WinterGold

No

Reading through your comments, I read about a lot of compromises. This is ok and only reasonable. But I don´t want it! Blue B, you have a lot of experience and your post is totally correct, but it also proves my point! You can get away with 20mm of overhang in total (10mm per edge), but it is not perfect! And taking my example, it would mean that coming from 28cm for my setup, the board would have to be at least 26cm wide. Hardly any Burton board is 26cm wide! And from my experience, I DO have bootout problems on a 26cm wide board, if I tilt it up high enough. Not ideal. lonbordin and others, customs are great! But I am more talking about the production boards here, because I don´t understand their thinking! About all mountain boards - SG Cult, PB Bastard, All Mountain Coiler, etc. - those are very nice and versatile boards! But if the slopes are really hardpacked, I want a dedicated raceboard. They are the best performers for me personally! And I don´t mind carrying various boards with me to the mountain! Corey, I agree 100%! ursle, that is a theory I don´t really believe. If narrower boards would be faster in a race course and the regulations say that a snowboard must be over 16cm wide then everybody would be on a 16.1cm wide board, but in fact nobody is in the World Cup!!! And I remember the old times when Burton riders won on their 22cm boards against way narrower competition. softbootsailor - congrats on finding a setup that works for you! I envy you! But would you agree that 45 degrees on the backfoot is very unusual for SB? You cannot even turn the new generation of Burton bindings (and others as well) to such a high angle! philw - you must have really small hardboots! Perfect setup!!! But that is exactly my point! With mondo 27.0 I cannot ride my Kessler at 45 degrees at the backfoot and I want to! And most of my friends and other riders have even bigger feet than me. They have zero chance ... Jack, that is a good point!!! Why is Ryan (US size 8.5!!!) riding a 31.2cm wide board??? drschwartz - most people don´t like risers on a softboot board. On an alpine board it does help! But even with a plate, I cannot use 45 degrees on a 20cm wide board with a mondo 27.0! lordmetroland - I don´t even get why a 28.7cm wide board is called ultrawide! That should be kind of the norm! Because the average shoe size of an American male is US10.5. That is 28.5cm!

Almost since I started sliding down a mountain on a snowboard, I have been wondering about why most of the snowboards are as wide as they are. A short excursion to the softboot world (Yeah, sorry about that ... it is just to make my point clearer ...). So first I measure my feet. I would say that I don´t have big feet - they are 26,4cm long, but rather wide and a high instep. If I add a softboot (with really short sole length design) and some bindings, I have to add at least 1cm or 1,5cm to the whole setup. This leaves us with about 28cm overall. Now I go to Burton (market leader, you could take other brands as well!) and choose a board. All the top boards are somewhere around 25cm wide. So it seems that there will be some trouble. Maybe I take a look at their X versions (the wider ones). Instead of 25,4cm the X version is 25,8cm. How is that gone do anything??? Next I mount the setup to the board. As I want to do some freestyle I use 0 degree on the backfoot. Major bootout!!! So a snowboarding expert tells me that this can´t work. I have to use higher angles. Ok. No problem. I rotate the back binding up to 20 degrees. But the overall length of the setup hardly changes at all! Just measure it! Again - major bootout!!! What is going on??? Now I turn to alpine snowboarding, because this is what we are here for. When riding with Justin Reiter, he constantly talked about the best compromise between power and control (He also talked about most skiers being sheep, but that is another story ...). If I take his idea to the snowboard setup, I come to the golden backfoot angle of 45 degrees. Now, don´t get me wrong. I am not saying that this is the best angle or that everybody should ride it. No way!!! But it is a damn good starting point!!! How many of you can mount their backfoot bindings on their boards at 45 degrees and have no bootout? I can´t. Because most production boards from the big companies at the moment are around 20cm at the waist. Again measuring the length of my complete setup at 45 degrees, there is no way I fit on a 20cm wide board. Major bootout!!! And although this angle is inside the range of recommended angles by most companies, there is no way I can ride it on their boards with my Mondopoint 27.0 boots. What is going on??? I asked this question several guys from the industry over and over again over the past decades, but I never got a really satisfying answer. Of course, there is one. But it is rather lame. In order to serve the world wide market, you have to make a compromise. The Asian riders mostly don´t want or need wide boards. So you choose a board width which the Asians can still accept and the Americans and the Europeans barely fit on. There is a "new" trend among the softboot riders. After focusing way too much on park and pipe for decades, they "discover" carving. They look at Taro Tamai and his crew from Japan for inspiration. The pursuit of the perfect turn. Many companies have already started producing special shapes for this kind of riding. A new company called Korua focuses entirely on making turns in powder and on the groomed slopes as well. But in order to carve on a slope, most companies would have to start reconsidering their board widths ...

