SunSurfer

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

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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.

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4FlbI3eoMPI" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe> <iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6r-35GF40Bo" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe> This is as good as any of the instructional videos out there. These how to and result videos are from the same guy. To install my external 3.5mm socket I cut & rejoined the wires rather than soldering to the circuit board. Used some bathroom sealant to seal the exit hole at the end to make it more weather proof. The real trick is finding a place for external mike that is out of the direct head on airflow or any other seriously turbulent airflow. The bike vid above comments on YouTube say that he mounted his mike at the back of the bike under the rear seat.

<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/27327309" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" width="500"></iframe> Glad to see you were OK. Not often we see & hear raw action cam video. The roar from the standard mike at almost any speed is usually quite unpleasant. I modified my Contour to have an external mike mono socket (cheap lavalier mike from budget electronics store) which I mount on the back of my helmet with a dead cat wind shield. The video demonstrates the sound I got as a result. To my ears it's not far from what I actually hear as I ride, right down to the scuffed turn of the snowboarder I pass and the snow guns roaring away. Some of the later Contours actually have an external mike socket fitted.

NZ prices at major fields are heading towards NZ$90-100 per day for an adult pass. Current conversion rate is around NZ$100 to US$86. And we don't have the litigation prone law that the US has, we have a no-fault compensation & treatment scheme for treatment for injury with a public hospital system that does not charge patients to any significant degree, so that's not the driver of the cost. Our season is relatively short, and because of our temperate island climate lots of snowmaking is necessary, so these may be part of the reasons locally. We also have legislated minimum wages, both for staff in training(NZ$11.40 per hour) and for staff 20 yrs or older(NZ$14.25 per hour), and a business culture where tipping is not the norm. Lots of things potentially drive a lift ticket price.

Scott, Making plans for SES 2015. There is a work related conference at Snowmass at pretty much the same time each year as SES which got me there in 2012 & 2013. Hoping to earn some more NASTAR gold and maybe a first platinum.

Your recovery from injury and return to racing is giving me hope as I rehab from, fortunately, more minor injuries that have had me off the slopes since Feb 2013. One of them happened while riding fast & taking chances in the NASTAR course at Highlands. Hope someday to pick your brain over a beer at a future SES!

Not quite the king. Mark Hogan (50-54 class) was the fastest snowboarder at the NASTAR championships, beating Scott on raw time in both the snowboard race course and the Race of Champions. Mark is an Aspen local I had the pleasure of meeting, and having my butt whipped by in the Snowmass NASTAR course, in Feb 2013.

The difference in pressure between the edge of a single ice skate blade and the base of a snowboard, each bearing the weight of the rider, has to be several orders of magnitude different. Science of all sorts advances by currently accepted knowledge being challenged.

Are you really looking for an answer as to why you end up with problems keeping your edge engaged throughout the whole turn? If that is the question, then I suspect the answer lies elsewhere than changing your natural stance. Lots of points of view to be found on solving this across many Bomberonline threads.

The video is proof of the concept that you can heat a board's base. You can potentially reduce the variability in wax requirements with different temperature snow. I would have liked to see a formal trial of matching prepared boards with power on vs. off to see the actual performance gain too. But the concept is possible. That said, I think that the research to make it work to the optimum would be beyond all but the larger companies. The effect on the cost of a board would be likely to be considerable, and the effect of heating/cooling cycles on durability could be a significant issue. On the other hand, maybe Fin could develop Powertec heels that only deliver power to the board when you click in, within a battery back pack you wear under your jacket!

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/-nOMcl_rbgk" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe> Wax techs might well have bad dreams tonight. Heating the base of the board to ensure a water layer underneath appears to be within the FIS rules (p81). They don't seem to have ever conceived that someone might try this! Have to think it will be banned as soon as the FIS sees someone trying it. http://www.fis-ski.com/mm/Document/documentlibrary/Snowboard/04/36/62/SB_FIS_ICR13Snowboardincludingprecisionsfall13_clean_English.pdf

Monoski - binding centres on a single line perpendicular to the length of the ski. Alpine snowboard/Skwal - binding centres on a single line along the length of the ski. "Plankenstein" concept - binding centres on the opposite corners of a rectangle approx. 50cm long and 6-8+cm plus wide (how wide depends on your board/plate/bindings). PS: I can't figure out what to call this hybrid/chimera/cross of snowboarding and monoskiing.

Softbootsailer, Funny you should ask that. Sitting in my garage, waiting this season's snow, is a snowboard with an isolation plate on it. The plate has extra binding inserts significantly offset from the centre line. The bindings are set up with the feet front and back, but also side by side rather than one behind the other, and with the binding angles at ®87.5 and (L)92.5 degrees (I ride regular normally). I plan to ride it with and without ski poles. I anticipate it will carve beautifully, be able to be poled easily along cat tracks, and will be an awful lot easier to ride on T-bar and platter lifts than a standard stance alpine snowboard. Come July-August this year I'll find out. PS: The forum seems to be getting posts out of order. Starting to wonder if it's due to a problem the software is having with international time zones and computer clocks.

My impression is that most people who ride isocline/isolation plates mount them up with the sliding axle at the front of the board. The poll is here to see whether that impression is correct. I'm interested in the reasons people come up with for why they mount their plate the way they do. For now I'll keep my thoughts on the topic to myself.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MDuHvELIJnE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Skwal vs. Directional vs. Duckfoot. Thought provoking.

1/ Kessler 2/ Sigi Grabner 3/ Vist as far as I can see from the TV coverage.

This is one of the best stories of the Olympics. It has politics. This is Putin's absolute biggest nose thumb at the Americans. It has the overcoming of difficulties and the realising of potential. It has the husband & wife both winning medals. It has the riders respecting Vic's win and what he's had to do to achieve it. And the aspect of the underfunding of alpine boarding in the USA keeps coming up, in pretty much all the news reports I see. For alpine snowboarding in the US, Vic Wild's victory may the best thing that ever happened. Some people say politics and sport don't mix. At Olympic level, politics and sport are irrevocably intertwined.

FIS and USASA rules basically prohibit snowboarders from having anything on/in their hands that may decrease friction or improve balance. Hence you won't see any top level racers with wrist brace protection on the outside of their gloves, nor sliders, nor any kind of hand armour. The details can be found by going to the respective organisations rules pages. I suspect NASTAR is much more relaxed about the issue.

My bad. I wasn't meaning to refer to you lonbordin, more to the original poster, john. Hardbooters aren't quite as slow as some skiers would make out.

Until you learn how to carve the gates properly, and you leave a few of them in your dust. At which point you start getting respect.

Thanks John, Watching you all in Aspen while I'm here in Wellington is such sweet sorrow.

Modified Head Stratos Pros. Buckled up as if riding. F2 Intec Race - 60 degrees rear with 6cm (oops 6 degrees) heel lift, 65 degrees front with 3 degrees toe lift, no canting. 50cm C-to-C. Photos are screen shots from a single video. Reference points: The Intec mechanism pin on each boot. A mark on the roughly middle of each tibia facing the camera. Position 1 at rest, relaxed as if just sliding along. Position 2 dropped down but balanced over both feet. Rear lower leg moves through 13 degrees, front lower leg through 4 degrees in these photos. After these photos I'm starting to wonder if I need red BTS springs on my front boot, or maybe ditch the BTS altogether and just go back to a variable position lock.