SunSurfer

Fitness also leads to endurance/stamina, and that means precise technique can be maintained for longer. Pity the unfit beginner/learner making large, forceful, inefficient movements for little result except frequent falls. A short exhausting and frustrating day is the result.

@crote123 Can you post some detailed pictures of the plate extra bits on the shortest board in the thread on isolation plates, and tell us about JJA told you about their function please?

@pow4ever I am starting to think that Trent & Riceball are just colourblind and think their jackets and trousers match.

A very select few.

"the actual suspension system being? (just aiming to get clarification) a) the riders ankles/knees/hips and the muscles that move/support those joints allowing the motion of the rider's centre of mass to be smoothed? and/or b) the flex within the board being able to react to the supporting surface with minimal interference from the rider?

There's a YouTube video of Day 1 of SES 2015 at Buttermilk. Riceball is about the third rider in, red jacket green trousers. But to my eye, Trent who is in almost matching gear and is the first rider up is even more fluid and smooth. Been envious of both of these riders abilities since I first saw them. Corey is also in this opening sequence and is pretty damn smooth too.

If your knees are in pain then binding setup, I.e. distance apart, angles +/- splay, cant & lift may all be part of the issue. Unless you are riding with your feet across the board, low angles between 0 and 30 degrees, you will certainly benefit from some front foot toe lift and rear foot heel lift. Angles, distance, cant and lift, and your body size are all inter-related.

Do you have a link to any recently recorded video of Erik's riding? I have a goal of a smooth fluid style and would love to see really good examples. I've seen the videos linked to his website. In his website videos he has a tendency on entering the heelside turn to drop back the outside arm and then as the turn progresses bring that arm forward and square up his shoulders across the board. It's almost as if there's pre-turn counter rotation of the upper body and then a rotation into the turn. On toe side his rear knee drops/is pushed down quite considerably as part of producing both edge pressure and body angulation at the waist. Looks like that knee touches/drags reasonably often, and the angulation looks a little awkward to my eye. But the videos are at least 5 years old, maybe older given the resolution. Everyones' style evolves/develops with time.

@Lurch I'll be 60 next month. I've been a convert to full isolation plates since about 2010. The weight and height is noticeable, both in lift queues and on the chairlift, but the overall fatigue reduction effect is such that your pleasurable riding day is substantially extended. More bang for your lift pass buck, and for the petrol you burned getting to and from the mountain, and all the other fixed costs associated with a day at the mountain. For me in NZ that includes flights, accommodation costs, meals away from home, to ride crowded pistes in marginal temperatures where the overnight groom is visible for about 10-15 minutes after the hordes empty onto the slopes when the lifts open each morning. Despite all that a plate allows me to carve my turns till lift closure. Even with a footrest on the chair you may need to let the board hang because of the extra height of the plate making the gap between footrest and safety bar tight.

Relaxed carving is kind of like a Zen of carving. To paraphrase Everything is in balance, and remains or returns there. Speed control is as Corey taught in a Steeps Clinic at an SES long ago - carve the turn uphill just a little more. And like our resident sage Beckmann AG suggests - Take everything inessential away until all you are left with is the carve.

You'll get older! Don't underestimate the fatigue reduction benefit, and the extension of your carveable riding day, both from fatigue reduction and from being able to carve snow in less than ideal conditions.

Absolutely possible to relax into the carve. Don't do it on a steeper slope than a lower end blue run. Learn to carve by just finding your edge and adjusting the tilt angle of the board. Don't force the board to turn, just let it do all the work. Savio at Buttermilk is a good example of a great slope, where we met while I was demoing the Donek MK (you have a cameo role in the video on YouTube).

