xy9ine

boris - saw your demo boards the previous couple days I've been up (last thurs & sunday), but missed you in the flesh. good looking hardware. sunday afternoon started getting decent with the dumping, but last night (tues) was the first day this season i actually had some good fun. bumped up, but proper amounts of forgiving, from-the-sky snow! the atv was in it's element; working well. perhaps i'll re-think the softboot angle for the moment...

i'm starting to think about getting back on softboots. our (local) relatively tight & busy terrain isn't optimum for big fast arcs (spend way too much time being stressed about getting t-boned on the alpine deck); and i'm also splitting time with the kidlets, so a more 'casual' setup may better fit the bill. I had a fantastic day last winter on a ('high performance') rental softboot setup (with appropriate carve friendly angles) and was impressed with how capable & fun it was. approaching conventional gear with newly learned carving technique was eye opening. i also like the public perception angle; carving technique on conventional gear could perhaps make we alpinists a bit less of a circus sideshow. kind of a gateway drug to higher performance hardware. anyways... time to scour cl for some driver-x's or malamutes...

i saw your demo boards at the lodge, boris. pretty crappy frozen conditions out there, though there was still a bit of loose granular in the moguls, which kept things bearable for a couple runs. finally getting some coverage, though...

whoa; dumpage predicted monday! ok, starting to get excited again with the prospect of genuine fall from the clouds natural snow. http://www.snow-forecast.com/resorts/Cypress-Mountain/6day/mid cool quiver you've got there boris! love the carbon. always neat to see new builders out there.

too cold to ride bikes last night, so decided to check out the slopes. took the (new to me) kessler 171 out for the 1st time this season. forgot what beasts these things are. ridiculously good when you're on top of things. feeling pretty rusty myself, but good to get out for a few turns. conditions were as to be expected - manmade on ice; could be worse, i suppose. things would be pretty dismal if it weren't for the guns. thanks, olympic legacy! i think this is day 5 for me this season - bit of a write-off; feeling relatively unmotivated to get out there in these conditions. *sigh*.

it's pure awesome. want.

^i saw the kessler on the rack; very nice! did a some am runs with the kids on skis (weird things, those), then a couple quick board runs (with ski boots; still not sure what to think about that). pretty sad snowpack up there; think i'll be riding bikes until we get a significant dump again (on that note the north shore trails are in great shape for this time of year). random: had kid #2's skis taken from the rack in front of the lodge. well worn 90cm ex rentals. not worth much, so i'm guessing a case of mistaken identity (i saw another pair of the same skis only in a longer length nearby that sat untouched for the couple hours we were there). not a huge loss, but a pain in the ass, regardless.

a couple important characteristics (for me) missing: materials composition (i.e, glass, metal, carbon, etc), camber profile (i.e., extent of decambering), and tip/tail shape. and you can't forget juju - i.e., builder magic (or lack thereof).

the skunks intrigue me. a somewhat effective soft boot carver?

i assume he's referring to direct fiscal support; ie, it's we retail-paying rec carvers that pay the bills.

wow. those are some beastly large radius arcs.

the 172 looks superfun. single radius, i take it? tight(er) radii on long(ish) boards sounds like a neat combo. how do the oxesses ride in general?

was up whistler & blackcomb sunday (1st). raining in the village but a bit of fresh (7cm) up top = variable snow conditions from top to bottom. limited runs open of course, but enough to keep entertained for a casual early season day.

^so very pretty...

on extended vacation with kessler, perhaps? been trying to contact hansjuerg for a few months as well, to no avail.

sale pending.

spring sale!

i think he means skinsuits (vs. baggy clothing).

3d's offer is below asking; unless he/she is willing to bump up to my asking price ($600+ship) it's yours. hopefully cross border shipping isn't too steep... not in a huge hurry to sell this thing, regardless.

price trim.

not a bad idea. i'm going to try it with 8 screws and see if it holds. the board has seen allot of use, and the edges are almost gone, so not a huge tragedy regardless, but would be nice to get a bit more use out of it.

*quizzical expression*. are you from the olden days? i kid, i kid... that said, the canadian penny has just been discontinued, so said phrases are on their way to becoming anachronistic here.

a couple inserts on my kessler started pulling and hansjuerg suggested the same; seems sketchy, but hoping to get more life out of the thing, so... he also mentioned that bombers tend to pull inserts; looking at the design (as opposed to something like an f2 i suppose i could see some merit to this hypothesis.

roy noticed the td3 base wasn't sitting flush on the board - a couple of the inserts were pulling out. the topsheet was cracked around one; just raised around a couple others. decided it wasn't worth risking riding further. i had an exchange w/ hansjuerg last night (great customer service - quick email replies) and he said bomber bindings had a tendency to do this (but he changed the insert design since to better deal with this). He also said that using the surrounding healthy inserts would be an acceptable solution for the time being as long as I keep an eye on it (I can screw to 8 inserts to distribute the load better if I slide the binding back slightly). He also suggested using F2 bindings instead. So; guess I'll try to keep it rolling for a bit and keep a close eye open for further damage. Roy - good you kept the limbs intact; popping bindings is scary. The chundery conditions on days like that do put allot of stress through the hardware for sure.

was looking at a ex racer custom built 178 for a cheap beater. after riding a couple modern metal boards (kessler, prior) would i hate life on something pseudo vintage like this? should i save the pennies for a new(er) thing instead? from the snippets i've found these boards seem to have been on the more demanding end of the spectrum. the fact it's a custom build may of course mean that stock reviews have little correlation.