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My daughter and I are considering coming to Sugarloaf Sunday Dec 5 (arrive Sat night). We're not at all familiar with New England area so any advice is appreciated: where to stay, how much to expect to pay, where to eat, etc. They quote $69.night per person incl lift tickets...

Welcome to Quaker country! Some of us frequent Blue Mountain, north on 476 past Allentown. It's maybe 90 minutes from Center City. Where are you? There are some nice, fairly long carving runs. 1000' vertical. Hoping it opens soon. If you go, post beforehand!

I have the 168. I wish I could ride it with soft boots, but it's just too narrow for my size 13 soft boots even at 45*. With TD3s and hard boots it really rails, though. The flex seems similar to the soft-boot boards I like (Arbor Crossbow 166, Never Summer Premier 168) but when you ride it you notice right away it's torsionally much stiffer, which is probably what makes it rail turns so effortlessly. The bigger SCR is nice too; it's a lot less twitchy. I got this board used here on BOL and the seller described it as "lacking camber in the front". I can't say I notice this, but really have no reference. So it's possible that if I had a new one I would like it even better.

I have size 30 Raichle 324s in quite good shape. Also size 30 AF700s which are scuffed up but in excellent working condition. Both have standard liners; the AF700s are a bit roomier. Email me through this forum if you're interested.

OK, do you want paypal or a check or MO? You can email me through this forum to give me your paypal address or mailing address for check/MO. I'm a total amateur but hope to get better, so maybe even if it's a bear now I'll "grow into it".

OK, I can't take it any more! That board looks great, except maybe I'm too light for it (190 lbs). But I'll take it and see, unless you think that's stupid.

To me, a skateboard is a plank with trucks and wheels. My favorite use for one of these things is to ride skateparks. I am of the "tricks are for kids" persuasion, and what I do mostly there is carve. That is, all four wheels on the concrete, no skidding. You're allowed to have two wheels out if you're grinding on both trucks. Slides are fun, too. The board I ride is fairly long, and people call it a longboard, but it's my shortboard. I have a longer (skate)board I use for cruising around any slightly sloped, well-paved, traffic-free area. Here again all I'm really out to do is carve and slide. I don't do this in any serious way but that may change as I look for ways to get closer to the feeling of snowboarding. One thing I have never had an interest in is street skating (rails, flipping board, anything on flat ground). It looks cool when others do it, and I'm slightly interested in some of this on a snowboard, but not on a skateboard.

I'm sure you'll get lots of answers, but you can start on anything, really. My two cents: Bigger is often more confidence-inspiring. When I have friends who have never skated but want to try, I bring out a bunch of boards and they usually gravitate to the longest one (after starting on shorter ones that look more friendly). It's 9.5" wide with a 36" wheelbase, with Tracker 184s. Lots of room to experiment with stances, even room for a beverage... Other suggestions: Use soft bushings in the trucks so you can really get the feel for turning deeply, and wheels that aren't really small (say, bigger than 55mm at least, 65-70mm is nice to roll over bad pavement) and have some grip. Khiro and a few other companies make a range of bushings; for wheels, 98a Rainskates are about as hard as I like unless I'm in a skatepark. To start you might like some really soft wheels, like 75a - 80a. The quiet, smooth ride and good grip gives confidence. One less thing to worry about or discourage you. If you want to skate parks, a shorter wheelbase is nice, I think. I like 20"-22" but most park boards are more like 14" (popsicle sticks more meant for street skating) or 16"-17" ("old school") or 18" (big boards specifically for parks). Hope there's something helpful there!

I've always wanted to try one of these. I have the Crossbow and it's really nice; curious how this is different.

The diamond stone sold by Ski Visions for refreshing their aluminum oxide stones works really well for me. It returns the stone to new. I got mine from Tognar for $20. I bet any similar grit diamond stone would work.

gman, you should turn email on. I'll look for you at 12 in the summit if I don't see you before. I have the heels and am on my way (late of course)

Thanks, that helps. I will give these a try next season. There are two annoying things, though: 1) the center disks are slotted so as to work with Burton as well as 4 hole. Except the slots are just a bit too far apart -- like 40.5 mm or so. I'll drill them out but what's the point of slots then? Pretty stupid patent here, or am I missing something? 2) can't rotate highbacks much. I ride narrow boards for my size and need near 45 degree angles on most of them.

