Puddy Tat

Nice!

John, I picked the board up for a friend who is getting into hardbooting. However he only needs the board as I've already found him a set of TD2 SIs, Intec heels, and UPZ RTRs. He wants to use the TD2s so I'm trading him a couple of my TD3 3D center discs and a set of new TD3 blue elastomers for the cant disc and bindings that are currently on the board. So if you need the bindings and/or cant disc PM me. I'm not trying to make money flipping boards I was just trying to get a friend set up so I'm sure we can work out something reasonable. Dave

He rails pretty well. I'd love to see sub-titles for that. Dave

Not so much. But I had picked her up from her lessons at the end of the class a few weeks ago. So I have met him. 45, and yet still putting up with my crap...

DenverSteve and Oldsnowboards, Board arrived today in just as advertised condition (which was great condition). It even survived an unwrapping and rewrapping by customs. Thanks again, Dave

My wife was in softboot lessons with an instructor and two other women so I was riding alone at Sunshine Village on Saturday. While I was riding up Divide Chair in the morning I noticed that sometime during the past week Sunshine Village had groomed all the steep blacks just to the left of the Chair (Angel Flight, South 205, Boundary Ridge). I was pretty stoked to hit these as they are normally a complete mogul field. So I railed turns down the WC Downhill and then crossed under Angel Chair to get to the top of the run. At which point I stopped to take a look at the run and it was much steeper than I had thought. It was so steep I don't think any skier or boarder had actually been carving turns on it as the "cord marks" were gone turning the entire face into a smooth sheet of white looking chalk. It was definitely steep enough that I had to stop and take a couple of breaths to think about what I was doing before I dropped in. When I did drop I was just completely focused on railing it, and managed to hold it together and make nice circular carves with no edge skid, hips on the snow in the turns. I wasn't aware but my wife's class had pulled up to practice riding a face opposite and after watching me ride that, her instructor turned to the class and said "Ok, now he's just showing off." Dave

And Bob yes you actually carve the snot out of your, albeit modified, soft set-up.

"Dang it, a mainstream media magazine realized we're invalid. I know I'll suggest softboots can carve as well as hardboots again. It's 2013 by this point there shouldn't be anybody alive who can refute that." Dave

More interesting is the number of snowboarders in the comment section who refuse to recognize the point of the article. Still glad I'm a hardbooter. Dave

Now I'm thinking of a Millenium Falcon motif for my next board....

"That's the first time I've seen a snowboard that looks like it could keep up with my race skis."

That makes alot of sense. Given that a racer doesn't 'C' their turns the same way a freecarver does, and hence ends up running at much higher speeds, a stiffer boot would actually feel quite soft when heavily loaded in a turn. Yeah this is what I was trying to say. I'm not talking about a free flexing boot. We need some forward stiffness in order to allow you to transfer your weight to the nose of the board. However a softer "controlled" flex really gives that surfy feeling, and provides a range of movement to the ankle joint that allows absorption of irregularities and inconsistencies in the snow. Dave

As usual around here YMMV. While I've heard good things about it, and I've both mounted it on my daughter's boots and suggested it to other people; being in UPZs I've never tried the Bomber BTS. The season I had in the Track 225Ts I used them purely for AM riding and then switched to the ATBs as the wide toe and narrow heeled UPZs fit my screwed up feet better. However like the UPZ spring system I'm guessing that BTS provides more, and more consistent, flex than just trying to flex the plastic of the shell. I'd suggest even the red springs are softer than a boot locked in a position. If it didn't allow such flex why install it (beyond trying to compensate for the variable temperature characteristics of the plastic that is)? Like I say I've never raced, so I can't relate any of what I'm saying to a racing perspective. In fact many high level racers (Mike Trapp, etc...) appear to be wearing ski boots (although they are mounted on isolation plates). This would appear to be counter to what I'm mentioning in my opening post. Dave I get where you are coming from with your size and weight, flexing a locked boot at the ankle would cause ankle pain as the shell deformed. I believe this occurred once or twice to me with the Deeluxe 225Ts. All in all I'd bet most boots actually feel "softer" to you. Dave

Thanks for the props:cool:. I use a mondo 28 UPZ boot (RTR, RC10, and ATBs) and use mondo 28 Deeluxe 141 liners in them. As an aside after popping in the liners a few of the spots that I'd previously had widened on the boots had to be pushed out again because the thermos have a bit more volume than the Flos. I'm not sure everyone has to have that done, my feet are pretty screwed up. I think most people can just get away with heat molding. Dave

