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I've experimented. With US 13 feet, using UPZ 312 mm shells (28) I find that over about 20 cm waist is really hard on my knees. I can measure the effect: If I can ride the next day or not! That's with ibuprofen, before and after. Around 20 cm / 60 degrees seems to minimize tweakage of my knees. 50 degrees/ 23 cm wide is really punishing. Even 21.5 cm is rough. Softboots... haven't used them in years, but it's worse. I used M30 soft boots and 26.5 waist boards at around 40 degrees (to avoid boot-out, so I agree with the OP... why are soft-boot boards so narrow given the prescribed stances?) Tiring isn't the issue. SL boards are more tiring because they encourage more turns per foot. Wider boards (for me) bring more pounding per foot. Totally different. One makes a good day, the other a rough day, ice, and an enforced rest day afterwards. People differ!

I have almost the same board. Don't detune anything until everything else has been ruled out. Suggestion: mark the Cateks with your angles and stance, and put them on the Coiler exactly as you had them on the Volkl, centered on the inserts, same width. If that works, then mess with the TD3s to copy the setup (toe-heel bias, lift, cant) as closely as possible. I'm assuming you're using the same boots... Those angles seem a little high for a 21 cm waist... what boot size? What boots? The most common cause of what you're describing seems to be boots shifted rearward too much. This is especially easy to do with UPZ. But there are lots of other possibilities. A weird cant setup can cause you to twist the board unintentionally. Putting the right liner in the left boot and left liner in right boot can cause all kinds of weirdness. Don't even ask how I know.

The span of a boot toe to heel is about the same measured from one corner of the heel to the opposite corner of the toe. That diagonal line is at around 15 degrees, depending on the boot size and shape. So rotating +/- 15 degrees from perpendicular won't make a change in boot overhang, other than for what part of the board's sidecut you're over. (So duck has an advantage here.) I rode 26.5 cm waist boards with M30 soft boots and had to ride with my back foot at about 40 degrees to avoid serious boot out. Yes, I don't get it either. On my 23 cm waist board, with M28 hard boots, I'm at about 48 degrees. Some toe bail overhang. I'd think you'd see racers on wider boards, then, since they're usually custom spec'd. And if the Asian market is being catered to, why are boots so big? UPZ's smallest shell fits everything from 25 down. That covers over 70% of the population, I'm sure. I hear ya. I'm not sure if it's the angles or the board's leverage, but on boards wider than 20 cm my knees get seriously punished. I find around 60 degrees works really well, and that dictates a 19 - 20 cm waist. I don't have much experience with boards narrower than 19 cm, but I feel like I get thrown around more rather than less with those.

I was just out with a new hardbooter. A few runs on his new rig (Burton Ultra Prime and race plates) and the toe lever snapped. That's fixable, but annoying. But the interesting thing is after that I put him on my board and it was just like, you know, insta-shred. Night and day difference. He said so too at the end of the first run. The heel and toe lift, slight outward cant setup worked wonders. That's hard to do with Burton without a varicant or custom shims. So I think it's a good idea to have access to bindings you can tweak easily, like TD2/3 or Catek. As a bonus, less breakage. +1 on lonbordin's FIT IS KING! I wear 13 street shoes also and use 28 boots very comfortably. But it's a process to get to a fit-for-a-king fit. I probably went through 6 pairs of boots.

Post in the Want To Buy section and you'll get responses for sure. EDIT: Sorry, I see you did.

For Burton boards, you need to make sure bindings have three-hole-pattern mounting holes. As to boot fit, in principle, the standard bail bindings are universal. