SunSurfer

My baseplate ruptured at the rear foot heel.

Parallel Giant Slalom the closest we get, since Ross Rebagliati won Giant Slalom at Nagano.

Not just "Miss Smillas Feeling for Snow" but feel for "the edge". Carving has taught me what the edge feels like through the soles of my feet. Now it's much easier to find, on one plank, or two!

Not just big riders. I have weighed 80-82 kilos throughout the time I rode my TD3s before the rear foot baseplate failed. I ride mondo 29 boots so have toe and heel pieces on the outermost screw holes. That would increase the leverage I'm able to generate against the inner ring held by the M8 screws.

And with that the snowboard PGS will get a whole lot more publicity as she attempts to win gold in both sports.

Having stood exactly there in past years but now in a hot and humid summer in New Zealand, I looked at your photo with more than a touch of envy. Glad to read you had a great day!

Spares, and different turn shapes. In New Zealand there is nowhere you can buy alpine snowboard gear new. The vast majority of my boards have been bought second-hand on TradeMe, the local equivalent of eBay.

When I had a new Coiler NFCE delivered I asked Bruce what edge tune it came with. 0 on the base, and 89 on the side, no detune. Tried it out as it was and very happy. I'd previously run a range of base and side angles but I'm planning on keeping it simple from here on.

Good to hear your vertical distance numbers are rising. You'll know you're dialled in when that 11.5k is in metres.

Your profile says you have both, but ride the Coilers. Try the UP some day, and see if you can tell the difference. It was only as I became a better rider that I learned the different feel of different boards. Strangely, as I got better, so did my older boards performance. ;-)

Nigel C and I bump into each other sometimes, but mostly I drink alone. That said, had a great session with a Japanese snowboard instructor on carving gear at Cardrona. Common equipment bridged the language gap. Had another great afternoon riding with an adaptive skier (paraplegic), a pair of "odd men out".

^ vertical POV only in the sense of in line with the gravitational field of the earth. A well made carved turn almost seems to defy gravity. That's only possible because other powerful force vectors are involved. Even so, gravity drives the whole process. How do we put this all together to improve a riders understanding of the feel of a well made turn?

The 3-D analysis is complicated to say the least. From an overhead drone point of view the rider's COM follows a similar curve but inside the line on the snow. Vertical position above the snow is less relevant in the dynamic setting of the turn, as gravity is just one of the forces the rider must play with and balance. The force of the snow groove side wall pushing the board into its' arc and changing the direction of the rider's COM momentum is the key force. The push back by the rider's COM momentum resisting the direction change must remain over their base of support, otherwise they will fall. Reference: The Physics of Skiing - Skiing at the Triple Point from page 98 available for legal download, in a range of formats, for no charge at https://archive.org/details/springer_10.1007-978-1-4757-4345-6 I'm of the opinion that their analysis of a snowboard carved turn is deficient, and reveals both the fashions of board construction at the time, as well as that the writers are not snowboarders.

I can understand my Aussie neighbours, just don't speak it.

@John Gilmour I'm hitting my late 50s, but I like to keep fit. I got into carving because of the beauty of it that I saw from a chairlift a long time ago. Having broken a hand a few years ago I'm concentrating on carving at slower speeds cause I want to keep doing this for as long as I can and I don't bounce like I used to. Ride hard John, and I hope you keep doing it for a long time. Edit: I don't have ankles of steel, I just use the sides of my boot cuffs as levers.