I find that when many people, myself included, switch to hard boots they end up looking for the "stiffest boot possible". Because of this I thought I'd share my experiences with hardboot stiffness. As a caveat this thread is written from the perspective of free carving only and has nothing to do with racing. Here's some background on me. For boot experience, I've ridden Raichle 121s (early 90s), and more recently UPZ RTRs, Deeluxe 225Ts, UPZ ATBs, and UPZ RC10s. The only current boots I use are the RC10s for free carving and the ATBs for all-mountain ripping. For bindings I ride TD3 step-ins with fintec heels for all applications, with either a blue (carving) or yellow (AM) elastomer. I'm 6'2" and weigh somewhere between 210-230 lbs depending on whether it is before or after christmas. I occasionally ride on the enlarged moguls around Edmonton, but more often find myself out round Banff riding AM or carving Sunshine, and Nakiska. So I'm essentially a West Coast carver who might or might not know what firm cord was until it bit him in the @ss. :-) When I came back to snowboarding in 2007 and started looking at carving again, I did the the same thing I've heard three of my friends say. I need the stiffest boot possible to get the best edge hold possible. I actually went so far as to call up Fin at Bomber and talk to him about getting the stiffest boot they had. At the time he actually mentioned that for carving a shift was beginning away from really stiff boots. I chose to ignore this advice and chose to purchase a set of UPZ RTRs. I then stiffened these up by going to the grey (140 MPI) tongues. While carving at local bumps in the city I thought "I'm carving great. Life is fantastic, I am the awesomest carver ever." After a season of riding like this I showed up, and was showed up, at NES. There was 21cm of fresh and large soft mogully chop everywhere. I was getting thrown all over the place because my setup was so stiff. Meanwhile Corey, Riceball, and others were railing all over the place and cutting directly through all of this, like the runs were flat groom. This was so frustrating to me I went home after the weekend and debated giving up the carving and going back to soft boots. Instead I thought about the equipment I saw being used. Most people who were railing the snot out of this chop on the steepest runs at Nakiska were on TD3s, so that wasn't the issue, there wasn't a huge difference in board technology as I was riding a Coiler Schtubby, and many people were riding UPZs. There didn't seem to be much of an equipment difference but I did notice that none of them were using the stiff grey tongue and many people actually had switched from the stiff flo race liner to a softer thermo liner. Rather than give up hard booting and carving I gave up my soft boot set-up. I then softened my UPZ RTRs, I swapped the tongues in my boots back to their original black tongue and ordered a set of thermoflex liners. This substantially softened the boot along the longitudinal (toe-to-heel) axis, but didn't have much effect on the lateral (side-to-side) stiffness. I immediately noticed a difference in my carving, suddenly I wasn't being locked into position by the boots. I was freer to shift my weight along the board, but I hadn't actually lost any edging ability. In fact my edging ability had increased due to my new ability to better position myself on the board. Three years, and technique improvements, later I upgraded my RTRs to RC10s. I again switched the stock Flo liners out for the Deeluxe 141s liners I was running in the RTRs. My initial thought was this is never going to work, as when I was standing in them I could lean into the cuff and flex the boot forward without any difficultly. The lateral stiffness was still there, there just seemed to be so little longitudinal stiffness. However when I first got a chance to ride in them I was again blown away. I had no problem ripping turns, and my ability to absorb chop and inconsistencies in the snow had taken a huge leap. Just yesterday, I had probably one of the best days I've ever had riding. UPZ RC10s on a Coiler Schtubby. It was hard bulletproof, scraped areas, with hard board length bumps, some groom, and soft piles of snow. I literally railed over, around, and through everything. This includes coming off minor drops (2' rollers) and railing immediately into a turn. I This was some of the hardest carving I've done on some of the most variable surfaces I've encountered and I was railing at speed through everything on the softest "carve rated" boot I've ever been in. In my opinion the ability to suck up crap, shift your weight around, and, effectively cut through the variable surfaces that we encounter free carving requires a boot that is longitudinally soft, and yet laterally stiff. Again I'm writing this as most people I run into are trying to stiffen their boots. Another friend was in Burton Winds which he had cranked the springs down to make them as stiff as possible. Last season he picked up a set of RC10s. His comment on trying them was that he didn't think they were going to work at all for carving as they were too soft. After day one on the hill he was stunned at the immediate difference in his riding and said "I've been going the wrong way with my boots for years." Apparently Fin was also right when I was talking to him about boot stiffness about five years ago. :-) Dave

I've got a small amount of wear, though I should probably look at these again. I agree this is a problem and UPZ should look into the buckle placement on these boots for their next boot. UPZ has been softening their boots as the models have progressed (RSV-->RTR-->RC10). Because of the stiffness of the boot it likely wasn't as much of an issue on the RSVs or RTRs, but is certainly becoming an issue on the RC-10s. Especially with riders softening their boots up with Thermomold liners, going to red tongues etc. Dave

If you are using the Flo liner that comes with the boots, just changing to a thermomold liner like a Deeluxe 141 will soften the boot substantially compared to the Flo. Dave

Thats too bad. These are seriously the best glove in terms of durability. I'm also going on three years. The liners are shot, and they are cooler (less insulated) than other gloves, so I also throw on a second liner for super cold days. The only downside is the Velcro packs up with snow in certain types of conditions. Dave

Would you ship it to Edmonton, Canada? I think I've got someone who would like it up here. If you PM me what shipping will be we can get this done. Dave

Love the graphic on this. What are you planning to use for bindings?

You scrape the snow they don't like that, you leave a trench and they complain about that... I've really no time to worry about this anymore. I've noticed over the past few years, especially amongst kids, the number of new skiers at resorts drastically outnumbers the number of new boarders. Dave

Steve, Thanks again for hosting another great event. The pics look great. Sunday looked like nice conditions, if a little crowded. BTW with Freddy from Finland showing up this session now has international credibility :-). Dave

Their Facebook page seems to indicate there will be an issue three! https://www.facebook.com/Carvingmag But no release date.

For NES 2014 apparently Green is the New Red My next jacket will not be green. Speaking of which I'm liking Freddie's clothing line. It was really nice to actually see the stuff at Steve's on Saturday evening. Dave

I'm in.