kjl

Ha ha, I see - I know we disagree on various political things (like Star Wars and Extremecarving :D), but even so I read your post and was all "Wtf? Seriously?!" I have no problem with ticket prices, any moreso than with CD prices, DVD prices, movie ticket prices. It really is econ 101. If people don't think the goods (sports, music, movie) are worth the price they don't have to buy. If enough people don't buy, ticket prices will go down. If they haven't gone down yet, then it means enough people still think it's worth it (or the team will go bankrupt).

Somebody needs to get Cliff on video instead of behind the camera! That guy has smooth surf carve style for sure...

I don't think spending lots and lots of money to pay for your extravagant lifestyle counts as philanthropy. When I buy a new snowboard so I can have fun on the hill, that is not philanthropy. When Jonbass buys hockey equipment for kids that can't afford it or drives them to games, now that is philanthropy.

Hi - welcome. You can crank your binding angles up, but be sure to slide the highbacks around so that the boot cuff doesn't fall off them on your heelside turns (so rotate them so the highbacks still face the heelside edge of the board). You will have a hard time pressuring the toeside edge of the board with your back foot at 50 in my opinion. At that point you have a significant mechanical disadvantage. Softbootsailer (in that video) has rigged up three strap bindings (extra strap around the top of the boot) to compensate. I have smallish feet, so it is easier for me, but you might try something in between. I find that both of my carved turns are pretty good at 39F/21R, though I need to put weight on the front foot on the heelside carve and weight on the back foot on the toeside carve. And of course they are not nearly as good as the carves on hardboots. You could try angles somewhere around there, and if you still have too much overhang, maybe stick in some risers to see if that buys you a few more degrees of lean. I used to use those Palmer plates a long time ago; don't know if they still make them.

Easiest way is to time your "unweighting" part of the turn with a slight bump/ridge/drop. It can be so slight that it's barely visible, but that combined with your natural unwighting is usually enough to get you in the air on your transition. The real way is to load up a ton of energy in the board at the end of your turn and sync your unweighting with the spring of the board (like using the bounce of a trampoline). It may help to focus on the back of the board, so that it is kind of an ollie, which usually lands you more on the nose of your board, which is where you want your weight at the start of the next turn anyway. Steeper is better for more energy stored in the board.

I ride Malamutes, but did not heat mold them. Disclaimer: they are probably 3-4 seasons old or older, so the liner tech may have changed, but unlike the thermoflex in my hardboots, the Malamute liner seemed to be that kind of cheesy "heat-moldable" where after several days of heating them with your body heat they kind-of sort-of mold themselves to your feet.

Jesus Christ will you put a damn filter between your brain and your fingers? God. AlaskanRover: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=skwal You people. Seriously. W T F.

I don't think they understand that for the most part, people really don't care what they ride. If they would just stop waving a big flag and yelling at the tops of their lungs about whatever personal crusade they are on, it would be fine. Yes, three or four people got all aggressive on you. It's the internet; people do that. Maybe half or more of the people on this forum ride softboots (exclusively or not is irrelevant) and it's just fine. Softbootsailer rides only soft boots. I ride softboots when I'm not on the groom. Nobody has an issue with this. Like, at all. Nobody hates you because you ride softboots (ok, maybe 5 people do). They are annoyed because you won't shut the ___ up about how unique you are as a softboot carver or a longboard windsurfer, or whatever gear you happen to ride. You're not unique; it's just that nobody else is broadcasting nonstop about it. If you have something to contribute, contribute, or if you have a question, ask it. But I'm not interested in your gear-persecution manifestos. Like that "we're not all knuckledraggers" thread. Is that like a defense against some imagined accusation, a protest against some perceived grievance, or just a statement of how much you love to carve in softboots? Write a topic sentence or something first... For the record, I voted "yes" not to segregate the jibbers into a ghetto, but because carving in softboots is fun, but is different from hardbooting. As far as I can tell there are no softboot snowboarding forums with any useful information... or that are even comprehensible to people capable of rational thought. It would be nice to have a softboot forum here which had the same kind of level of expertise and community, etc.. Mark and Dano can opt to never open the jibber forum and we can all enjoy a hardboot forum free from ridiculous religious wars like this one, people like me can enjoy both forums, and hopefully people like softbootsailer (who only rides softboots) will continue to post in the hardboot forum because most of what people write is not hardware specific anyways. And if you really, actually care about the fact that you ride softboots, you can hang out over there.

