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Kex

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Everything posted by Kex

  1. finally hit the slopes today and i must say it was a great day out there today. i was a little dissapointed cliffhanger was closed, but o well. went with softboots because i spent the morning teaching a friend how to snowboard before taking off and getting some serious runs in at around noon. switched between the two chairs a few times looking for carvelines without much luck. when did you call it quits? a little after 2 i saw someone with an alpine board taking off, he had a black board with a yellow nose. any chance that was you?
  2. Do you know how fast you were going? uhh, 65? 63. But officer, isn't the speed limit 65? It is.
  3. thump, didnt make it out today, let me know how conditions were, i should be out tomorrow
  4. just one. was riding back home from campus (less than a mile's bikeride). my bikes rear brake line snapped and i had to use my front brakes at the bottom of a steep hill. the wheel locked up and threw me over the handlebars. i (apparently) hit my head and I wasn't wearing a helmet, because it was such a short ride to campus. needless to say I always wear one now though.
  5. ive had similar trouble with my boots, so im interested as well. I bought some deeluxe indys according to my size (mp26) with heat moldable liners and have found them unusable. my feet are crushed width-wise, and when i lock down the straps, it puts pressure on my arches. I was able to slightly alleviate the pain by removing the footbeds to give myself a little more room(allowed be to ride for a little over an hour at a time before pain was unbearable and a break was required), but it didnt solve the problem. when i molded them, i did it with the footbeds, a little extra padding on high pressure areas, and medium thickness socks. I dont know if its just because im used to a looser fit with my softboots, but the 26s just havent worked for me. I havent tried getting them remolded or punched out because im thinking it night be a better idea to just sell these and size up instead of going through all the expenses and effort(college student = little time or money:()
  6. i hope no one minds, but i thought i would bump this old thread back to the top in hopes of hearing any other reviews of the board. I obtained an elan ballistic 171 last spring and only had the opportunity to ride it for a single day. I know what I thought of it from my limited trial, but as a fairly novice hardbooter, I'd like to hear some more opinions about the board from more experienced riders who have tried it. From what Ive read so far, it seems like a good board i could get some good experience on, though it seems like the learning curve of this board might be steep at the same time. tomorrow will be my first day on the slopes this season, and im excited to get back to hardbooting.
  7. hey thump, im up in the poconos for the week and thought id see if anyone else from bomber would be in the area. I have a place near camelback, so I'll probably be there a few times this week. Not sure if I'll be on my hard or soft boots, i like to go back and forth, but I thought id say hi and introduce myself, and I'll be keeping an eye out for any hardbooters and telltale trenches in the snow on the slopes. hope to see you out there! -Kevin
  8. not a terrible idea, but a few things to overcome: first, magnets slide fairly easily as im sure you know, so you would need some sort of boot shaped rim around the magnet on the board to hold your foot in place, or something equivalent. second, if the magnet hold is strong enough to be functional, how do you get your foot off? unless we are talking some sort of electromagnet. lastly, in sure it would come off in a nasty crash, so it would need some sort of runaway prevention. a leash would work, but a large bladed weight flying through the air while tethered to me doesnt sound fun imo. the other option is to go the way of the ski and put on retractable brakes. seems like a lot of trouble to put brakes and boot rim things on your board, magnets on your board and feet, for something that does the same job as regular bindings. oh, one last problem: steel floors/staircases + magnetic boots = funny
  9. wow gecko, thanks for all the answers, definitely clears a lot up. I really appreciate you taking the time to write all that. a nice reminder of why i love BOL so much Thanks for the link xx, i was wondering what sites might be reliable information sources. When I was first picking up hardbooting I spent a lot of time at the carvers almanac (www.alpinecarving.com) soaking up all the info they have there, and I think that really helped me get a grasp on all the subtleties of the sport and feel like i was buying gear as an informed buyer.
