kjl
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Posts posted by kjl
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One of my problems is that my feet are too big to ever ride duck. Even on the widest board, I can only run 33 degrees without getting toe and heel drag. Can you imagine a duck stance with a 66 degree split? It will never happen.
I have seen it, except in hardboots. I posted about my random sighting a while ago, but in any case this guy I saw at Northstar at Tahoe had his Raichle hardboots set up at roughly +30/-30 degrees. Weird, weird, weird. No, he wasn't carving.
The "sliding in socks" test works in my opinion, and the "pushing them from behind" test seems like a good test to see which foot they happen to have shifted their weight to while they were standing around...
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I think Tahoe is supposed to have had ~15-20 feet of snow in March alone...
My new infallable way of making it dump non-stop: buy a new race board and be excited to ride it = 1 foot of fresh every day. Yikes.
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Hey there, Kevin - it'd be great to ride with you again. I will only be there for 3 days Sat->Monday (Apr 15-17). I'm a slave to somebody else's car, but I'll give you a call when I get in and see what I can work out.
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Um, ok.... I guess I'll just cry myself to sleep tonight then.
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speaking of... I may be visiting a friend in SLC in April, supposedly 5 minutes from Solitude and also close to... Brighton maybe? What's the best carving resort around there?
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Why burn calories trying to bend the board into a different shape than the sidecut is going to give you for free? I'd rather just focus my energy on balancing and soaking up bumps.
If you have flatter angles (like me, at 55/52), pushing your knees together or further apart twists the board torsionally (or, more specifically, if facing the nose, pushing my knees together prevents the board from twisting torsionally like it wants to), so it can definitely make a difference. In particular, I've noticed pushing the back knee in towards the front knee really helps the heelside turn on hard snow.
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Dan: Ah, that's why you were asking about ACL injuries? "Feeling kind of funny" - you should go to a doctor and get it looked at. I know it sucks to think about but either way, it would be better to know for sure, and by "for sure" I mean get a better, more educated guess.
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Bomber brought one to the SES and Scott got a few pictures. Look, I'm touching it! I'm touching it!!! Ooh, it's so smooth and shiny.... Me wants.
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I only use base cleaner to clean wax off my iron, my scraper, etc..
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skatha: good idea, i got thermoflex liners, are those moldable?
omgomg you're riding in non-molded thermoflex liners? No wonder your feet hurt. After you bake them they will go from being the most uncomfortable boots ever to the most comfortable boots ever. See if you can find a really good bootfitter around where you are, or check this and do it yourself:
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Jack, I agree with everything you said. I also never rode the legendary Madds in the 90s but had the pleasure at the SES of demoing probably that exact board (the #2 flex 158) and had been promised by Mike that it would "ride like a long board" and that it would blow me away.
The edge hold was incredible and the stability was amazing considering its tiny size. With such a shortcut I was making 10 turns for everybody else's one turn, so I was just absolutely wrecked at the end of the day, but what an amazing narrow, steep carving machine it is. Definitely one of those infinite-confidence boards.
If I had more room in my quiver (and/or had to ride narrower, more crowded slopes than I do right now), I would get one in an instant. What a sweet ride, and it really did feel like a much longer board than it was, except I could muscle it around if I wanted to.
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I disagree with the conclusion. Her day may still have been gone even if she had had the exact same fall but had been wearing a helmet.
And if she had been wearing a helmet she may have a worse fall due to the increased confidence the helmet gave her.
Heh, you and your risk compensation ;)
In regards to the first point: I've whacked my head a bunch of times with and without a helmet on ice, and hits with the helmet are better, for sure. Perhaps I am at greater risk to break my neck in a ragdoll tumble, but from sheer impact, there is a clear winner.
