Puddy Tat
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Posts posted by Puddy Tat
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Just jumping in to clarify: the "Mathilda" plate was code name I gave to an earlier version of the Boiler Plate a couple of years ago. It had a lot more "twist" ability in it and was easier to pedal steer. That was a few years ago and all plates now have that especially the new Boiler Plate 2 coming out this season.
Keep in mind there are two distinct ways to do the plate: full isolating and semi isolating (at least what I call them). Easy to identify in that if the way the hardware works you still have to flex/bend something (like the plate itself or something in the hardware) that is semi-isolating. If the plate is completely decoupled from the board mechanically (think full suspension bike) that is full isolating. This can be a big difference in the way the system feels and performs.
And this is what I love about being in alpine. The community is of a size that the manufacturers actively kick in with info!
Thanks Fin, Bruce, Sean, and the rest of you who keep us going.
Dave
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Bruce making you a Matilda plate to go with it ?
Matilda plate? Never heard of it, apparently Bruce needs to update his website again. :-)
I'm purchasing an AF plate from Sean. I'm more interested in the AF hardware and stack height. I also started getting pumped on that plate after hearing it described as "like riding without a plate, except when you need it, then it just does it's job."
The plate will be a new experience for me. So we'll how it works out. I've got 4X4 and UPM on it, so I can go both ways depending on what the conditions ask for.
Dave
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It's usually the 2nd weekend, Riceball organizes everything and sets the dates. He announced it in early September last year, look for a post in the Alberta ride board sometime in the fall. You can find last year's thread there.
Dude. You can't just go mention NES like that in September. It's three whole freakin' months 'til I can get on snow, and now I'm all vibrating and thinking about the 185cm NSR Bruce is building for me in ghost logo green ... must breath slowly and relax, maybe get away from here for a few days and let the carving monster settle down.
Just breathe In..and..Out....In...and..Out...think calm thoughts and.....In ....and did I mention it'll have UPM! Squee! (Phuck I'm screwed).
Dave
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...Couple of you guys mentioned me racing in your comments, just so you know I am not a racer.
Actually I mentioned racing in my comments. I only mention it to give perspective on how I ride and what I'm doing may not work for you if that was what you are doing. Sorry for the confusion.
Dave
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...But i admit that i should have taken better picture to be more visible. But after two Fuegos one makes easily mistake :)
Lol. I hadn't noticed that you had taken that picture Pokkis. It's still a good test and I pretty much do it (with a more domestic wine) every time I set up bindings on a board. Honestly I don't even look at binding angles anymore until my boots are set at the sidewalks of the board.
Dave
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Interesting looking. I'll keep that in mind when I look at replacing my 171cm Incline in a few years.
Waist seems really narrow for softboots? But definitely about the right range for an all-mountain hardboot deck. I think you might have the SCR's reversed for the 156 and 168 though.
I'd post it on Bomber BX for you but I'm purely a hardboot carver/freerider. And having never been downslope of a starting gate I wouldn't be providing you with much street cred.
Cheers,
Dave
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I'm a carver not a racer so take everything I'm about to say with a grain of salt. I'm also riding around Banff on typically softer snow. What I call hard groom is referred to as a powder day on the east coast.
For carving on alpine decks I have been using UPZ RTRs but just upgraded this season to UPZ RC-10s. For serious AM riding I use a UPZ ATB with a stiffer black tongue. In both boots I removed the flow liner and put in a Deeluxe 141 Thermofit. This softened the boot toe to heel, but maintained lateral stiffness.
The cuffs on my boots are canted outwards because I'm bow legged.
I use TD3 Step-ins with Fintecs and 3 degree cant discs front and back on all my boards be they all-mountain or carve specific. The toe and heel are lifted to allow me to keep a wider but weight-centered stance. The 'softness' of my boots then allows me to shift my weight around on the board and put it where it needs to be. I find this gets weight off my front leg and allows me to relax and use different styles.
