SunSurfer

@patmooreh. The binding angles are only a small part of the equation. If you just change those but don't change how you ride there will be little change in your turns. I have ridden with bindings around 60 degrees since I began and I rode a little like you, carving long radius turns with modest board angles, and a relatively stiff posture. It was the change in the way I "feel" the board that produced a really significant improvement in my riding and ability to soak up the bumps in the snow.

I recognised your second trail too. The approach to the midway Village Express chairlift on/off at Snowmass. Did you come down off Banzai Ridge? Both your edited sections are of smooth and shallow gradient sections that don't challenge technique. Do you have video of steeper sections, that might be more revealing for things to work on? First things though. 1/ Boot overhang - do you have any currently? If so, get rid of it. Getting rid of boot overhang will obviously prevent boot out, but increasing your binding angles has a second benefit for older riders with a stiff mid-section. 2/It reduces the amount of trunk twist necessary to get the line between your shoulders more across the board. What has been called a "+" stance. Younger, more flexible racers often use more a "-" stance, especially noticeable on heelside, where the line of the shoulders is along the line of the board. But this is much more of a strain on the knees, holding the edge angle and doing bump absorption. 3/ My riding generally, and my NASTAR course performance improved drastically when I learned to ride out of the soles of my feet. The full story is told in but the essence is this - Using a + stance and binding angles around 60 degrees (front foot 5 degrees higher than rear), I learned to tilt the board by feeling I was putting weight on the sides of the soles of both of my feet. I was feeling that I was balancing over the lateral 1-2 inches of the board base. Heel side, there was a little more weight on the front foot, toe side a little more weight on the rear foot. Left turns, weight on the left side of each sole. Right turns, weight on the right side of each sole. The result was clean carves, a really solid balance feeling, knees able to work well as shock absorbers, and the kind of turns shown in the Buttermilk video. My Snowmass NASTAR runs went from Silvers, with the occasional Gold, and a fair few DSQ out of the course TO reliable Platinum, with clean carves round every gate and feeling like there was so much more time to line up the next gate. That was the last time I was at Aspen in 2019. I ended the season ranked 1 (of 9) in the 55-59 section. Never made it to NASTAR Nationals as New Zealand is too far away and my one chance in the year to get to the US is in February. 3/ Do you have lift under your F2 bindings on your slalom board? If you don't, then get 2 sets of F2 wedges, and heel lift your rear binding, and toe lift your front. Again, this will make it easier for an older stiffer body to ride. It may also allow you to lengthen your stance slightly. I'm 181cm, with relatively long legs, and have gone from 50cm to 56cm with a noticeable improvement in stability, shock absorption and board leverage. 4/ Your HSPs are relatively stiff boots and have a design feature that limits boot flexion. I used to own a pair (till the shells cracked as the plastic got old) and I modified them for better heel hold down and ankle forwards/backwards flexion. The HSPs fitted my feet pretty well. I now ride UPZ RC10s and with Intuition Pro Wrap liners the UPZs are an even better fit.

Hi Pat. The original video looks like the long steady pitch towards the middle and bottom third below the Elk Camp gondola at Snowmass. That is a slope that I carry speed on too, to make sure I can slide all the way to the loading area. Your turns are clean carves but long. What was the average SCR of the board you were riding? Looking at the race suit/ invisible selfie stick video, am I seeing boot toe overhang on both feet? It is possible to make clean TIGHT turns on gentle slopes. The video linked below shows me at age 60 on the upper part of the West Buttermilk chairlift line, an even more gentle green than lower Elk Camp gondola on a 12-14m SCR Coiler Nirvana 174. Is this the kind of thing you want to work towards? To get much more board tilt than this you will need steeper slopes and more speed. Mind you a steeper slope means you don't have to tilt so far to meet the snow as you end the turn!

This is the extreme carving instruction video I meant to post. I've collected a whole lot of snowboard carving related videos and sorted them into a range of playlists. Hope it helps to pass the time till your gear arrives. https://youtube.com/channel/UCbFkVPcmsd5oH-Oe0s3LEMw

Tech Articles here. These are a good resource for anyone starting out. http://alpinesnowboarder.com/tech-articles/ The hard core extreme carving guys tend to run their bindings flat. The recommended technique for the fully laid out turns may have evolved a bit since you last tried it. Link below is to a playlist of extreme carving instruction videos. If you are aiming for a more conventional carving setup then for someone your height with average leg length for that height, a stance length between 52 - 56cm between binding centres is a reasonable place to start. Then as to whether cant or lift is useful try looking below. Lift is very likely to be helpful.

Howdy West, we'll agree to differ. Whatever gets it done, and we're having fun.

