KingCrimson

I was just so thrilled to be back on plates again I couldn't stop myself. No car break, the sun came out and we got pretty hot as the day went on. After sundown it got cold. I'm also really pleased with my RCRs. Excellent stiffness and it's the first pair of boots I've had rock solid heel hold and I never had to loosen them between runs or on breaks. Not bad for fresh out of the box! Considering cost, accessibility, etiquette, and average skill level, Buck is my favorite place I've been for doing a bunch of laps and working on technique. I'll definitely be getting a pass.

Gotta say, I really loved the scene at Buck. After sundown a couple younger racers came out and really looked good. Towards the end of the day I finally started getting my act together.

I'm going to wait a bit longer, the only board I have out here is still a bit too virgin for thin coverage. If you're serious about taping your face, I've got a few rolls of 3M Transpore kicking around. It lets your skin breathe and the adhesive is easier on your skin. If you're using a cloth mask it'll probably get gross with residue after a few tapings though. We tend to not tape our masks in the field because we frequently switch between surgical masks and N95s and it's hard on the masks.

Thanks for the updates. I'm looking at heading up next weekend. Does it still feel like a super spreader event? Any luck with remedying your fogging? Back in March-April I was wearing splash goggles at work and could manage to fog up both my glasses and the goggles. Now with prescription safety glasses there's only one layer of fog!

Thanks guys. I reached out to Karl about a week ago, he was always a great resource for me at USASA nationals. I'll plan on bouncing around a little bit and seeing what I like. I have a funky rotating schedule and always have at least one midweek day off. Hopefully I'll see you guys out there.

DonPablo, Thanks for taking the time to type that all out. Sounds like Buck will make a lot more sense. I didn't realize it's so much taller. And correct, I'm up 494. If you're interested in seeing some walking-pace edge catches, it would be awesome to connect with you guys this winter.

Ahh the original owner of said BX board!

Hi everyone, I haven't posted in years.. My wife and I relocated to the Twin Cities a year ago. I haven't been on plates since 2013 when I did a tib-fib, but I've been riding my BX board in soft boots sporadically since. I just bought a new pair of UPZs and still have all my gear. I'm hoping to solicit advice on where to buy a pass this year. I'd love to get back to bashing some gates if it's feasible, but would be happy just to ride with other hardbooters this winter. Being accustomed to driving hours to go snowboarding, the novelty of living 20 minutes from Hyland is pretty cool but I noticed there's little discussion about Hyland here. Buck is about 35 minutes for me.

Alpine snowboarding, let alone specific styles like PB and EC are young. Any discussion is going to be full of pseudoscience, conjecture, and hate. I think your question was phrased towards an intangible riding philosophy, vs a specific technique question, and that's where the BS brews.

You are capable of much better commentary. Given that many snowboarders (regardless of how early they started) aren't even yet eligible for Medicare, we have very young, underdeveloped data on much of our equipment, and I feel that there is very little authority on what are "safe" modifications on hardboot bindings. However, there are factory bail profiles that reliably retain everything from park ski to AT boots and every alpine specific hardboot. Sidewinders are cheaper than orthopedic surgery, look awesome, and will greatly improve your riding experience over any generation of Cateks. Teach- I don't have pictures of my taping setup. It's also specific to what kind of boot you want to use. If you feel that there is a particular point in your boot-binding interface that is sloppy, you can certainly try taping it up and see if it improves. I would never modify any load bearing components beyond shimming though. Beyond that, getting hurt sucks really fucking badly. I appreciate the drive to tinker, but it's not worth it. Again, there is little to no empirical data to demonstrate that modifying a factory binding is safe or improves its function.

Don't go messing with bail geometry...Plate bindings can fail in so many ways, I don't know why anyone would risk tinkering with the closure mechanism. I had my raceplate heel bails all shimmed with electrical tape to take some lateral play out with ski boots, it worked well. FWIW, when I broke a TD2 the shoulders and bail held up fine, but the shoulder bolt snapped off about one thread into the block.

Still not as dogmatic as the other marketer of boards meant for a specific riding style. :P

Just like there are many ways to balance yourself in a skid, you don't have to have a given weight distribution in a carve. Standing on your front leg at the end of a turn is a great way to run out of options and spin out, but its perfectly feasible in the fall line. Also, the turning moment of the board doesn't have to be a fixed location. There's a great multiple exposure overlay of bordy drifting around a gate on a first Gen Kessler that shows a progressive angle of attack through the turn.

I see a lot of conjecture and not a lot of productive discussion. To assume that any given front/rear bias is ideal is to dismiss one of the major advantages to snowboarding.

Race courses all day! Those runs are like crack

You know, I'm not sure that Ross and everyone else at R.A.S.T.A. would appreciate that, it was clearly an isolated usage. :P

It's pretty much all great for carving on a 170ish freecarve board. I rode an old 185 WCR every day when I lived out there. Lots of wide steep stuff. The runs off the top are groomed and rock on a slalom board in the morning as long as you're okay destroying your pants if you fall. The runs off chairs 1, 2, and 9 get hairy and crowded pretty fast, but 12 and 13 have some awesome glades and groomers. I found at Mammoth I never really did laps like I do at other resorts, I think its a great mountain for exploring and getting lost. Be careful on Terrys Run, there's a nasty roller that broke my leg :P

While I appreciate discussions like this, I really wonder whether most people are sensitive enough to cant and lift for this all to matter. I find that as long as I can run through my whole range of motion without feeling off balance or anything hurting, my riding is more affected by how badly I need to #2 than binding position. Have you found a way to measure the internal toe height? I wonder if you could take a measurement of the angle of the boot board vs vertical and see if there's an appreciable difference.

Great to run into you too Dave!

Gaper

I'll try to head up. I broke my hand a few weeks back and haven't been able to work. The conditions in Colorado were awesome :P

Have fun guys. I've had many good times vibing on the 395..

Absolutely. You guys are both right on the way for me. Let me know if you want to figure out a carpool situation. I have a wrangler so im pretty strapped for space with 3 people, but it would be awesome to split costs regardless. Shoot me a text. Eight five eight two zero eight nyne eight nine four

Is anyone else getting their gaper on this year at MH? Conditions were dope steez yesterday, yo.

I'll probably be softbooting it up for this season as well. We will jib some **** together.