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

@lowrider linking you in Pat :) Assuming you mean "how they think a snowboard functions" in a carved turn? My understanding is to begin from the board in a flat glide across the snow surface, neither edge engaged. The riders centre of mass is over the centre of their base of support The rider then (a) tilts the board slightly onto one edge and (b) moves their centre of mass slightly forward of the centre of the base of support. The effect of this is for the nose edge to begin to penetrate the snow surface and create a groove in the snow. The effect of the slight tilt and the SCR of the board is for the board to bend slightly and the side of the snow groove to push the board into the beginning of the turn. The turn will be carved if the rider controls the rest of board edge to follow in the groove. If the riders centre of mass is too much towards either end of the board, the other end is likely to disengage from the groove. If the board twists too much along its' length for whatever reason the board edge will disengage from the groove, depending upon how the edge angle varies along the length of the board. The rider will not fall as long as (c) their centre of mass remains over their base of support and (d) the snow is strong enough to support the turning forces generated and (e) that the relationship between the rider's centre of mass and the angled board surface is such that sufficient downforce is generated to keep the board in the groove. (e) will be aided by body angulation upward relative to snowboard inclination. By increasing the angle of board inclination, the resulting SCR (created by designed SCR and the bending of the board along its' length) of the turn tightens up. To end the turn the edge must be disengaged from the groove. There are effective ways of achieving this by disengaging the nose, or tail (racer's stivot turn). The conventional way of achieving nose edge disengagement is to move the centre of mass slightly behind the centre of base of support, and flatten out the tilt of the board, before the momentary flat glide, before the other nose edge is engaged to begin the next turn. If the snow is strong enough, and the edge angle well held, not a lot of edge length is required to support a human being in a steeply angled turn. Consider the example of Olympic short track speed skaters as an extreme example.

Can you play dominoes with that?

@John GilmourI'm riding 65 front and 60 rear with mondo 29 UPZ RC 10s in the SES 2017 demo MK video. In the still the board is in the middle of a turn and way out from underneath me, so the parallax effect is substantial with the view coming from a Gopro mounted on my chest. See video @ 00.03 to see true relationship between front boot toe & edge. Thanks for the intended helpful comments though. Mileage does indeed vary. Here I am riding with substantial underhang on a 1995 Avalanche 167 with a 24.5cm waist, at 65F/60R, in mondo 29 HSPs at SES 2015 (Thanks to OhD). People can check the accuracy of your diagnosis. Not all alpine snowboarders project their centre of mass over their base of support in the same way.

Lurch, I'm proposing a hard stop, not a spring system. The Allflex spring plate looks like the Emperor's new clothes to me. I haven't seen a rationale for the design.

Take a screenshot for posterity and try to hang in there to season end. Congratulations!

A thread here on Allflex plate variants and a discussion on Facebook about the mysterious workings of the JJA plate got me thinking (always a hazardous thing). The Allflex plate limits how far aboard can bend along its' length. Conventional sliding hinge plates don't limit that. Why not build a sliding hinge plate mechanism with the ability to accurately adjust the amount of slide available? That would allow predictable tuning of the minimum achievable SCR of the mid section of the board resulting from the designed SCR and the board flex. The adjustment would need to be very precise, accurate to fractions of a millimetre. The interaxle distance is another variable, but once that was fixed then tuning could begin. Measuring the achievable chord depth as the board flexed would probably be the easiest tuning measure to determine the resulting SCR.

Rode Rusutsu in Jan 2016. Seriously wide well groomed pistes of green to blue slopes, little groomed that would seriously qualify as black. Had a Coiler NSR 180 with me (and a couple of other boards), saw perhaps 2 other hardbooters the whole week I was there. Pistes were generally uncrowded, as most of the non-Japanese headed for the daily fresh in-resort powder in the trees. Seriously cold, -15 to 20 Celsius with windchill. GoPros and cell phones stop working because of the cold.

Built my own UPM insert pattern hinge + sliding hinge mechanicals plate in 2009. Still riding at least one board with that plate on it. Can send you the recipe if you'd like. PM me and we can exchange email addresses and I'll send you the file. Making it requires a drill press, a router, sourcing some UHMWPE, stainless steel wire rope clamps, and some long M8 stainless bolts and Nyloc nuts. I've built usable plates from old wood core snowboards that I cut to shape and laminate with wood stringers, carbon fibre and/or fibreglass. It's not a simple thing to do, but riding the results has been very satisfying. I subsequently bought a Bomber 4mm plate and UPM and 4x4 base units. I've also retro fitted older carving boards with inserts to take a UPM pattern plate. A plate won't make you a better rider. It should result in you being able to get more practice because of fatigue reduction and being able to carve in a wider range of conditions. Deliberate, directed practice will make you a better rider. Building your own plate will give you a much better understanding of what it actually does.

Do you speak 'strine? ;)