In regards to the second point, personally I don't ride any differently with or without a helmet, because the limiting factor is that I am afraid for my shoulders and my knees, not my head. Of course, one data point doesn't actually mean anything, and in general with these kinds of things, I tend towards believing whichever side results in the least financial profit, since the other side will tend to be bolstered with more commissioned studies, so in this case, helmet manufacturers. In this particular case, I have a hard time believing people ride more aggressively when they wear helmets simply because I think most people's greatest fears are their limbs, or simply wish to avoid falling down at all.
Would you agree with the statement, "If you know that you won't ride like (more of :D) an idiot if you are wearing a helmet, you should buy a helmet and wear it"?
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My harebrained theory is that when you start out on green or blue runs as a beginner->intermediate carver, your toeside is strong because you have a small joint (the ankle) with which you can quickly make small adjustments. When you start going mach 5 on steep, hard snow, the toeside is weak because you have a small joint (the ankle), which is soft and collapses instead of directly tranferring power to the board :p
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Is that your first time on hardboots?
If so, you likely have all sorts of habits and muscle memory that is making your back knee hurt more - my right knee is also my bad one - the torn PCL + MCL plus reconstruction, and I had all sorts of awful knee pain when I first tried hardboots that went away as I figured out how to ride. Most of it was related to skidded heel turns, which is probably what you are doing if it was your first time on hardboots.
A few examples:
1) counterrotating on heelsides (especially if you are trying to skid to a stop) is a habit that takes some time to get rid of, and is pretty painful on that back knee. I really concentrated, when sliding to a stop, on just facing completely sideways to the slope the same way a skier would and that probably got rid of 85% of my rear knee pain. I was getting lots of pain during other times while riding but it turns out it was mostly because my knee was already tweaked from this.
2) muscling the board around for heelside turns in flat angles is easy because you apply force in line with the direction all your muscles and joints go (like a forward kick). Muscling the board around in steep angles is hard and painful because it's all diagonal and you're usually counterrotating and your legs are probably straighter than you think, and in general is just really stressful on the knee. If you just put lots of weight on the front of the board and let the back end swing around gently without muscling it, it really makes that hurt less.
3) when I first switched to hardboots I was really tense because my ankle wasn't doing what I expected, which meant stiff, straight legs, and really tense, tight muscles, which also didn't help. When I got comfortable enough to, again on the heelsides, just keep the knees loose and the muscles relaxed and just stand there instead of firing every single stabilizer muscle as hard as it would go, that pretty much eliminated the rest of the knee pain.
Just my 2c, and ymmv of course, but you know that, being a doc and all. But I guess the, uh, major bullet point in my essay here is you might want to stick with the steep angles and see if you can get rid of the pain by getting rid of the inward twisting motion.
BTW, what angles are you running?
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When the snow is hard, the speed is fast, and the G-forces high, it seems like it is easier to sit on that left hip (if you're regular) and just jam that edge right into the snow and just crank the board into a super tight, hard carve. The toeside body position is easier to get into on the easier stuff for me since it's a pretty relaxed pose, but when the snow gets harder, it's harder for me to really pressure that toe edge and make it solid.
I felt like you did for a while - it was uncomfortably twisted and squashed, but now the tension in my body feels good - it feels like I am powering the board.
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So how do you know when you have an ACL injury? Intense pain right away? Loss of function/range of motion?
Depends - if you did it with a twisting, huge-force kind of way (like my ultimate frisbee injury, or other cutting, cleats-wearing sport injuries or skiing falls), you usually end up ripping up all sorts of other things, too (tearing other ligaments and ripping other random connective tissue), and you usually feel intense pain, followed by swelling, and an inability to walk.
If you just popped the ACL only sometimes it can be painless, but usually there is an audible pop and you can feel a snap (it's like the largest rubber band in the world snapping inside your leg so you feel the shock+vibration), and then you might be kind of OK but feel like your leg is "about to give way", or feel like you just don't "trust the joint" anymore, or it feels "unstable."
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You all need an East Coast Scott Firestone. A Scaaht Firestone, if you will. Or is that Scawt Firestone?
