hard, but at times might over turn too tightly if you get stuck too far forward, making it pretty tricky to make turns like EC turns, etc. I found that the Contra would also turn very tight, but would not over turn, it just kept on tracking a nicely shaped turn, pretty darn good for linking a couple of EC turns here and there. Crazy, turns sharper, but made bigger turns a bit easier! I think that the 3 part SCR of the Nirvana feels a more dramatic change in it's turn shape when weighting fore and aft, while the multiple SCR of the Contra feels like it is bending in a more even or symmetrical shape when centering your weight or when weighting a little more fore and aft. The Contra loves to be ridden centered, but is more forgiving if you get caught with a bit more weight on the front or back foot. The Contra SCR responds quickly for a decambered board as the tightest turning happens right at your feet. You get an efficient feel when turning, it feels like the board is not fighting itself to find an arc. When riding in a more passive way, the board feels so easy to ride. At the same time when pushing as hard as my old body could, the board would bend and rebound with the 'pop' of a fun glass board. When making a big swooping EC type laydown turn, on flat ground in very firm hero snow the Contra could make a moderately sized laydown turn that could complete almost 3/4 of a full circle! Super Size the Width I guess I pushed Bruce quite a bit with regards to his design/building data on Waist Width. I didn't realize just how much asking for a wider carve specific carve board pushed him. The trick for Bruce was to successfully go from the 20ish wide protos to a 24 wide final product when his core tolerance is +/-.03mm which is just over .001" My build was stalled as a result as he kept second guessing himself. In the end his build ideas for a wider carver worked perfect! If you prefer a wider carver, don't hesitate as Bruce has it down and the results are awesome! Custom Coiler Logo A big thank you to Nick 'Technick' for his help creating a custom Coiler logo, it was a fun process and he was a pleasure to work with Bottom Line If I could take only one alpine board to a resort that I had never been to before and I didn't know whether the runs would be steep or flat, wide or narrow, icy or soft .... this is the board I would take! The Contra 166 is a 'riders' board that is just so damn much fun at times I forget how old I am. Thanks Bruce Rob Edit: Trying to articulate how the Contra and Nirvana SCR feel different, both really nice, but different inspired a quick edit. I was switching between the two boards for fun and curiosity and have more time on both boards back to back this season. While riding on a short, flat and slow CAT track and initiating turns you could feel the following: Contra - Feels like the toes and heels grab onto the snow ... followed by a feeling that the tip and tail bend around the feet evenly. Nirvana - Feels like the toes and heels grab onto the snow ... followed by a feeling the the nose of the board grabs and steers the nose in either direction with the tail following.

Hi Phil Interesting conversation with the veteran powder skiers. I don't 'bounce' in the snow either, not that there is anything wrong with that. In past years bouncing in the powder for me generally meant I needed a board with way more surface area, more speed or both. I 'think' that bouncing in powder or pushing off of the bottom would be similar to a 'cross over' transition. I think that what your video shows, and what I think I feel, is more of a 'cross through' transition. A powder game I play on days when there is maybe 10cm on top of bullet proof ice is to see how many turns I can link without hitting the hard ice below; feels like a cross through to me when doing this. I spent a bit of time watching noboarders and their technique. IMHO most seem to be using the surf based rotation technique, but not all of them are; of the few videos I watched (NOT and expert in this at all!). What I see are a few guys with a more static upper body. What I see here are noboard turns that are fairly straight down the fall line and ')' shaped. These turns seem to be initiated by the legs/ankles via SCR that look really tight. When making more 'C' shaped turns these riders tend to be in counter-rotation from time to time. Both are good techniques to have in the bag:) Interesting discussion Phil, thank you for this and Merry Christmas! Jeremy Jensen, Grassroots Powsurf Founder:

Hi Phil Loved your video, what beautiful conditions and nice riding! That Burton DumpTruck looks like it would be a lot of fun as well. You are using the surf based rotation technique in the video you attached, check out the Plus and Minus pictures from the screen shots that I lifted from you video. If I were you I would experiment with the back foot to see how this feels, particularly on the steeps when you have to make quick turns to miss a tree, etc. as a flatter back foot generally makes it easier to initiate the rotation. Cheers Rob

Hi Phil Thank you for your very thoughtful reply, this is the type of conversation I hoped might get going and I appreciate hearing your thoughts! I don't have the answers to these questions, only highly biased opinions. I am hopeful that the army of talented and experienced riders from this site will take the time to weigh in their thoughts. For me personally I think we are where we come from, back to the beginning as you mentioned. Does a rider live where they see a lot or little powder (opportunity), are they more senior and started when boards were wide and Sorels were the norm, were you a life time skier, racer, surfer, skater before boarding, etc, etc. I believe that this has more affect on what feels right in powder then any particular stance angle or board width; this influences a rider towards a particular technique and set up. This too may affect the advice that they will give new powder riders, which potentially could be positive or negative. For me personally I use the same technique with both hard and soft boots, piste or powder, regardless of the stance angles or board width. As I have aged I have tried soooo many stances and set ups that I now choose boards to match my preferred stance and set up. I think your thoughts on no boarding stance and technique is really interesting as well and could lead to more questions and answers. Cheers Rob My first set up below:

Hello Yamifumi I agree with Phil, there are a lot of ways to have fun and get the job done in powder. I go both ways, pretty sure it was Woody Allen who said that going both ways doubles your chance for a date on Saturday night;) I really have a lot of fun with both hard and soft boots in powder. I love the mobility of soft boots and the power of hard boots. Depending on the type of conditions, the terrain, etc. determines which set up I'll use. I have put a lot of time into figuring out what works for me personally in powder with regards to both hard and soft boots, so here is my 2 cents: When compared to my alpine set up, my hard boot powder stance set up is wider, flatter and uses cants on both feet. I've spent quite a bit of time doing a few Soft boot runs in a powder, then swithing up to a few powder runs in a Hard boot set up. I try to NOT look at the numbers when doing this as I can be a bit crazy with predetermined ideas about what my stance numbers should be. What I found is that the feeling of heel-toe and tip-tail balanced feeling of my soft boot set up in powder has 'influenced' over time my hard boot powder set up. Soft Boots - 33F - 9R, 23" width (Dupraz 193, 10.5m SCR, Trapper Trout Trap 160, 9m SCR) Hard Boots - 40ish Front (bit under) 4 degrees inward cant, 25ish Rear (bit over) 8 degrees inward cant, 23" wide. I have a 32" inseam. Northwave Point 900 boots with aproximately 2cm of no spring; zero preload for 2cm. The first few degress of ankle bend on my hard and soft boots feels very similar. (Pogo Longboard 180, 8m SCR, Swoard Dual 175, 10.5m SCR) There seems to be something magic about 45F-30R in hardboots and 30R-10R in softboots for POWDER as a good place to start ... and then move around when on the hill riding as needed. An area that is not talked about a lot but could be interesting to hear the thoughts and ideas of others is do Hardboot powder riders use the same technique with your alpine and powder set ups (pressure the nose, ride centered, static vs rotating upper body, etc, etc.)? It would seem to me that this might change the feeling-movements you are trying to achieve and how a rider would adjust their set up accordingly. It is ironic to me that Phil uses 45 F&R in HB only, while Softbootsurfer uses 45 R&R in SB only as both guys have a lot of powder experience ... a lot of ways to have fun and get the job done:) Hope this helps Rob

Ever dream of traveling all over Japan, going from resort to resort boarding as much as you can? This is exactly what this group of Japanese boarders have done. Really I could have called this thread Ja-Courdory just as easily as Ja-Pow. This Japanese crew of boarders have created a web-site called Gelanding.com. As best as I can guess, gelanding means to look for colder climates. Each video is 1 to 3 minutes long and shows a different resort from the different 'Prefectures' (Province, State, etc). The videos also gives a quick example of the roads leading to the resort, the parking lot, the lodge, the chair lift, the view from the chair into the valley ... and a trail map of the resort. This is followed by mellow turns and many slashes on wave like snow features at each place. Japan really looks like a snow-surfing boarding paradise! Cheers Rob http://gelanding.com

A big THANK YOU to Rusty Edges and Daveo for taking the time to dig out the F2 parts and for the Karma points for both of their extremely generous offers! Cheers, the next round is on me! Rob

Hi Daveo Thank you for the very nice offer:) I'll send you a PM to see if this offer might work out! Cheers Rob

If you have a few F2 wedge cants kicking around not being used, I am searching for a few of them. Thanks in advance Rob

I still have the original CBC TV recorded 45 minutes of Olympic GS on VHS. It was great to watch the nice big round and flowing turns in this race!!! I just went back to watch and listen to the moments that Marks equipment failed. Rob Stevens called Mark's plate a 'Derby Plate.' You don't realize how great it is to have Hi Definition TV until you watch an old VHS tape! The board and plate fail at the rear binding. It is hard to tell in the grainy recording, but it looks like the binding pulls a big chuck of the top layer of the board/plate right off ... inserts and all; the binding doesn't fail. I too heard that this was a Prior build board, with Simms markings, that failed. I am a Mark Fawcett fan, he was winning and still managed to deal with this bad luck with such grace and sportsmanship!! Cheers Rob

Watch the boards skid path from the 4:40 to 4:48 mark, this is all that I mean. This is easier to do on a perfectly flat groomed run. I say just give it a try:) Cheers Rob

