valsam

http://snowboardmaterials.com/pages/materials.htm Please do the math! As i see materials don't cost not even half of what your estimate is, and if you consider that that's just materials for 1 board how much price drop would you get if you order for mass production ? I Would say near the 100$ which i estimated in the first place! I also found this on the net: "I've looked into industry statistics that are available and it generally only costs 7% of the MSRP (manufactures suggested retail price) to produce a snowboard!!" I'm not saying that if materials cost 100$ then a boards retail should be 130-150$ because i understand that there are much more things that raise the price such as manufacturing equipment,labor wage's,taxes,electric bills,advertising and many more! And i am sure that the guy who sold me the last year 600$ board for 240$ still made a profit(if it is anywhere near the profit margin that clothes have even with 90%discount!) This is my opinion and if you guys like it or not i don't give a damn! So back to GROMEL boards again, just because they sell cheaper does that make them garbage? Has anyone even thought that maybe the people who make them sell them cheap because they are going for little or no profit just to get in the market! I know for a fact that a factory in the Corinthian region of Austria in the 90's made the same material boards but with different names such as NALE-ELAN-CRAZYCREEK-NITRO and many others that were not even branded and i bought allot of boards from there because a friend racer that worked for them would get me the boards at wholesale(i do think that the guy made something on the side too!)and boy were the cheap compared to retail ,i payed for a nitro 177gt 200$ and after i broke it he got me the same board but with no brand name or prints on it for 130$

You are a bad guesser,i am self employed (i own my constuction company)and have pretty good living standards,even if it's not any of your busines! I also know that alot of people who think they are good riders just because they ride good equipment or good drivers just because they ride good cars and i guess that's not a thing just in my country but its a worldwide thing and americans arent known to be an exeption! Sorry if you guys think that it's disrespectful to the board constructors to question the cost of the equipment,as i see in here it is blasphemy to say something about a constructor or a pro rider, but isn't it also disrespectful to dis someone for selling something cheaper then you guys are use to paying without even testing it? Is it bitching to wonder why i got a brand new 600$ board last year from an internet shop (salomon special 162)and because it was a year old model i got it with a 60% discount for 240$ and after receiving it i saw that it had a base scratch from storing (1 minute ptex fix!) and i just told the store (in Germany) that i bought from that next time if i buy again from them that i would like them to more careful, and you know what? they send me another board without them even asking me to send the other board back!(i just sent pictures of the base!) So that made me wonder if i can get 2 600$=1200$ boards for 240$ from a retailer then how much does the retailer get them or even more how much do they actually cost to be made? Is that so bad? I have found allot o help in these forums and I visit the bomber site on daily bases but i receive allot of prejudice from allot in here,maybe I'm wrong in some things i write or how i write it(my english isn't that good!) But i get it ,sometimes truth hurts and that's why allot of you react like that!

Ace ain't right Jack, in alpine gear especially you don't get what you pay for but you pay much more for what you get! Really why is a wood core plate that is sold here going for 400$ when a skateboard (looks to me very similar hardware cost!)with carbon fibre and air chambers in the wood core goes for 100$ ? And please don't tell me that skateboards sell in the millions and alpine gear in the hundreds! Please don't come to the conclusion that these gromel boards suck just because of there price tag,maybe they do maybe they don't! Maybe they learned how to make a board after 30 years of trying and also don't want to make a 700% profit out of them,really how much does a board cost to make?100$ ?!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but aren't metal boards more easy to break-delam? And when someone is learning they fall allot -and board catches nose-tail and without much control! I broke allot of boards(glass ones) and most of them when i was learning,now after many years of hardbooting i think i can protect my boards and treat them better,so is it a good idea for a learner to spend big bucks on a metal board?

I will try to make me a plate but the lazy way! I am thinking if there are already existing parts that would work for a plate like let's say the sliding mechanism,there must be surely something out there that is used in other devices that would work,maybe something from a kitchen drawer or a closet ,anyone any ideas?

Well since we seam to have another board in common the elan ballistic 171 which seams to me much more stiffer and with allot of more pop why don't you try the plate on that board too and tell me if its worth getting a plate for my quiver which is glass boards only!

Hey BlueB is that a generics IQ?I have a 1,70 and it is pretty soft,11,8scr, turns tight and generally is easy to ride? Are there any benefits of using a plate on a glass board like that?

I use to play around somewhat like that but on a 17-17,5cm waist board,but can't do that on a 21,5-22 waist board!

