eajracing

Kimi?!?!?!? Really!?!?!?! Even with the mumbling?

Only if there's a pole and an airing of grievances.

no snow in TO proper.... but i hear acton got a bunch, and markdale (talisman, BV) got about 5in. Not sure about collingwood. at least some outdoor rinks have opened for shinny....

Understood. And as noted - let me see what bike parts i've got in the garage for craigslist, what boards I can part with and how the xmas bonus goes... That said - can we safely assume a metal version could be in the works once the old inventory runs out, or is it so specific or cost prohibitive that its out of the question?

I spoke to Bruce about making something like this on the chair last winter and he said he could do it, just not wide enough for my liking (i was looking for a 28cm waist). Palmer Crown is too narrow... Kessler's are like Colnagos - i'm too afraid of breaking it to really ride it... BlueB - Which Prior board are you referring to? When I spoke to them last spring it was yeah we could build it, but we wont warranty it (i was asking for a metal core though) and the price was a touch dear for my cash flow... Sean... let me see how the xmas bonus goes... two new boards already this year, a third one might find me divorced. Thanks for putting the effort into designing such deadly board. If you ever figure out how to make it metal for the EC ice, or have done enough modelling to explain why its a bad idea, let me know. (still - not stopping me from getting one at this point though.

amen. how did a definition of snowboarding start involving ski poles anyhow? never skied... dont see much use for them (other than the obvious use as a weapon as astutely pointed out by boardski... i may have 'borrowed' a pole to 'assist' someone out of their bindings...) and.. carvedog nailed my take too -and although it smacks of Jack's cry of the terminal intermediates, who cares what the dictionary?governing bodies/etc says - worry more about riding. more. you'll be a better whatever it is you're defining for it. as a parting shot - i do find it a bit funny letting a bunch of hardbooters define a sport we really only make up a small percentage of. for the record, i've got nothing against poles/monoskis/etc.... as long as gravity's pulling and you're sliding - we're all brothers like the bee gees.

Brilliant. I'd love to see Ross run as an MP.... i might watch the cabinet tv feeds just for lebowski-esque nature of the questions.... "uhhh.... mind if i do a jay?" or explaining to Iggy that "...some new s**t's come to light maaaannn...". +1 on fawcett should've won it. I can still remember watching the race at Panorama..... and seeing the "canadian olympic snowboard team" shirts that were for sale within a few days with the maple leaf of the flag replaced with the ubiquitous C. sativa leaf. I still bought one. As for setting the sport back.... we needed something at that point in history. Snowboarding was emerging from a fringe sport, starting to gain respectability and I could no longer use it to pick up teenage girls with daddy-issues looking for someone their parents would hate from the singles line. This dragged us back down and gave me all new material to ply my trade on the chair with. It's always better to be underestimated than overestimated.... the mistakes your opponent makes will be at least 10x worse.

And I just wished i lived somewhere where the conditions would justify purchasing something like that.....

MTM, I'm on my 2nd prior MFR (just got a new 176W this summer....) and love them for all purpose softie days. I've been able to lay the thing out all over ontario too.... It's great just about everywhere but the half pipe, and this just cause i feel like i've got to go twice as big to hoist the behemoth up over the lip. +1 on the elan vertigo - i've got a few buddies on the titanal ones for BX and it became their go-to board for 80% of the season. Also, I've got another 2-3 riding buddies (that also teach)that swear by the Neversummers for all mountain softie carving. Again - high speed hauling, not the first pick for the park/pipe though.

I've had the same set of MEC goretex powder mits for about 4 years now with the rubberized palms. They replaced the Serratus ones MEC used to carry with the kevlar palms. Take a helluva beating and are ridiculously warm.

I rode with a guy on cat at revy two years ago with some reverse sidecut/reverse camber skis (sorry, cant remember what kind - not a skier) and he ripped in the deep, but at the end of the day heading back to the lodge the guy was a disaster on the cat tracks. Reminded me of an old trick when you'd put clear tape of some poor guys skate blades and wait for him to jump over the boards on his first shift. That and they chattered something fierce on the groom throwing up enough snow that i made a point of not riding behind him. Over beers he said it was worth the problems for the benefits in the waist deep. He said they got up on top and handled like water skis.

Is it that time of year already? Who's setting up the chalkboard with the over/under for snowfall depths? BC got off to a rough start last year, but ended up getting good snow near the end of Feb. Compared to the previous year though it was a dissapointment. As always at this time of year, I've been inquiring with the weather cognoscenti and got the following responses: 1. t's an El Nino year therefore there will be no snow; 2. It's an El Nino year therefore there will be record levels of snowfall; 3. It's not el nino - its baby nino, el nino is coming next year. All that I've been able to make of this is a mental image of Chris Farley yelling 'el neeeeeeeeeeennnyoooooooooooo' and blowing. Gotta love the weather prognosticators. My bigger concern is - will anyone be able to rent a car in BC in the month of Feb, or will they all be at the olympics? Can I afford to pull the usual wait til a week before going while studying weather patterns to see where the snow is then book? My wife's killing me to choose a week and commit already. Might have to buy weather futures and hedge this up right.

i've been doing this for years!!!!! and here all i got is a bum skootch leg and no spandex to show for it.

amen. at least 4 times a week in the sept-march period, twice a week for the rest. ride the bike weekdays, portage canoes on weekends. couldn't pay me enough to go into one of those "gyms". that said - it shows. Did some solid portaging this summer and although there were no changes in the mirror, my balance is 10x better.

hooked like crack on FF. 3-1 going into this weekend and i'm looking for big ben to roughshod over the lions. fantasy hockey team also off to a good start. between BOL and managing those two teams i feel like i actually have something to do at work.

it looks like they're being built by nidecker.... anyone ridden a nidecker in the recent past? looks like they're hooked up with a bunch of swiss universities to develop new board tech and they've got their version of s decambered magna-traction-esque boards in their line up. ++1 for jeremy jones. cant wait for deeper.