Angles are whatever the board width will allow such that the boots are completely within the sidewalls of the board. The fuego test from extremecarving works well for this but I can never keep two boxes of wine around like they are showing in this picture. (Picture actually shows too much overhang on the heel.)
Corey mentioned this in another post somewhere, but like him I've had a monumentally crappy day where the cuff of my boot, about 6" up from the board edge, was hitting the snow and lifting the edge out. Because of that I'm pretty anal these days about making sure I'm riding with high enough angles.
I've got mondo 28 boots so my angles on AM boards with a 24.5cm waist are (F/R) 50/45. Angles for carving are typically 65/60 to 60ish/55 with boards from 19.5-21cm waists
The biggest change for me was getting to an expression session with my UBER stiff RTRs (grey tongue and flo liners) and getting tossed around by every bump. I looked around and noticed what people were doing in their RC-10s and made some changes. Softening my boots made a huge difference in being able to absorb inconsistencies in the trail, and letting me put my weight where it needs to be.
Dave
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I'm sad to say after all the waiting I recently gave up on these and just purchased another set of TD3 step-ins.
Dave
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You can look at the resources menu on the Bomber home page.
Here's an article on Cant and Lift from there.
http://bomberonline.com/resources/Techarticles/cant_lift.html
Personally I set my bindings up so my boots have zero overhang. Lifting the toe and heel allow me to widen my stance, and then canting helps me align the boot cuff with my lower leg. Essentially I look for a comfortable relaxed centered stance.
But I'm a carver not a racer, you'll quite likely get different advice from others.
Cheers,
Dave
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Wisco indeed.
We are moving into an upgraded space, just picking between a few locations.
Just finished a print operation this spring so we do everything in house from graphics, to cores, pressing, finishing, and of course we ride too.
Learned the trade from a bigger outfit in Utah.
Been visiting bomber a bit more because we designed up a BX board this year with one of the Tyrol coaches.
Gonna get my race boots on this year.
Saw your STG1 board. (http://prospectsnowboards.com/snowboards/stg1-boardercross/). Very cool seeing another North American manufacturer producing a dedicated carve/race board. I'm guessing you have also posted info about it on the BomberBX.com site? That's the sister version of this site dedicated to BX racing and softboot carving.
http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?39945-Introducing-BomberBX-com!
While I'm not looking for a new AM board this season you've listed the STG1 as alpine freeride so it might be a good option for me in a 168cm in the future. Do you have any more info on the specs? In particular sidecut radius (I see you are radial), and waist width?
I'm one of those freaks who rides hardboots for carving and freeriding so waist width is important along with the SCR being somewhat slalomy to get through tighter areas.
Cheers,
Dave
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I found the UPZ to be wider in the forefoot and the narrower in the heel. The Deeluxe 225s (and the 325s have the same shell) were just the opposite with a narrow toe and wider heel. Don't know if that helps you at all.
Dave
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FWIW the largest snowboard hardboots boots I've seen for sale are mondo 31. UPZ, Heads, and some models of Deeluxe (225, 325 and the new Free69's; IIRC the Track 700s only went to Mondo 30).
Maybe a bootfitter can stretch a 31 for you?
Dave
FWIW I wear a US11.5 shoe and ride in a mondo 28 hardboot (US size 10).
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If you aren't racing, put it in a decent padded ski bag and throw it into the Thule with the rest of your equipment.
I folded a 2007 187cm WCRM last season carving on a steep black. It's got a micro buckle in the topsheet in line with the front binding (sniff). Replacing that with a 185cm NSR this year. Also tried to put the heelside edge of a 171cm Donek Incline through its own topsheet last season when I hit a rock. Board had about 10 days on it. It's been repaired with epoxy. Does it annoy me when it happens? Sure does. Can I live with it? Yep.
I think the most annoying damage to a board was some base damage my Schtubby took last season. I hit a flat metal bar someone had pounded into the hill for no reason. Put a nice gouge into the base. Maybe it fell off a groomer or something. In all honesty these days I don't even notice it when I'm ripping with the board.