I think that the mountain you usually ride at is the the most important aspect of board sizing ,if there are huge and wide runs without many people on them then you can do with a long board but if the runs are narrow and crowded then a shorter board is the only way, I'm 6,4 feet tall 250 pounds and ride a 1,67 board! I use to ride a 1,85 and my shortest board was 1,71 but even the 1,71 felt a little bit big for the runs i mostly go to (15 years hardbooting)! If i ordered a new custom board now i would get a 1,67-1,69, 21,5-22 waist (mondo 31) ,metal (cause all of you say that they are better then carbon-glass) 11-13scr(if it is possible) and constructed somehow that it would be stable at mach speeds but also be extemecarveble at mid-low speeds(does such a board exist or maybe be made?)!

Ebay.de,the de stands for Deutscheland which is Germany,and this is my shopping area where i bought lots of stuff but i don't know if buying from there is for you because of the ridiculous high prices for shipping AND I THINK YOU WILL ALSO HAVE CUSTOM FEES to pay,i bought a bord from there and the shipping cost to Greece which is not even 2 hours by plane cost me 70 euros which is close to u.s100$ ,i wanted to buy another board a oxygen proton 172 gs 2 days ago and the seller didn't ship outside Germany so i contacted UPS to pic it up and send it to me and they told me that it would cost me 90 euros=130$ ,the board was sold for 41 euros and if i would have won it and payed the shipping that would make the total amount 130 euros = 180 U.S$ for a 10 year old proton is way too much,i think you can find much better and cheaper stuff here in the classified section.

Can you give me a serious answer to the comparison i made or do you just like being a smart ass ?

I think that Citroen the french car manufacturer made a car 10-15 years ago that when it was cornering the outside of the car would rise so that it would not be tilted when cornering and the car was extremely comfortable but the results were disastrous because drivers didn't realise what were the grip limits before it was too late and when they crashed they crashed hard! I never rode any sort of plate but if there is isolation of the feed back of the terrain and the limits of edge hold then it sounds to me something like the Citroen car !

Yes i owned a pair (BURTON race 1999-2000 yellowish-green)and broke one binding around the disk area,and also another friend of mine broke bails 2 times! Maybe it's my weight, I'm 110 kilos my friend is around 100 ,maybe the aggressiveness but definitely not improper set up ,anyway everything can break as i broke a pair of oxygen bindings and a bail off a nale binding but those bindings cost me way less and even compared to those bindings the burtons broke easier! Maybe they are better for lighter riders.

I think that the price is to high for burton bindings that broke fairly easy!

Basketball!

And how many days are the conditions good on a mountain and how many epic groomed days do you find? For me not as many as icy and not at all groomed days and very crowded days that's why i prefer a softer and smaller radius board(10,5-11,5)which is pure joy in these conditions!

Steeps and softer flex boards rule!!!!! +ice ! Everything is easyer and come with less effort on a softer flex board but at lower speed's than a stiffer board ! Stability at high speeds is the only advantage that stiffer boards have and in my opinion it's not worth sacrificing the fun that you get from a little softer board for that ! For the last 3 years i too ride my softest alpine board of the 4 i got and stoped even carying the other's with me to the mountain any more(only my rock board)!

Super plate sold on ebay! He is selling it as an alpine snowboard!!!!!

100000% couldn't agree with you more ! When i wrote in another thread about the ugliness of the race style technique and praised the style of casper carver almost everybody was ready to eat me alive!

So the surface will feel flat correct? That doesn't sound like much fun for me! That is like touching a naked beautiful woman with gloves on or even like having sex with a condom in witch case you have the benefit of not catching a disease but the isolation of it just sucks! I put on my boards last season some polycarbonate spacers and beside the protection and a little stiffness benefits i did'nt like the isolation of the feedback that he terrain gave me !

Protection is a good thing,let's say a helmet is a must but over protecting layering with shorts, knee braces ,spine,elbow, wrist ,shoulder and so on will kill your mobility even if it is designed by the N.A.S.A space team,and from seeing the ages in here most of you guys lost your mobility already from old age ! I'm an old fart too (45)and i wear knee braces (3 ACL surgeries,1 ankle,2 meniscus,2 cleaning arthroscopes,and a broken spinal bone!) and a orthopedic belt but when i take them of for a couple of runs i feel absolutely free!

Absolutely there is no way that someone can ride at 50% of his ability in that much protection gear! I wear just a pair of knee braces and it slows down my performance allot! Next time he will also wear a parachute to cover the chance of falling of a ridge too!

+1! Shorter is better for me too! Nice riding,switch not as gracefull as Caspers but very good!

Sean not all of us ride your boards but if your plate system doe's let's say 75% of what the other system do and cost's 75% less then be sure that most of us will buy it and you will have the sales volume that will allow the production cost to drop!

No titanal no carbon no elastomere no steel edges no base and alot less wood than a board so if it costs 1/5 of a board and works this should sell like crazy! It looks like a skateboard without wheels and i think it should cost as much as one!