Hi Freezer I went looking for a video on line, some of the short radius turns in the video below are the idea; you can see the skid shape in the snow; even though the shape in the snow is more cresent shaped. Think of this as a carvered turn, like you always make, where you are skidding the entire time but tring really hard to control and feather the amount- pressure of the skid so that the tip and tail of the board are just off axis of the carve. Then let the SCR do the work. Also remember that I said 'challenge myself' Cheers Rob

Hi Freezer If you want to stay on the steeper slopes riding with the pack, try doing '(' shaped turns in a fairly straight line down the fall line. The way I try to make this fun and not kill myself by going a 1000 km/hr is Slarve-Carving. What I mean by this is challenge yourself to see if you can make nice symmetrically shaped '(' turns where the tracks you make are a consistent maybe 4" wide all the way down; ideally there are no big fat track sections where you kick the tail way out to blow off a bunch of speed. Turning this way makes it possible to maintain a consistent speed, even on steep slopes, in addition to not using up all the real estate from one side of the run to the other ... making it safer. Cheers Rob

Rotation Instructional Steps

Hi Mig Growing up in the prairies and having a subscription to Surfer Magazine, for years, was probably not the norm in Saskatchewan! This lead to me moving to Australia, as a very young guy, with the soul purpose of learning to surf. The days I spent learning down under and reading those mags have had a life long effect on my snowboarding. As I have a lot more years of skateboarding, I clicked this in the poll ... but feel the same way about surfing that you expressed. What is a bit surprising to me is that skating and surfing seem to be the minority when compared to skiing, etc. with the forum members here ... as best as this informal poll can determine anyway. I was sure that the overwhelming majority of guys on this site would have a skate and/or surf Heritage that Mig expressed. Regardless, any board, any binding, any boot, any stance, any technique, any heritage ... doesn't really matter when you are having fun sliding down a hill of snow:) Cheers and thanks to all who took the time to click and respond. Rob

Gotta love Bomber for the cool stories that come out from time to time, especially when it is an obscure Skate add from the 70's:) Thank you for sharing your story Martin! It seems we are where we come from, with regards to boarding Heritage and what inspires a feeling when riding .... anything! Part of what inspired me to post this poll was a video of Gerry Lopez snowboarding with this son at Mt Bachelor. Gerry is of course a surf legend, but he raised his son as a snowboarder until recently. Gerry describes surfing and snowboarding as having a 'synergy' like no other two sports! Gerry's son, who is learning to surf, comments on similar feelings between snowboarding and surfing with just small movements. Give the dialogue at the 2:05 mark a listen. Thanks again for the responses, interesting topic! Rob

Hi davekempmeister I think we are of the same 70's vintage, maybe you remember this add from Skateboarder Mag? I bet Mig does:) When starting this thread I pondered breaking skateboarding into a few different sub categories, then realized that this could be done for surfing as well and would never end ... so I just kept it simple. Adds like the one below is why I messed around with slalom skateboarding, always thought that it was fun. Slalom skateboarding was the beginning of experimenting with stance angles, a life long pursuit! Both feet pointer very forward is fun, but it just didn't feel right to me. Regardless, your 'both feet pointed very forward' skateboard heritage seems to have impacted your riding right up to today. Cool. Thanks for you reply Rob

Hi Sunsurfer Thank you for your post, this is what I was curious about and find very intersting!!! I am the opposite of you in that I was always been more at home or comfortable on a ramp/halfpipe board and have never been a skiier; I spent years riding vert and still ride bowls/vert from time to time as an old guy. What is interesting to me is that this 'heritage' still has a big inpact on my preferred stance set up for hardboot carving today, particularly the back foot stance angle and sensation, balance point feeling. The upper body rotation involved when kickturning on vert is something that is like breathing for me. Cool, thanks for your thoughts. Rob

Hello I agree that overall physical ability or coordination is the culmination of many, many movements and sports; cross training. I also agree that the sensation in your head and stomach while riding a mountain bike is very similar to snowboarding; you can get this feeling from a roller coaster or a motorcycle well. For survey sake, if the ONLY sport a person had participated in was skateboarding, surfing or skiing ... they probably could step onto a snowboard for the first time and catch on pretty quick. This previous heritage might influence the way they like to snowboard; race, surf, park, etc. For survey sake, if the ONLY sport a person had participated in was mountain biking ... I don't think that the specific muscle memory skills developed on a bike would translate 'AS' well to snowboarding. This was my thought process when thinking about this 'Heritage' poll, but all replies are interesting and fun to hear!! Thanks again for the replies:) Rob

Hi Slopestar Biggest influence on snowboarding, as written above, is why I did not include an all of the above in the survey. Really interesting to see mountain biking as a snowboarding influence, didn't see that one coming for a board sport! Thanks for responding Rob

Yes, Skateboarding. I have 'edited' this several times ... either my computer or the Alpine web site is glitchy!