Take care of it. Keep it Tuned. Love ripping the steep groom with it. But if you really don't want it damaged, hang it on a wall, don't ride it.
Cheers,
Dave
FWIW I'm a carver not a racer so YMMV from my advice. ;-)
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I'll see you there Barry!
I'm going to miss the first two days due to a friend's wedding though. :( Who gets married in February? They're not even winter sports fans, they actually hate winter.
Have you convinced them to get married in Banff yet?
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And just to clarify I'm not selling my Incline. You'll have to find your own. :-)
Dave
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I think a longer board would be cool as long as it still had a small radius.
The 171 Incline is one of Sean's (Donek) softboot boards but it rides pretty well as a AM hardboot deck. He builds them with a VSR sidecut of 10m/12m which is a slalom sized sidecut. It's a directional twin, and if you decided you couldn't get on top of hardboots you could always look at mounting softies on it.
Without going into variable sidecut geometries, generally speaking most softboot boards have much smaller sidecut radii than hardboot decks. A small radius for a hardboot deck is about 10m (Slalom turns).
As far as my mondo size, even 31s are a tight fit. I usually wear a size 14us shoe. My feet are also pretty wide. I'm use to having boots that don't fit well. I've squeezed into size 12s before too just to try and prevent booting out.Bootfitters are your best friend. A good bootfitter should be able to even extend a plastic shelled hardboot a bit for you.
It would be best to try out different gear but I don't think anybody even rents it in southern california.Unfortunately the rental market ship for alpine equipment sailed along time ago. One of the nice things about our gear is that anything that is used has already depreciated in value a bunch. Therefore if you buy used gear on here you can generally resell it here later for close to purchase price. I know one guy who described it as feeling like he was renting a board for a season.
If you want to keep prices down you could probably pick up a set of used plates and boots and mount that system on your existing board. This would of course be highly dependent on what your current board is. That being said, I've heard that most board manufacturers don't build their boards to handle the stress that a plate binding can put on the insert pack.
Dave
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Yeah, but we have an Ikea! And mosquitos. It's a proven/winning combination.
I've been to Winnipeg; the mosquitos there go shopping at the Ikea. :-)
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... And apparently 7 hours later, sorry there's nothing to see in Elkhorn. It's kind of like going to Winnipeg. Or Edmonton for that matter ;-). No wait we've got a really big mall so it's kind of like going to Winnipeg. ;-)
Dave
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171cm Donek Incline. Mine is 24.5cm wide. Sean built this for me with the rubber damping he puts in his Saber models.
The board rails very respectably on groomers, and hauls @ss on ungroomed double-black steeps, loves pow, and nose rides.
I'm 6'2" floating around 215-225lbs. I use mondo 28 boots UPZ ATBs with stiffer black tongues and TD3 Step-Ins on yellow elastomers at angles of 50/45.
I had a 163 model but it was to soft for me to get aggressive with. Surlyguy has it now and is riding a similar set-up but with RC-10 boots. He's about 170lbs and is loving it for the same reasons I mentioned above.
BTW you really should measure your foot and find out what your mondo size is. It'll make it easier to get boots if you indicate mondo 30 or mondo 31.
Cheers,
Dave
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Drive down to Vancouver, WA USA with a truck load and I will hand you cash?
Who's idea was it to give the Forum Moderator position to a gear vacuum anyways? ;)
Just kidding OSB is a fantastic guy.
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Review of the Poppys will have to wait until a little later this week. I hit a rock and took a fall on Saturday which, along with a bunch of road rash, broke my middle finger on my right hand. Apparently when my fingers hyperextended the tendon pulled the bone it is attached to off the main finger bone at the first knuckle. While flexing is ok; I've been told not to extend it so I'm going to be out for a bunch of weeks while it heals.
Once again, glad I was wearing a helmet. In hindsight I think if I was wearing slide gloves rather than cycling gloves, I wouldn't have this injury as the glove possibly would've slide on the asphalt rather than sticking where it hit.