We have 4000 views in just 5 days! This is so awesome!!! Alpine snowboarding is going strong! Thank you all for the amazing feedback.

Jack, I appreciate your comment and there is something to it as well. No question. But, as you know, it is very difficult to judge the conditions from a video. Of course, we tried to film on the nice parts of the slopes, but conditions were not really easy. It was pretty hardpacked and quite icy on parts of the slopes. Because we do not have equipment which zooms well, it does not look as dynamic as the pro videos of the Asians for example. Going faster would either mean not closing the turns as much (where you lose some of the G force feeling) or use longer boards (which you prefer, right?). But for that it was too crowded (I know, it cannot be seen in the video ;-) ... but it was the Christmas holidays). Northwaves - the 951 will be available this fall (hopefully). It won´t be 500$, but it will be much more affordable than those 950s lately.

danger, forget it! It seems that Jack never has enough money ... he couldn't even keep the Kessler from his famous new school raceboard review from some years ago!

Jack, great point! And something to think about. Last year Hilde Katerine Engeli (a world champion) told me about this. Some pros seem to work on this in the gates as well.

Christian - they are so versatile, I love my 163! corey_dyck - thank you so much!!! Jack, what's up??? You want some Northwaves? I know you do ... ... Should be available again this fall! About the critique ... not sure what you are up to ... be nice, ok? just joking ... Give it to me! Bobby Buggs - I really apprieciate it!

H2O - I am 6'0 (183cm) tall. big canuck - bigwavedave - You like my pow videos? I am confused ... nobody watches those (according to Vimeo) ... ... thank you so much!!! piusthedrcarve - good to hear from you! Still riding your FullCarve??? Emdee406 - hey Martin, what's up??? Do you have a lot of alpine days? Or rather destroy the BX course? Your Kesslers still holding up? Eric - I remember you leaving a detailed comment some time ago on youtube! Thank you, sir!

John E - thanks a lot! H2O - you have sharp eyes!!! I ride completely flat and 19,5" (49,5cm) stance. queequeg - it´s been quite some time, right? ;-) Thank you!

Hello alpine riders! It´s been a while since my last video ... 3 years! ... damn! ;-) This time I teamed up with a very good friend - Frank (danger in the forum) from Germany. He is a real alpine snowboarding fanatic and lives for the sport 24/7! So he was a perfect partner for the project! Together we have almost 60 years of snowboarding experience, but we both still have that special shimmer in our eyes whenever we are allowed to hit the slopes. Alpine snowboarding is such an amazing sport and an unbelievable thrill!!! Spread the vibe and keep up the alpine snowboarding spirit! We are still going strong!!! The bomber community is amazing! https://vimeo.com/198577215 Please leave a comment and share the spirit!!!

Ok, patiently waiting for December ;-) Italian guy - I meant your "competitor" if he still is one ...

Puhutes, no new boots for this season, right? What is the plan? Any news? (And what about the Italian guys??? :-) ...)

The point of the 425 (Pro) was to make a stiffer shell for racers. They had a hard time coming up with the right plastic mixture. No new molds ...

Jack, it´s been a while ... You know what is crazy? They gave the molds to a recycling shop for a few bucks ... So many World Cup riders still use them and most of the rest wants them ... I guess, it won´t be long now before somebody reproduces them ...

It is an interesting topic! With a wedge it is not so difficult, but measuring the shell on the inside is not that easy and the plane on which the liner rests, is not really flat. So it is even more difficult to measure. And what about your ordinary shoes for everyday use? They also have a certain slope, don´t they? And the different insoles inside the liner! Tricky stuff!!!

Can you tell me how you measured this? What boots are they?

That is a bit tricky ... Do you know this kind of stuff for your own boots? How do you measure it exactly??? For the Northwaves - the Point series (and also the older models, but differently) has a wedge under the liner inside the shell. Assuming that this wedge is lying flat in the boots (which seems to be the case), we can "just" measure the wedge. This is also not very accurate, because the wedge isn´t formed in straight lines. But on average (like the sketch of Aracan) I would say that the wedge has about 8,5 degrees of slope. I hope that answers your question. If not, please let me know.

I can't follow you. What is the bootboard?

I have been interested in this topic for many years. I find it interesting how little information there is available about the Northwave boots. And it is funny how people speculate about why they are so glorified. There was even a rumor of an 850 model, just because of a typing mistake. And guys started looking for those ;-)! Here is a short introduction to the world of Northwave hardboots. Every model is described in there. I hope you guys like it! If you have any questions, don´t hesitate to post them here. And leave some comments! :-) http://tomasio.at/temp/NorthwaveIntroductionV1.0.pdf Ride hard, WinterGold

Hi! Yes, still available. Price as stated above. 600€ for the shoe. 75€ for the spring system.

New price ...

Sold

Is the price too high? Just let me know!