Worst signal to noise ratio ever.

You're just new at the sport and the equipment. You'll figure it out. No, there's no equipment issue. If you are used to softbooting at low angles, you are used to being able to feather the edge angle of the board with the ankle joint, and also strongly with the knees. In hardbooting, you have pretty much completely eliminated any control of the edge angle from your ankles, and sharply decreased the effectiveness of your knee joint at controlling edge angle. You have to drive it mostly with your hips. You just need to put some more hours on the board in and the balance will come. But some things to think about maybe: hardboots make it so your don't actually have to work very hard to keep your edge angle up when you're skidding to a stop. If you're pushing really hard with the back foot and getting knocked around, you can relax, just stand comfortably on the board, push your hips slightly towards the snow, and let the boots do what they were designed to do: hold your edge angle.

Yes, I got that knee pain for the first few days (weeks?) of being on an alpine board. I assume you're regular and your right knee is your back one? What happens when you are used to softies at flat angles (and if you are used to counterrotating your turns, which is almost universal in softbooters unless they've really trained in carving technique), is: 1) if you turn heelside 2) or skid to slow down heelside 3) or fall on your butt heelside your first instinct from softbooting is to face the toeside edge of your board with your upper body and hips as you kick the tail out and/or land on your butt. That is fine is softies at flat angles, but if you've got your back boot rotated towards the nose at 45 degrees or more, you're basically twisting your foot 45 degrees inwards, which is actually quite painful for the back knee, especially if you're bending your knees and absorbing little bumps and stuff as you skid. The quick trick to make the pain go away (and is probably good habit anyways for riding in general) is, when you skid to a stop or turn heelside in general, try to keep your upper body facing the nose of the board, or at least facing the direction your toes are facing. To really exaggerate it, when skidding to a stop, try to face completely sideways to the slope so that your right shoulder is pointing downhill instead of your chest. And when you fall backwards, land on your left hip instead of your ass. As soon as I figured that out that twisting pain in the rear knee went away. You can verify that this is what is causing the pain by strapping into your alpine snowboard in your living room, facing the toeside edge of the board, and squatting. If you rotate to the left, towards the nose, the pain goes away.

I voted yes, thought I agree with Tom, and he voted no :) There are techniques for softboot carving at flatter angles which are different from hardboot carving at high angles. If I was primarily a softbooter, I would love a forum with the level of general expertise and tech talk that bomber sometimes provides, where I could ask technical questions. I think if you ask "how do I carve a deep heelside turn," the question 1) would warrant different advice for softies and hardboots, 2) would receive exactly zero useful replies in any softboot snowboarding forum I can think of, and 3) would turn into into a weird hardboot/softboot pissing match on bomber. Those 3 points indicate the need for a vaguely well-mannered, knowledgable softboot forum here.

Ray, you have no idea how psyched I was to have gotten that shot of you jumping on Ruthies - I just had my camera rolling on my knee and slid to a stop to rest a little bit (and luckily also happened to skid to a perfect standing stop without having to sit down) and you came screaming by and launched off the lip. I was just hoping the camera was aimed the right direction! BTW, for people who are having a hard time playing it back because their computers or internet connections are slow (it's a 1280x1080 video), you can poke the "HD is on" button right after you hit Play and that should make it stream the SD version and make it easier to deal with.

Heh, I think she was trying to be funny/serious, not dickish :p Previous studies have shown that progesterone supports the normal development of neurons in the brain, and that the hormone has a protective effect on damaged brain tissue. It has been observed in animal models that females have reduced susceptibility to traumatic brain injury and this protective effect has been hypothesized to be caused by increased circulating levels of estrogen and progesterone in females.[39] A number of additional animal studies have confirmed that progesterone has neuroprotective effects when administered shortly after traumatic brain injury.[40] Encouraging results have also been reported in human clinical trials.[41][42] The mechanism of progesterone protective effects may be the reduction of inflammation which follows brain trauma.[43]

39/21 in softies. I do some carving that way, but I rode at those angles for years before I even knew what hardboots were.