  10. I'm a snowboarder, have been since I was 6 or so. I got interested in hardbooting and finally got the chance to try it last year. Bought my first alpine board this year and have had a lot of fun on it this season. Honestly, Ive never been into skateboarding, but I think that is mainly because the only skateboarding that I've seen people do is freestyle. freestyle just isn't my style, which is part of the reason I got into alpine snowboarding in the first place. I figure if im not catching huge air and doing tricks, why be on a freestyle snowboard? Anyway, recently ive seen an increase in people on longboards riding around campus, and I have to say, it looks pretty sick. Ive never really seen people carve turns on skateboards before recently, and I have to say, watching them(and people on youtube videos) carve turns and feel the G's at high speeds has been giving me the urge to try it. Since I have pretty much no knowledge of skateboarding, I figured I would turn to bomber, like I did for hardbooting. So if any of you longboarding genius' out there could give me some pointers and such, I really have no idea what I am looking for. just browsing the site ive already seen some things that I have no knowledge of. terms like "loaded", "WB", truck width, that kind of stuff. I don't really know how length, different types of wheels, or the shape of the deck effect the ride. Ive seen some crazy shaped decks and dont know what the differences are, I've seen some people riding decks that seem to flex to the point they are going to touch the ground in between the wheels while they are riding, which seems strange. does flex on a skateboard deck work the same way as it does for snowboarding(the more flex, the smaller the turn radius at a given speed)? Anyway, i know ive asked a lot of questions and havent been very specific, but i think im catching the bug and dont even know where to start, so any info would be great! If it matters, I'm 5'11" and 190 lbs thanks!
  11. then I take it you believe that risers increase "leverage" too? If so, you both need to go take a physics course. anyway, I'm done trying to defend or explain myself or correct physics. Please continue to flame, I wont reply again. I'll just laugh like I have been doing this whole time. It never ceases to amaze me what people will believe
  12. I'm not trying to disrespect him, my hats off to him for being coach of the year, thats an accomplishment to be proud of. It does not however make him an expert in physics. Sorry that I'm trying to explain how forces and torque work to a snowboard coach, I guess I should be flamed for trying to do that. Anyway, as I said, I'm done trying to teach those that dont want to be taught, and I'm not going to try anymore. apparently being coach of the year means you are always right and dont have to even try to listen to what others say gasp! someone with an opinion on a forum!
  13. what he says supports exactly what I'm saying "The initiating of movement from a flat base feels just as hard to start as without them" this means there is no more leverage... and what he follows with, supports what I said about raising your center of gravity. So... thanks for telling me to read something that supports what I said. I've ridden the same board with and without risers and there is no difference in leverage. So I believe that in fact, you have it backwards. I get it and you dont. As for what you said about my posting, its something I already know: I spend waaay too much time trying to educate people that dont want to be educated, and dont listen to reason. Sorry about that, I wont try to teach you anymore. I wish you the best!
  14. leverage for what? you have not mentioned what you are trying to lever. also, after considering your analogy to highbacks, I think it is false anyway. with highbacks, the force of you trying to pivot on your heels is what is transferred to them. that puts the fulcrum at heel level, not edge level, meaning the riser does not help at all. On the other hand, a longer highback would help, but then its easier to get caught on a lift while hopping on, which brings up a new problem. As I said earlier, risers will raise your center of gravity, making it easier to fall over and therefore get low, but there is no "leverage: increas
  15. I guess i dont know what you are trying to say then. I assumed people were talking about using a larger lever to increase the power transferred to their edges. Along those lines I am saying that risers will not help you. you are just saying "leverage" without specifying what you are levering. care to tell me what it is these risers are helping you to "lever"? if you are just talking about ease of getting on edge, then yes, risers help you, but only because they raise your center of gravity higher off the ground.
  16. yes, there is more than one lever, in fact there are many forces being exerted on many different locations. My diagram is illustrating one particular aspect of the forces exerted. With your example, you are correct in saying that the further from the fulcrum you are, the more leverage you have, but you are forgetting one thing. As you yourself said, the edge is the fulcrum. this is exactly why risers offer no more power to your edge. a longer lever does not effect the fulcrum at all. it effects the load your are exerting force against. Anyway, if you want to continue convincing yourself that risers increase the power to your edges, that's fine with me, but they really dont add any more power. they are used for the other benefits they present. Im not going to continue trying to argue with people that dont listen to reason, so in summary: if they did increase power, you would see people riding on 6 inch plus risers. they obviously do not, and if you are unconvinced, try making your own 6 inch risers and see how much power you can add.
