SunSurfer

In a range of places I'd also posted about an experimental setup trialling a plated snowboard with the feet essentially in line with the long axis of the board but offset to either side of the midline. The plan had been to try it with, and without poles. I had hoped for a more stable balance setup than you get with a skwal. Experiment result - a dismal failure as a ride, would only really turn in the direction of the side the front foot was on. Gave me some insights as to the dominance of the front foot, especially at low speeds. Like all experiments, no matter the result, you get new insights into how things work and more questions to try to find the answer to.

Riding at Cardrona last couple of days. One of my experiments was run today. Tried 10 degree heel lift on rear foot (extra 4 degree wedge under 6 degree TD3, Bomber 4mm plate, 4x4 mount, on a Coiler 177 AMW, WCC, 7.6 ). No particular issues with using that much lift but no obvious benefit to me either. Able to get perfectly adequate rear knee bend to get low with the normal 6 degrees. The riding has been great, fine weather, good snow for carving, and a few carving mates to ride with. Yesterday spent much of the day riding with Isamu Kubo, Japanese snowboard school principal and frequent photographer of Sigi Grabner, plus a run with Jamie, a New Zealand carver. Today caught up with Nigel Clarke, who posts here from time to time. Video will get uploaded when I get home and aren't dependent on lodging broadband.

Wait till the ankle is solidy fused before you try anything. That will take a few months at least. Take your orthopods advice. Another boot option is to look for an old pair of rear entry ski boots and use one of those on your front, fused ankle/foot. I still ski occasionally in a pair of Hanson Spyders, bought in 1982 but well looked after. They fit me well then and they still do, despite the disbelieving looks of various knowledgeable people on the mountain. With the back right down I scarcely need any ankle flexion at all to slide into them. With some minor modifications to minimise toe side to side movement they fit nicely in my SnowPro standard bindings. If you're Intec inclined, you really only need the convenience of Intec on the rear foot anyway. I rode for quite a while with a conventional binding at the front and an Intec at the rear. It allowed me to maximise the number of boards I had with a full set of bindings on them and had no noticeable effect on my riding. I am a great fan of isolation/isocline plates, whatever you call them. A Bomber Boiler plate, or similar design, will minimise the movement required in your front ankle while allowing the board to bend sweetly in the carve underneath you. Human ingenuity is a wonderful thing. To make it all work for you may require a little bit of thinking outside the square and a bit of trial & error & adjustment. Having just come back to riding after less severe injuries, best of luck.

Enough snow to ride on but not a great winter for snow sport lovers so far. Rode 4 days out of 9 on my recent trip due to high winds, low cloud and rain.

Just back on the snow after 18 months off due to injury. First day out I’m riding lower and cleaner than ever before and getting unsolicited feedback from skiers that I’m making quite an impression. Over the time off I’ve thought long and hard about my setup, and posted a few threads about my ideas. That first day was the result of putting it all together. The central idea is that alpine boarding is front foot dominated. More of the weight, as the carve is initiated and held, is on the front foot. Precise pressure control for the front foot is crucial to good carving. The less slop in the system under the front foot the better the feel for the board edge. New Setup 1/ Front boot locked in standard riding postion, rear boot max looseness Blue BTS. Boots are HSPs with firm grey tongue on front, and soft yellow tongue on rear. 2/ Front binding positioned so that the centre of the ball of my front foot is just behind the front axle on my isocline plate. My boot centre to centre ball of big toe is approx. 7cm. 3/ Front axle is now the fixed, non-sliding axle. The combination has given me real confidence to downweight onto my downhill edge at the beginning of the carve, while allowing me to get my body position low. My feel for that new carving edge seems more solid, more certain than I remember with my old setup. Old setup 1/ Blue BTS front & rear, firmer at front and slightly preloaded forward on the rear. 2/ Plate axles at max distance apart, 62cm on a Bomber plate, and my bindings 50cm C-to-C and centred on the plate. 3/ Front plate axle was the sliding axle. Whatever the reason, I’m riding better than ever, when by rights I should be playing catchup to get back to where I was. If you have a plate and BTS already then trying what I’ve done will cost you nothing but a little time to set it up.