Significant heel lift is a bad thing. The whole foot moves inside the boot and normal control is lost. @west carven

I was a little incredulous at the wind speeds reported during your climb @GeoffVmostly because I would have not headed into that situation knowing that those were the weather conditions. I am really glad you are able to tell us of your experience.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/mar/31/many-of-new-zealands-glaciers-could-disappear-in-a-decade-scientists-warn Consistent and long term trend for glacier recession for over 100 years, late 1800s photo comparison,with annual glacier extent photographic survey since 1977. This is the effect of climate, not short term fluctuations in weather.

May just be camera weight rather than high G's. There 6 sections of chromed telescopic selfy stick in view suggesting a not very stiff pole.

While I'm not a "rotator" I can easily imagine how the drill can strengthen legs and core while working on core rotation range of movement. Have to say it looks like something dreamed up while in a Covid lockdown and trying not to go crazy!

Congratulations on their team to all the Canadians here. Qualified by beating Jamaica today.

11 months out I'm provisionally planning a route through the USA to Wales for Feb 2023 with a side serving of carving. Uncertainties are the obvious ones. Covid variants evolving that are successful because they are not trapped by the antibodies and T cells that people have from vaccination and/or prior infection. The full Ikon Pass looks like a very good deal at the early bird pricing. It would give me a week in Aspen covering a conference I'd go to the week before MCC, and I'm contemplating a week at Schweitzer after MCC. Plus it has resorts in both NZ and in Europe on it's list. Possibly going to hit Europe in March for a week. The 2022/23 pass could be used both for the 2022 & 2023 winters in NZ. Question: From past seasons how late is early pricing likely to run?

Like all good carving videos it makes me want to have been there. I hope in some way that the trip was related to, and a reward for, all the work that has gone in to making MCC happen and the pleasure that has brought to others.

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli. An exploration of the meaning of quantum theory. Can you accurately measure the speed and position of a carver at the same time? Maybe I should apply Feynman's Quantum Electro Dynamic theory to all the possible paths I could follow between the top of the chairlift and the bottom? Perhaps not. Rovelli makes the case that Descartes wasn't quite right. Not so much "I think, therefore I am." More "I interact, therefore I exist." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/26/helgoland-by-carlo-rovelli-review-a-meditation-on-quantum-theory

Not lactic acid this long after the event. Instead you have thousands of microscopic muscle fibre tears and an inflammatory response as they heal, and strengthen, your muscles. If you can tolerate any of ibuprofen, diclofenac, or even a -coxib antiinflammatory then this will reduce the muscle tenderness. Safe to use after exercise once you have rehydrated. Using before exercise runs a significant risk of kidney damage. Lactic acid is produced during anaerobic exercise, and it is dealt with as the oxygen debt is repaid. As an anesthesiologist, human physiology is part of my expertise.

"Sharper" is an interesting concept. You can have a knife blade, angle between the 2 faces maybe 3-4 degrees for a good chef's knife yet if it is blunt it still won't cut as it should, and can if properly sharpened. So angles aren't everything. A new Coiler Nirvana altered my ideas about this a little. I asked BV what angles it came with. 89 side, 0 on the base. I tried riding it without making any alterations to the tune. It carved beautifully, and edge catches on cat tracks were a non-problem for me. In time however the edge hold got a little less secure on hard pack. I assume, because I didn't get out a microscope to look, that my 89 degree edge was now rounded rather than an abrupt change from one steel face to the other.

A perfect illustration of one of the hazards for a following camera operator. You always want to be just BEHIND a carving snowboarder. Should be required watching for anyone on ASB Forums wanting to shoot video.

That's them. Buckles grip well, and they don't loosen over the day. I pop riveted mine to the back of my boot cuffs once I'd worked out the "ideal" position for me. https://imgur.com/a/wJC0YBo The boots have a number of modifications, more on the rear.

Changed mine for Booster straps when I bought them. Never used the UPZ straps, at least not on the boots.

@daveoT I happily wear my VPD knee pads uphill and downhill when riding my bike. Restriction of movement is minimal. The knee pads stay in place without needing any adjustment over 2+hr rides. My Air VPD elbow pads are a different story altogether and need some trickery with Lycra arm warmers to stay in place. There is a small gap between my UPZ boot tops and the VPD pads so I wouldn't use them for gate racing protection on the snowboard, proper shin guards would be a better option.

@Jcara Have you ridden your Nirvana or Superconductor since the MCC trip? Has your Contra experience improved your ability to extract performance from other boards? A new board teaching an old dog new tricks?

I have my MTB knee pads, POC Air VPD. Warm and flexible, but don't have the wrap around 7mm neoprene the Rehbands have. Superb impact protection instead.

Brings back such sweet memories of my times in Aspen. Thankyou!

@AracanUPZ buckle layout becomes an issue when you increase rear boot ankle flex with the ankle buckle and the lower cuff buckle impinging on each other. The linked post shows the mods I made to my rear UPZ RC10 to improve heel hold down and to deal with the buckle impingement problem. If I was doing it again I would cut away slightly less cuff. 4 years on from the mod the rear boot continues to function as I intended.