  17. I guess I should have specified. my diagram is taking into account only the forces exerted onto the board with initial foot angulation, and is not modeling a lever. If you are speaking of a lever, then the fulcrum of the lever is on the edge of the board where it is touching the snow, and you have your forces of gravity trying to pull one way on the lever while momentum keeps you from falling. My model is just a sum of the initial forces as you initiate a turn. The sum of the forces causes the axis of rotation to be in a location different than the edge of the board. Since your board cannot freely pivot, and is limited by the plane of the snow, it will instead go onto edge. sorry I didnt specify that, though I am sure I will get flamed either way. I do maintain though, that risers do not give you increased leverage.
  18. you are thinking in the wrong plane. with a snowboard, our lever is in the horizontal plane(when starting a carve), just call it the x plane. risers increase the distance in the vertical or y plane. since our force is along the y axis, increasing the length of the y axis changes nothing. (torque is equal to the force times the perpendicular (tangential) distance from our center of rotation. if you increase y, you are only increasing the parallel distance(radial). maybe this drawing of a board as seen from beind or from in front will help. Its rough and drawn in paint, but it gets the point across. the riser height is exaggerated for effect but even with a small riser height, the distance L2 will always be greater than L1 edit: just noticed a mistake in the drawing. the sum of M is not equal to M1 + M2. I was originally going to make the pulling force F1 and the pushing F2 but decided to set them equal for simplicity's sake. Then i made F2 the force for the second example, and forgot to correct the equation. again, Ignore the lines that say sum M = M1 + M2. edit 2: also please note that I am not advising against the use of risers. I am merely trying to show that I am correct in saying that risers result in a smaller downward force transferred to the snow. As real life risers are nowhere near as tall as the one in my drawing, they have a much smaller effect on the downward force applied to the metal edges of the board, and the damping effects, in addition to the reduced bootout effects, usually outweigh the very small disadvantage they have
  19. are you really trying to say that a riser makes your lever longer? because the "lever" you speak of is the width of your board, NOT the height of it.
  20. i agree, and it isnt myself edit: The more I think about it, the more I know I am correct. if anything, more height means less pressure on the edges. because we want our edges to dig into the snow/ice, we want as much downward force as possible. by adding elevation(think back to the example earlier, about an insanely tall riser), we take away from the downward pressure and add in more of a horizontal pressure. this is the opposite of what we want
  21. extra leverage? how do risers give you that? being higher up will actually give you no more leverage from my understanding of physics... imagine you are on some crazy high risers(like a foot or more). you will get no more leverage from them than you would from being as close to the board as possible. If you are thinking about exerting a lateral torque to the top of the riser, that could result in more pressure on the edges, but only if you have a fixed pivot position a certain distance from the edge, to provide more pressure on the edge (which, if there is anything that's close to a fixed pivot point, it would be the edge itself, making the above meaningless). Even so, thats not how we pressure the edges anyway. We use angulation (a combination of exerting an upward force on one side of the board, e.g. with our toes, and exerting a downward force with the other side(heels in the example Im mentioning). This creates a special case of torque about the middle of the board, called a couple, which has nothing to do with the height you are off the ground, but has to do with the size of your feet, stance angles, and board width(distance from the center of rotation)
  22. ouch, I had that back in the day, not very fun to have. mine wasn't serious enough to keep me from snowboarding though, it was just a b*tch when i hit my knee on something and would become pretty achy when I had to keep my leg in a bent position for a long period of time without being able to stretch it out(like on a long drive in the car or on a plane). advil helped on the snowboarding days
  23. i believe its called a rhetorical question... oops, is yours one of those too?;) edit: though, after rereading, i dont think he actually asked a question...
  24. just curious about the recco thing because I know that my coat has one. from what i understood its basically an rf tag like the ones department stores use to keep people from shoplifting, only bigger
  25. im 21 now, been snowboarding for about 15 years. my first time on hardboots was last year though. glad to hear not everyone around my age is only interested in the park! good luck!
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