I think cant is less important in softboots. The boots just bend so your stance is comfortable. Hardboots: 17.5" Softboots: 21.5"

<table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/lJqw2luoXC-NAc2L_z-4Kw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-XfSqUDaI/AAAAAAAAAOA/VOWwXudhI10/s720/P1000109.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/NH5x5yDnfGSkf2PuYKN6jw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-Zb21WjkI/AAAAAAAAAO4/tYUyW6phbN8/s720/P1000063.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/r678KjIhk53l1UECiAoJgw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-a9Fa_oxI/AAAAAAAAAPI/cPltSUpA7Cg/s720/P1000068.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/mi9Z7-Mwx16VtNkang8L_g?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-aAARJrkI/AAAAAAAAAPA/yQH6xjygWD4/s720/P1000064.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/YfkW4UnGOQjD5F--7xjcPA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-bBFQR9_I/AAAAAAAAAQ4/XMEEg0CRXa0/s720/P1000077.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ksV41RAEnKUBV31JEyy9hA?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S2-euK7lZEI/AAAAAAAAAQQ/tGmKhPb8XZc/s720/P1000094.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table> <table style="width:auto;"><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/TtAfi70iL6O13a07-xeqvw?feat=embedwebsite"><img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_6bpk-BciJXg/S3eLhfORbpI/AAAAAAAAAWw/BAthLhAjQIc/s720/RemoPic.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family:arial,sans-serif; font-size:11px; text-align:right">From <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/ribsngibs/Aspen2010?feat=embedwebsite">Aspen2010</a></td></tr></table>

I wrote to Michelle a few years ago because my boots were so squeaky that people were hearing them FROM THE LIFT as I snowboarded by. She wrote: "Fin says to use all synthetic grease on your boots." Yeah, it's the plastic rubbing on plastic at the ankle joint that does it.

Yeah, I agree with Jim, and the others. You can carve it, but it's probably more worth your time to go hunting for the soft stuff in the trees, etc.. If I'm carving in softer snow I don't turn as hard, I sit a little more in the back seat, and ride with a much lighter touch . Railing turns is fun, but in the increased danger of digging/folding your nose, highsiding and maybe breaking an ankle isn't worth it for me. In any case, it is also really fun to do lazy, fast cruising in that kind of snow you're talking about - a few inches of fresh snow groomed in (or not) overnight is the perfect surface for letting the board loose and doing like 6 huge, high speed, low-G carved turns all the way down the hill :)

Heh, yes, that's Polish Tom :) He also took the footage of me during the split screen segment (where it has the view from my knee-cam in the lower left at the same time Tom is filming me from the side of the run). You can see every time I am pointed straight at the camera that there's a little orange Tom in the middle of the knee-cam view :)

A real bummer I wasn't able to stay for the SES aside from that one first, great day at Buttermilk, but I made a video of the WCS session the week before with the Swiss and Germans. I got a quick shot of dredman and maybe 2 other SES carvers that I can't recognize from the footage. Now, with 100% more knee-cam! <object width="640" height="540"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9687434&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9687434&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="640" height="540"></embed></object><p><a href=" ">WCS Aspen 2010</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user2412350'>http://vimeo.com/user2412350">Ken Lao</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>

Ha ha ha ha. Too funny. Baggy pants may be why you like snowboarding, but I like snowboarding because of the "snowboarding" part. And the "snowboarding with friends" part, too. Cliquey high school girls and Jordache jeans. Whatever. There are more important things to worry about, like having fun.

Wait, that was you?

Cool! And the boarding section looked way better than the other 3.

Yeah, posting spoilers in the thread *title* where you can't miss it is considered bad etiquette all over the internet. It's just conventions. People know to avoid online news sites because they know the score of the superbowl will be plastered on the front page, but forums are generally safe because people don't do that or they get teh banhammer. Arrogance is a pretty harsh word for that. Also, in this case, you have it backwards. One person posting a spoiler can ruin many, many other people's experience.