SunSurfer

Erik has told you above what you need to eliminate. He has written what to replace it with. http://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/snowboarding-a-practical-manual/08-versatility http://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/snowboarding-a-practical-manual/09-edging http://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/snowboarding-a-practical-manual/10-balancing http://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/snowboarding-a-practical-manual/11crossover and onwards, PTO.

Jack, I have to disagree. Data sheets for all the EVA foam products I've been able to track down recommend temps stay below 70-80 Centigrade. 225F =107C, too hot and will cause rapid collapse of the cells within the foam. I have ruined a Deeluxe liner in the past by using too hot a temperature. Agree that best molding shapes both the outside and inside of the liner. To achieve this the liner needs to heat through and 15 minutes in a domestic oven is certainly long enough to achieve this. The goal should be a steady oven temperature of around 60 - 70 Centigrade and check it with a thermometer. Liners are expensive enough to justify the small investment needed to buy a suitable thermometer from a cooking store. I have successfully shaped Intuition liners, inside and out, for my UPZs using this technique and temperature.

I still ride that Rad-Air Pinkerman Extreme from the above thread, and a Riot Supercarve 180, pimped with a UPM mount Bomber BBP mechanism plate. (older boards can really improve with a plate on top) Both are great rides and will fly with me to Central Otago this winter, nestled inside my board box, next to a Kessler KST 162 & a Coiler Nirvana Energy Torsion+ 174. New and Old together. Good designs age well.

And interesting to ponder whether that made a contribution to the back issues that forced him, hopefully temporarily, out of competition.

FIS Smugmug site is great for spotting detail of new/evolving equipment, like R Hofmeister's plate.

http://alpinesnowboarder.com/the-norm-part-i/ Sounds not too far from the sense of Jack's article (linked above) which is kind of where this whole thread started. Reviewing it, I was bemused to find myself pictured back in 2012 on my first visit to Aspen & SES (the rider in red trousers with the Contour camera). Not that I could norm carve then....think I might be closer to it now. https://youtu.be/1gqhoWDUeB0

@pow4everDavid, what did Beckmann tell you?

@pow4ever Economy of effort in carving comes from 2 essential things. Letting, not forcing, the board do what it is designed to do, carve. Keeping the body balanced over the board, not straining the body by adopting unbalanced or needlessly "dynamic" positions. The ideal dose of "dynamism" is just enough to cope with the snow condition and contour beneath the board. Any more is just posing! Echo - "When you do things right; people won't be sure if you done anything at all" -- Futurama

I've had to replace them in my now defunct Head Stratos boots, not in my 2016 UPZ RC10s. Corrosion was certainly a contributor to the failure in mine. Bottom line: they can corrode and fail, as can the screws that go into them.

Worth inspecting at the beginning of each season. I've had to replace a few due to corrosion as well.

Booked for Central Otago for 3 weeks from 8th August 2020. With a Saver season pass for Cardrona I'm looking at extending it to cover TC, now that Cardrona owns TC. If you're riding in Central Otago during that time and you'd like some carving company, PM me here on ASB. Alan McK

Hi Justin, and welcome. Your profile lists a 166cm carbon eliminator. That should be a great board for softboot carving and be able to be hardboot carved as well. From your post above I assume you're riding a duck foot or similar stance. Look at the Video thread on Softboot carving worth watching to see some great carving and a range of softboot stances. Consider adding a third strap to your soft boot bindings for greater support. There are a few threads here about that. @softbootsurfer is an expert in this kind of setup. Consider messaging Jack Michaud who runs this site and is a Sugarloaf rider. Jack is a great ambassador for this sport. To go to a hardboot setup you could just buy 2nd hand boots and bindings. But the technique is a little different to what your used to and the learning curve might not produce the result you want for quite a while.

The signature of a significant lumbar herniated disc is nerve root compression pain. That is pain that is felt in the distribution of the affected nerve i.e not localised back pain. The nerve is irritated by both direct compression and/or inflammation caused by extruded disc substance.

Would make a nice ad for the Nirvana model. You're riding with an easy balanced style, a minimum of arm movement, & moderate radius turns. A still at 0:18 shows a beautiful sinuous track. Jealous I have to wait till August to ride my Nirvana T4 Energy. Thanks!