+1 on the old rusted metal sheet.... i loved that one when i saw it. still do.

Amen. The friend I ride the most with is riding on Rival, and every ride its more of the same about how its better than ultegra etc etc etc..., but he's the guy that whatever he's on is better than yours. Interesting to hear the comment about the front chainring being too stiff and hampering shifting performance - i've heard that elsewhere. i have a litespeed built up with 10 sp Dura Ace, and a Merckx with 8 sp Record ergo carbon. The best way I heard the difference between the two was that once installed new, the Shimano wears out while the Campy starts to wear in. My personal is that Campy will last forever (still running an early 80's super record on my olmo), and stay in better tune longer than my Shimano bits (provided cables are stretched, all else being equal, newtonian laws apply blah blah etc etc etc etc ). Between those two bikes, the Campy on the Eddy is still doing fine, and has been since '96 (changed chain, cassette and rings once, i forget how many 1000's of k's later). The dura ace gets the job done. well. But i dont see it lasting 10+ years. I did get a chance to demo the new electronic dura ace, and man is that ever sweet. I'd never buy it (i remember the mavic zap), but i cant recall riding a bike just staring at the front mech for so long. I'd love to have the discussion re: sram in a few years. As a mechanic when grip shift first came out and shimano started to 'push' cables back trather than rely on return spring, I hated them for a while too. Now, I get ostensibly aroused looking at the Force cassette..... mmmmmmmmmm...... machined titanium..... At then end of it, I just like watching shimano feel uncomfortable. I think the new SRAM XX full set will be deadly, and the truvativ (sram) internally geared crankset was nothing short of 'why the _____ didnt i think of that - YEARS AGO!!!' Love it. but this is from a guy who's stable is as big and varied as his quiver.... i know i got problems.

I couldnt wait....

Not sure about the Boston area... but I'm 99% sure IBI Group has a large office down there and I did 5 years remediating for them in Toronto... Check Environ and Golder too. But really.... when it gets tho the point hat you'd rather have a root canal than write/review another Phase II.... come to the dark side... get into contracting. Big machines are so much cooler than injections. I love the smell of modified Fentons through an Allu bucket in the (very early) morning....

I got one last summer, and it's changed my life. I warn you in advance, it's not so much a 'BBQ' as it is a 'Religion'. After going biking, I spend my Sundays in front of it. Once you get the hang of it, it's irreplaceable. I've done chickens, bone-in pork loins, legs of lamb etc. and they all turn out better than any other way I've done them. We got our hands on some deadly dry-aged NY strips, and had the butcher cut them 1.5"-2" thick, and seared them at about 650F - done in about 3 minutes (to the rare side of med-rare) with this perfect caramelized outside. I've spent sundays doing ribs over the smoke at about 180F, with a pot of homemade beans under them to pick up some smoke and catch any falling deliciousness. It BBQ's without drying anything out. You can go hot and fast, slow and low.... i can go on for hours. I've done naans on the inside. Easily the best pork roasts i've done. I gotta stop and go check on her.... So next level. I'll try and post pics tomorrow....

Loved the bruins vid, and as a TO guy with too many habs fans for friends I almost loved the sweep. I'm heavy on the bruins in my pool and could have gone for a few 9-8 or 15-14 losses to strtch the series out. With each B goal scored with any three of Ryder, Lucic, Savard, Recchi, Kessel, Chara and/or wideman. and dont despair Toronto fans... Old man Watters tells me everyday we're rebuilding and progress is right around the corner!!!! Unfortunately, I havent been drinking heavily enough of late to believe him. Back to Blue Goose I suppose. Heck.... I almost put together a pool under the wifes name including wellwood, sundin, colaicovo, steen, Boyes, S. Thornton et al but couldnt figure out how to pick Maurice.:D

i've been riding a soft boot set up on a 172 prior mfr for about 4 years now and love it for soft days. i'll run a 15-17 up front, a little duck if its corn snow or for running big mountain/tree lines where i cant carve all the way down and live; or, a 5-13 on groom, more angle for better quality groom. I can still carve, but dont expect to lay it out. i remember the days of cranking straps so tight my feet went numb, but with newer boots and new bindings ('07 C02's) i havent had the problem since had a deadly neon corn snow day full of two-handed nose grabs on saturday that the softies particularly lent themselves to.

cant say enough good things about the blue smith sensor lens in low/flat light. Best I've had in 19 years.

Love KH - i've been for at least a week for the last 4 years in a row. I know its blasphemy around here, but I leave my hardboots at home when I go. Not the kind of mountain for that sort of thing. I've seen one hardbooter there in that time, and he was struggling with the terrain. I'm not saying you can't but there's no nice groomers to lay arcs on. bring a big pow stick and charge the bowls down through the trees. roostertails and hand dragging is highly suggested. If you can..... drive through rogers pass and spend at least a day at revy too. The north bowl was armpit deep last time i went.