I ride about 6 degrees of heel lift on the rear binding of my F2 Race Intec bindings and 6 degrees toe lift on the front (UPZ RC10 2016 boots with 6 degree zeppa angle). I use wedges (heel & toe) that I made from plywood/fibreglass/resin in my garage. Calculated the height/slope for my boot sole length using diagrams made in MS Powerpoint. Bolt holes were drilled vertically in the blocks before the slope was sanded in. My memory is that the original wedge supplied by F2 produces about 4.5 degrees lift. Above about 6 degrees the you will probably need cupped washers to get the screw heads to apply relatively even pressure to the surface of the toe/heel blocks. If you want to get your rear knee down/forward more try either, changing the ankle position preload on your UPZ boots OR soften the spring settings so you can flex forward more. Another option is to 3D print your own toe /heel blocks. One of the members here has developed a design for custom F2 wedges. I'll go looking for the link then edit this post. A further option would be to build a wedge to go under the whole binding. I've seen a racer on YouTube video at Sochi Olympics (Jan Kosir?) with this setup under their F2 bail bindings. That way the tilt is not all taken up at one set of screws. Edit:

Just created this playlist on my alterego "Riot Supercarver" YouTube channel. I've brought together all of Marc Cirigliano's Midweighting series videos. @1xsculler this may help you to get low. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3_RWxjmqcdpptq8bd0CuX8u947bkJZpj

Might be time for a new thread on the Analysis of Rider Induced Board Twist. Otherwise this thread will lose its' focus on the effect of an isolation/isocline plate on the board, and the rider's experience with an isolation plate installed.

N Nah. It's your BO. Boarder odour! Though I suspect some people just find us a little intimidating. I ride with other "outcasts". Had a great afternoon at Cardrona riding up, and down, with a paraplegic adaptive skier. Quad bike accident. He had a spring loaded chair that allowed him to self load on the chairlift.

Issue: Pain on the outside of my heel in my old non-mouldable Stratos Pro liners where the Intec release cable pressed through onto flesh and bone. Took all the pleasure out of riding. Fix: Swapped my Intec heels around so the cable was on the inside of my heel. Pain gone. Have stayed with cable on the inside even when moving to UPZ RC10s with Intuition Powerwrap mould able liners

Have ridden in one of his clinics at SES. I am not a fan of heavy body dragging with the board edge chattering and twitching below the rider. Personal opinion, and I do not expect others to agree. Aesthetic judgements are substantially subjective. Joerg's style is visually spectacular, just not a style I want to emulate.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Lots of spray is the mark of a board that is no longer carving cleanly.

That's just manspreadin' on a snowboard!

@daveo read the link page, and if you want scroll to the bottom of that page for the link to the actual research. Then make up your own mind about risk / benefit for you personally. Me, I often ride with a GoPro, sometimes on a chest mount, sometimes with a chin mount on a full face helmet, sometimes on a helmet top. Makes nice memories, and sometimes a useful record of events on the mountain.

The photo I was looking at is from Alexey's thread on OES boards at Bad Gastein. On the podium she's holding a Kessler with an AllFlex spring plate. Edit: @daveo Just watched the race video in the Videos section. My mistake, she was on a Black Pearl and credited her new board for helping her manage the ruts.

I don't know that there is enough evidence to blame the camera for MS's traumatic brain injury. The rocks under the snow and the rapidity of deceleration probably had a great deal more effect on his brain. (Before I concentrated on anaesthesia about 20 years ago, I spent 11 years mixing critical care medicine and anaesthesia. I've seen way too much TBI up close.) https://www.bbc.co.uk/safety/resources/safetynews/whatsnew/helmet-cams The link takes you to a report of research commissioned by the BBC that debunks the original controversial (read clickbait, please read my article) assertion by a French journalist that the camera is what did the crucial damage.

And by the look of the photos on an AllFlex spring plate.

EVA foam, used in many liners, softens above about 50 degrees Celsius, but above 70C the foam bubbles start to degrade. Techniques using higher temperatures will reduce the number of times the liner can be remoulded. Beg to borrow a good cooking thermometer off a friend/wife/.... and check the temperature of the oven you are using after giving the temp time to stabilise after any changes to the oven setting. The cooking thermometer is likely to be more accurate than the Temp dial for the oven. https://www.ultralonfoam.com/products/eva-foams Click the link on the page for properties of high density EVA foams, the linked .pdf includes the working temperature range for this company's foams, all around 60-70C max.