A contributor to your problem @Dan may be the posture carvers get into to clip into their bail bindings. https://imgur.com/bV6SJMV Above is a screen capture from First Tracks at SES 2013 but it's typical. Apologies to whoever's backside I'm highlighting. Our boots don't allow easy ankle flexion or knee bend when we bend forward to engage the bail on the rear binding as we get ready to ride. Almost all the forward bend therefore is made at the hips and bending the lower back. If your hamstring muscles on the back of the thigh are tight then little pelvic tilt can occur to allow movement at the hip, so now the bulk of the movement comes from compression of the discs adjacent to the 5 lumbar vertebrae (spine bones). This also puts enormous tension on the low back muscles on either side of the spine and your core generally. How to tell if your hamstrings are tight? And how to safely stretch them if they are? https://imgur.com/laSeCob Above is me stretching my left hamstring. How close you can get your butt to the doorway and keep your knee straight tells you how tight, or not, your hamstrings are. When I first started doing these my leg would be at 45 degrees to the door frame and my knee would start to bend. Lying in this position with your butt slightly closer to the door than you can keep your knee straight isolates the stretch to just that hamstring. The weight of your leg keeps your back firmly on the floor. The other leg on the floor minimises any tilt of the pelvis. And with regular stretches you will get your butt closer to the door. Use the other side of the doorway to stretch the other leg. I moved to Intec heels long ago because of my tight hamstrings and the back pain issues they cause getting into my bail bindings. The stretches help me with lower back pain/muscle spasm issues I have had in day to day life as well. You don't have to abandon your bail bindings entirely. Just buy a set of Intec bindings, stick the bails on the front and the Intecs on the rear. Your back will love you for it!

@1xsculler I'll mentally keep you company. Deliberate carving technique practice is part of the start of every trip to the mountains for me. I get rusty with the long gaps between holidays. Essentials: 1/ as long a Green (beginner) slope as I can find. 2/ a familiar board with a short to medium side cut radius. No SCR longer than 12 metres. 3/ You've messaged me in the past that you like the heelside turn I'm making in my avatar. That's a forward facing stance with me tilting the board out of the sides of both feet. I describe that in more detail in a thread about an old board teaching an old dog new tricks. https://forums.alpinesnowboarder.com/topic/46869-old-dog-learns-new-tricks-from-an-old-board/?tab=comments#comment-477279 For you, be clear in your own mind about the technique differences for tilting the board with heels & toes and not mixing the two. Think about whether your binding setup is at a high enough angle to help you achieve that forward facing stance. Older guys like us are a little less flexible at the waist than those Asian softboot carvers in the thread on Softboot carving worth watching. In the end your feet and your ears will tell you when you are progressing. You've felt the buzz of a carved turn. Finding it again will take determination and persistence. The refining of it will take the rest of your riding life.

Nice! Can we have a review once you've had a chance to ride it?

The "guy" is Corran Addison, ex designer/maker of Riot snowboards. Look him up on Wikipedia to see his achievements. Posts here occasionally.

I've owned a GoPro for several years. Great for POV shooting and footage of others. Put a selfie stick in my hand and my balance goes out the window. The best footage I have of my own riding has been shot by others ( thankyou!!!!!) and shot as I ride toward and past the camera. A small camera with some sort of zoom capability can do a pretty good job. Carving mates shoot footage of each other.

Can confirm. I measured up an X-ray of a UPZ boot with foot inside. Ramp angle measured @ 11 degrees. Posted elsewhere on ASB.

Those are TD3 Sidewinders. They have lateral flex built in. It's not a bug, it's a feature! Your Intec heels are fine, if you've ordered Fintecs they will also be fine and interchangeable. Checking your release cables is always a good idea before any extended period of riding. You don't want to have a cable failure and be unable to easily release your boot.

Same problem across different boards. Riding off the lift, (regular rider,front (left) foot locked in, rear foot not engaged in Intec?), all your boards turn to rider's left. Something in your technique has you balancing in that situation that tilts the board onto its' left edge. If it were me, I'd set my bindings to where I carve best with both feet engaged, which after all is the main point of binding setup. Then I'd go to the beginner's slope and practice riding straight with just my front foot engaged.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping_ratio Minor thread jack: I'd always assumed a "damp" snowboard was more towards the critically damped end of the spectrum after it was deformed from its' at rest position. The Thirst Superconductor I rode seemed to sustain the vibration if I tapped the board surface, it seemed to be "not damp" and yet performed beautifully. I have a KST 162 slalom board as a comparison, which tends to give a dull thunk if I tap it the same way, so more "damp".

@lonbordin was referring to this Jack Michaud has also contributed this. http://alpinesnowboarder.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/canting-and-lift.pdf

Correct me if I've misinterpreted the photos. 0 degree lift disc front, offset 1cm towards toe edge. 3 degree disc rear, lift axis set at effective 20 degrees, also offset 1cm towards toe edge. So what angles are your binding plates relative to the discs? Are you taking full advantage of the ability to move the toe and heel blocks on the binding plates? What model boots are you using? How would you describe the technique you use to put the board on toe edge, and then onto the heel edge? Do you have any significant skeletal/physical issue with your legs that limits movement, or makes your legs significantly different from normal alignment? More information will help others to unpick your problem.