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A week after my MRI results diagnosed a fully torn ACL, most of the MCL, and lateral meniscus I met so many people who'd had the ACL reconstruction that . I tore it playing indoor ultimate in Feb last year. Surgery in early July. I was boarding this January at six months post-op. But only about half a day at a time. By 5 hours it hurt too much but my turns were really good for the first 2hrs.
Heh, ultimate frisbee - it's such a dangerous sport, and nobody knows it ;) On my club team we probably had about one torn cruciate knee ligament per person, 1 Active Ankle per person, and a bunch of dislocated shoulders and other minor injuries. Ultimate frisbee has given me two dislocated shoulders, uncountable ankle sprains (the bad kind, with blue streaks going up the lower leg), a torn PCL, MCL, and some other random small-joint injuries.
I also had surgery this last July and started riding in January exactly 6 months post-op. I had some pretty bad knee pain after a few hours of riding each day as well, but by the time February rolled around I was able to ride ~20 days in a row without pain (walking up and down stairs was painful, but not snowboarding ;) ) I don't think I can play ultimate again, though... running is hard, and I can't even conceive of cutting and sprinting right now.
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guess I'll go google which ones can heal by themselves and which can't. Mine hasnt bothered me in a long time.
Having torn lots and lots of ligaments:
MCLs usually heal by themselves if your doctor puts a brace on you(I had a full MCL tear that healed back to roughly full strength in about 7-8 weeks).
LCLs usually heal by themselves too, but I hear really bad ones (full) might not heal as well.
ACLs and PCLs don't heal.
Some people, if really rigorous with maintaining strength, can deal with torn ACLs and PCLs (I played pretty intense cutting sports and snowboarded with a completely torn PCL for about 10 years), but you are at much higher risk of arthritis, more severe injury, meniscus damage, etc., etc. if things are shifting around in there at all. For example, I was pretty much in top condition until about 3 years ago, at which point for some reason my bad knee (the one with the missing PCL for 10 years) started really loosening up, catching, locking, and generally feeling like I was grinding everything to pieces and had to get surgery, as I was unable to run.
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Third is my baby.
Hey, that's my car, too. Every day I curse the fact that I didn't get a wagon, though. Aside from that, great car.
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Just want to second: don't skimp on the PT.
Also: go easy on the repair for as long as they tell you (6 months). You've got no nerves in your replacement ACL so you will have no feedback whatsoever about how strong the ligament is, and if it is near its breaking point or not. Your muscles and nerves heal really quick and the swelling goes away and then you feel like a million bucks, but in reality that ligament is just waiting to snap when you decide to run down the stairs two at a time or whatever.
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Hehe, that's right, I forgot. You were on the first lift, then Daneille, James, and I hopped on, and I think we all probably got about 3-4 laps in before anybody else showed up. Ladia was there too but he was hitting moguls off to the left with his Madd BX. What a great day!
BTW, I liked the idea of your tape measure so much I went and found one at I think an Orchard Supply Hardware. Inches+centimeters for the win!
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I think 50-55 degrees celcius for 1-3 hours it looks like. I haven't been able to figure out if it's bad to leave it in for longer than 3 hours, but I'm guessing not (120-130F isn't that hot. I think. John, I'll probably see you on Sunday.
F2 softboot intecs?
in Carving Central
Posted
A few questions:
1) Is this binding/boot system as awesome and snow/clogproof as its hardboot counterpart?
2) Do they still make these boots and bindings?
3) Where can I buy them?
Somebody during the SES told me F2 made a softboot intec binding/boot, and I found it in their 2004-5 catalog, but not their 2005-2006 one. The boot has an integrated intec cable - cool! See http://www.f2snow.com/2004_5/english/produkte/bindings/joint_hbx/joint_hbx.html and http://www.f2snow.com/2004_5/english/produkte/boots/thunder/thunder.html