So, just over a year on from making them, my hand armour got put to the test over the last few days. Typical North Island New Zealand conditions, small amount of loose snow over hardpack. I ride with a "no touch" technique. I've never tried to touch the snow. The aim of the armour for me is to protect my hands if they meet the snow, not to intentionally slide my hands across the snow during each carve. It's 18 months since I last carved, with a hand injury and a ruptured Achilles tendon causing the prolonged layoff. Despite that the very first day I was back on the snow I was carving lower and more confidently than I have ever done before. It was as though somehow 18 months off the snow had allowed my brain to create the neuromuscular connections to carve my downhill edge into each turn, just like Corey taught in the Intermediate Clinic at SES 2013. I had a conversation on the chair with a ski racer in his 20's who was amazed at how my hands seemed just only just above the snow in the turns. He wanted to know how to try carving because I was making it look so much fun! That was when I was sure something was seriously different from the last time I rode. I suspect the improvement is in major part due to a number of changes made to my equipment that I'll post about separately. That first day I was riding with my old wrist guards and gloves. I caught the snow at one stage in a deep heelside turn and gave my left ring finger a nasty bruise. When I rode the following day with the armour on, I very rapidly stopped worrying about the snow coming up to meet me. If I touched the snow, the guards slid as designed and my hands and gloves were completely unscathed. Easy enough to grab the handles at the beginning of each run, and to pop out to pull the Intec cable release at the end. I just need to learn to relax my hands a little inside and not grip the handles so tightly when I ride. They attracted lots of comments, mostly "What are those things?" (Answer: like slalom punch guards but for a snowboarder) and a long conversation on the chairlift with a guy who had spent many years in the snow sports business who immediately saw the utility of the guards and the self-arrest tips. Overall, I'll keep on using them in place of my wristguards, and they'll come to SES 2015 with me if anyone wants to try them out. Total construction costs were about NZ$45 for two 1.5 litre high density polyethylene garden spray pots and a pair of old ski poles. Tools were a soldering iron with a blade tip and some sandpaper to cut and shape the pots.

NZer Bruce Anstey holds the current fastest TT motorcycle lap, as I write this, set this year, at 132.298mph!!!! Makes the Sub seem "slow".

In 8 days I will pack the car with boards, boots, etc. plus some experimental stuff I've been waiting over a year to trial and head to Mt Ruapehu (active volcano, central North Island, NZ). There isn't a lot of snow yet this season, but there is enough! Having not been on a board since Feb 2013 due to a succession of injuries I am looking forward to this a lot!

The video allowed me to experience something I will never do. Actually, the video scares me, a lot. I've driven those Isle of Man roads at normal speed. The room for error on the TT circuit at that speed is almost non-existent, and the consequences of error catastrophic. In my work I've tried to patch up many people who have initially survived high speed road traffic trauma to make it to hospital, not always succeeding.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/t7gmbQ8KxM4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Isle of Man TT course, Subaru WRX STI round the 37.3-mile course in 19m 15s. Average speed of 117.5mph.

Snowfall in varying amounts to quite a few fields in the last few days. A significant driver to them opening is school holidays start for next 2 weeks as I write this (Friday evening here). June was significantly warmer than usual across the whole country, with the snow dump in the last 48 hours being the first really substantial blast from the Southern ocean for quite a while. While the temps are normal winter cool at present, if things return to how they were a week or so ago then the snow will melt fast. My snow time isn't due to start till last week of July after the school holidays have ended plus some more in the middle of August so I keep hoping.

Six weeks, six weeks, six weeks more! So near and yet so far.:D

Pat, can you explain why you say "you don't get the full suspension effect"? To my thinking the board still is able to flex completely independently of the rider by moving at both the front and rear axle mechanisms, whether the fixed axle is at the front or rear. Impacts on the part of the snowboard ahead of the front axle will still be transmitted along the whole length of the board.

Hi Andy, Not having a plate in front of me when I wrote the post above I made an error. The axle moves with the plate, not the board, so the only advantage is the solid feel underfoot. Alan I'm obviously hallucinating through lack of snow. It's been nearly 18 months since I last rode. Only 6 more weeks till I get another fix!

Things to consider. In my 29.5 mondo hardboots the centre of the ball of my foot is approx. 6.5cm in front of boot sole centre. In the depths of a carved turn, as the snowboard bends, the sliding axle will move between 5-10mm (millimetres) towards the centre of the plate. (Error - board moves relative to axle) The wider the axle units are apart, the greater the length of the board that is torsionally stiffened by the plate mounted above it, and the greater will be the movement of the sliding axle. For more rider ability to twist the board use a softer plate. On the boards where I have added UPM pattern inserts, I have centred the pattern on the centre of the effective edge. On my custom plate optimised Coiler NSR, I place the axles equidistant from the centre of the insert pattern as BV placed it. I setup my plate and bindings equidistant from the same centre of the insert pattern. I always have the ball of my front foot over or behind the front axle. For preference I like the maximum stiffness so mount my axles as far apart as possible. Edit re fixed axle at front to come. Since Benjamin Karl started this whole plate thing the vast majority of plates have had their sliding axles at the front. Why? Noone has ever been able to give me a reasoned answer. Meanwhile many riders complain about a lack of "feel" underfoot. All the sliding axle mechanisms I know of have some slop in them, even Fin's beautifully machined Bomber plates. Every sliding axle mounted at the front will move relative to the rider's front foot as they turn. (Error- axle attached to plate, board moves in relation to axle - see post below) With the fixed axle at the front you'll get a solid and unchanging relationship between axle position and the crucial front foot. Meanwhile the board will flex underneath as always, the riders weight and lean transmitted only through the two axle mechanisms.