Uh-oh, now I'm in trouble. "Carver Extraordinaire"? Not in my dreams even. Maybe I should delete a thread I started. Did anyone ride this morning?

Gman: Yes, definitely tomorrow morning FIRST THING. The caps are to remind me to GET UP. Chubz and Gman -- Intec heels. I promised a set to Chubz. I thought he'd lost interest, but he said here he's still interested. I do have two sets but I'm thinking I'd like to keep the set I'm currently using. They're less jarring to walk on than the Fintecs. On the other hand, I started using the Fintecs because they're less slippery on ice. If I get time I'll throw the FIntecs on and just bring both sets and you and Chubz can have at 'em.

When you do the "slide test" you are mostly supported by your back leg. So it makes sense that people tend to choose the stronger one to go in back: regular is right foot back so probably right leg dominant. Why this carries over to a snowboard or skateboard I don't know. Actually when I first got on a "modern" snowboard I felt I had more control goofy. Maybe because skateboarding reflexes didn't get in the way (or they did, but I was vigilant about not letting them mess me up).

Very interested to know waist width and sidecut radius. I'm looking for something a bit more flexible than my 177 AM flex 8.0 for slushboarding and iceboarding...

The online Webster's says: 3 past cost·ed : to estimate or set the cost of —often used with out . which is not the meaning the CL poster intends (and since this verb is transitive, doesn't make sense or even parse with this meaning).

It wasn't slushy this morning. Some spots icy even, how I can't understand. Zero visibility at the top, lucky no one was there!

It's not raining here ... can't tell from weather.com or blue's site whether it's raining there. Anyone?

What is the waist width of the Oxygen? Any idea what weight range is appropriate? How much camber is left? And would you sell w/o bindings?

Way better than I expected today. Great to finally meet you, NickG! Pretty nice trenches you left. Keeping fingers crossed for tomorrow, hoping the temperature drops a bit and no rain.

Part of what I wanted to say is that yes, you don't really need cant/lift with strap bindings, because there's so much slop and mush (not meant in a derogatory way; I ride soft boots a lot and like them and am only this season riding hard boots) that if the ideal position for your front foot is to rock outward slightly, you will just do that without even thinking, just like in shoes. But with hard boots that's not going to work, and it's going to be really painful fighting your setup. I just did that today, so I know! It's much more critical to get things right with hard boots, and until you ride them you'll likely have wrong ideas. Now having cant/lift might still be a good idea for strap bindings. I have some Ride CADs that allow this that I haven't tried yet. Then there are Catek Freerides -- wish I had some to try! People here shun snow too, but that doesn't stop the carving. Neither does lack of snowfall! You're probably just an hour or two south from here...

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for helping us get the most out of our trip to Jackson Hole. It didn't go as planned... my daughter sprained both thumbs on the first day (Sunday) and we scrambled to find other things to do on short notice. We think we spotted CarperCarver Sunday late morning from, of all places, the Casper lift. Never caught up, though (we got a late start that day, maybe that was your last run?). I got Monday and Tuesday morning in. The runs down to the Casper lift were great Tuesday morning! Except "Wide Open", which was a cruel joke: NOT wide, and covered with moguls! Hah-hah! Thanks for pointing them out; we would have wasted a lot of time just finding our way around without them. (I did a bit of that Monday and it would have been a lot worse!) We left feeling like we didn't get enough, so we're coming back. Really nice area.

AlaskanRover, there have been a lot of used boards with bindings available in the classifieds here. You'd have a lot more food for thought and tinkering if you got yourself one and checked it out closely. You might even like riding it! Riding it will also demonstrate how important cant and lift are, where you want rigidity and where you don't, and a number of things you seem to be very interested in. As for outsiders coming up with the next great idea, I think usually those outsiders have done their homework. In fact, it's pretty common that outsiders have a much higher standard to meet in this respect than insiders do.

been gone... any hope for this morning? Based on gman's report and the fact that it can be better than you'd think at Blue I may try my luck today. Anyone going?