Dave
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Well I received the Don't Trip Poppys last night and immediately installed them on my Triton. Sweet Timing. :D
I'm going to write my initial impressions and look add adding some pictures to this later. I'll also write a ride review in about a week because I'd like to give them a week or so of riding to get used to them as they feel very different than my Bennett/Tracker set-up and I'd like to get used to their feel.
Straight out of the box these are sweet looking RKP trucks! The CNC'd aluminum gives them a very nice look, and beyond just looking pretty they look solid.
The front truck is on a 55 degree baseplate with a Riptide 75a WFB cone roadside and a 75a WFB barrel boardside. There is a small washer on the cone, I tried using double barrels on this on my first ride but I'm not sold on it as I think it may limit the turn radius of the front truck. I'll be going back to a cone for tomorrow. I'm using 80a APS bushings board and roadside on this truck.
The rear truck is on a 20 degree baseplate with Riptide 90a barrels roadside and boardside. I left these as they were and just bolted the truck to the board.
Both trucks have spherical bearings installed in their hangers between the bushings.
Both baseplates are longer than the TKP baseplates on my Bennett and Tracker trucks, which left these baseplates being about a 1/2" longer than the 1/2" solid riser and 1/8" shockpad I ended up using under each truck. I should probably find some appropriately long risers for these. Additionally it was nice that because of the built-in LDP specific baseplate angles I was able to remove all the wedging from my board, this lowered my ride height at least 6mm (1/4") from my Bennett/Tracker set-up. This was an incredible drop. It's much easier to push the Triton uphill now.
Both trucks come with three 3mm spacers on each axle allowing varying spacing of the wheels. Up front I used all spacers on the outside of the wheels (75 mm BigZigs), on the rear truck I placed one spacer on the inside of the wheels (76mm 3dm Avilas). I may shift that spacer to the outside to narrow the rear wheelbase by 6mm.
I'll add some pictures later and give a ride review on Sunday once I've had a chance to give them a good test ride.
Dave
Pictures Added 19 July, 2013 - I've added a board set-up and a couple of shots with a wheel removed to see how the poppys mount from the side and the pivot angles.
Board with Poppys mounted.
Front Poppy. (Wheel removed to show angle and baseplate overhang)
Rear Poppy. (Wheel removed to show angle and Baseplate overhang)
I've put about 25k on these trucks in three rides. I'm going to be putting another ~56k in the next two days and I'll let you know my feelings then.
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My RTS delrin pivot cup is a little small for the hole in the base plate so I get a slightly less than a perfect ride out of my Tracker. I think I'm going to try the Don't Trip Poppys and maybe a Randal II for rear trucks this summer. I'd like to try a Seismic, but beyond availabilty issues I also hear they have a tendency to come apart? Any comment on that Crote?
Slopestar, have you tried a Riptide APS Chubby boardside and an APS Cone roadside in the RT-S? It has a nice feel. I'm running 85a road and boardside, but guys lighter than me are running 90a. That being said lighter guys around here who try my board are lifting the outside wheel with my 85a's (which might be slightly over compressed, I should really go to a longer kingpin).
Dave
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There is an interesting thread going on right now on Paved Wave about the Tracker RT-S 129mm vs the Randal II 125mm for the rear truck on a pumping set-up (Tracker RTS or Randal 125mm as Rear Truck?) (Its a small group like us so right now is actually the last couple of months.)
Having just gotten into pumping last summer I've always had a Tracker RT-S on the rear. (Though this appears to be the summer where I try out different trucks). I was wondering if anyone here had tried the Randall II as a rear truck and what your impressions were?
Dave
Summer gate training in preparation for Sochi? Maybe?
in The Lodge
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Ok while I'll admit around this time of the year I pretty much start foaming at the mouth waiting for the season to start, I've not yet arrived at this level of desperation.
(Photo was found on extremecarving)
Dave
BTW a plate would probably help smooth out some of that poor grooming.