Now slice the other boot of each pair horizontally, parallel to the sole.

Fin, The graphs of boot profile at the end of the article seem to assume the width in the boot shell is symmetrically distributed. Is that actually the case, or are the boot cavities asymmetric? I thought that the boot shell was straighter on the inside of the foot and more curved on the outside of the foot. Trying to determine how the width is distributed just from the photos introduces significant inaccuracies unless all the photos were taken at exactly the same position for each section. Can you re-measure and graph both sides of the boot shell profile, showing how the width changes on both sides as the sections progress?

No experience with QuiverKillers. I've just looked at the website and they look like a useful product, assuming that they have an insert that takes an M6 thread. I've drilled a number of older snowboards to put UPM pattern inserts in. I use a pre-Ptex'd brass inserts I picked up from a French website. http://www.worden.fr/boutique-worden-snowboard-multi-inserts-9-mm-les-10-unites-,111624.html To drill the board I recommend using a drill press rather than hand holding a drill to ensure that the holes (and inserts) end up perpendicular to the base of the board. 1/ Mark out the pattern on the top of the board. 2/ Drill a pilot hole for each insert using a small bit, from the top of the board to the bottom, with the board clamped to the drill press table. I use a 3mm bit. 3/ Turn the board over and and use a brace bit that matches the size of the insert P-Tex (16mm) to create the round hole in the P-Tex base for the insert. Drill just through the P-Tex and no more. The pilot hole drilled from the other side is used to centre to brace bit. 4/ Use a countersink bit to create the rebate for the conical shape of the insert. The angle is 110 degrees on the insert but I only have 90 degree countersink bits available. Be careful not to drill the countersink too deep. 5/ Now turn the board over again and drill a hole from the top sheet side big enough to take the threaded side of the insert. I use a 9mm bit. 6/ Test the position of each insert before epoxying into place. Ideally the inserts sit with less than 1mm of P-Tex protruding above the base surface, but are also not below the base surface. This means they can be made level by a base grind or similar after being fixed in place. 7/ Epoxy the inserts into place and leave to cure. 8/ To level the base either get your local shop to do a base grind OR take a metal ruler with a 90 degree edge. Make sure it is well sharpened and carefully scrape the proud insert P-Tex back to the base level for a near perfect finish. NB: It is not recommended to drill a metal cored board for new inserts as you will weaken the metal layer. The metal is predrilled for the intended inserts prior to layup when they are made. The inserts I use are available from a number of sources. Wintersteiger make a kit which includes a special drill bit to drill both the base and the countersink part to an exact fit for the inserts but it's rather pricey.

Damn, I'm going to have to spend a fortnight in Aspen again in Feb 2015! Aspen Anesthesia is running 1-8 Feb.

And so it begins. Fields don't open till early June but a cold southerly weather pattern has brought first snows to skifields in both the North & South Island. Cardrona (Sth Island) looks like you could ride it today! Turoa on Mt Ruapehu (Nth Island). With its' rocky volcanic surfaces Turoa really needs at least a metre of snow depth to be rideable. Hanging out for my first trip to the snow in late July.

:lol:What my friend Lowrider needs is to get Bruce or Sean to build him a 200cm board with a sidecut radius so tight he can see his own backside in the distance when he turns!:lol:

As close to a definitive answer as you'll get! https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/winter-activtities and for anyone who wants to check out almost ANY type of other physical activity start here. https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories A MET is equal to the energy produced per unit surface area of an average person seated at rest and is equivalent to an oxygen consumption of 3.5 ml/kg/min. The surface area of an average person is 1.8 m2 (19 ft2). Metabolic rate is usually expressed in terms of unit area of the total body surface (ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 55. The max METs in the Compendium of Physical Activities charts that I can find is 15.8, but that is only equivalent to a VO2 of roughly 55ml/kg. Endurance athletes competing at Olympic level commonly can achieve VO2s of 80+ml/kg. For the cyclists here I found a reference suggesting Greg LeMond's max VO2 was 92.5ml/kg, and Miguel Indurain's 88ml/kg. In my mid 30s I was tested as a "fit normal subject" in our hospital's cardio-pulmonary exercise lab and hit a VO2 max of 60ml/kg, so 55 is not that extraordinary. and for anyone who wants more try starting here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/LjmI3dP-pSA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/WDilQWhZxfk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sochi videos are starting to appear on the official Olympics video channel. I cut and pasted embed code from another video to overcome the disabled embed button on YouTube for these summary videos of the mens & womens Parallel Slalom finals. Hopefully full replays of the mens & womens slalom & giant slalom will appear soon. <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bI-FhmBqy9c" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe> <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/1TTDRUmj0pg" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

A year or two back I tried a cutdown paintball mask to achieve the same effect. Problems with mask fogging put paid to that.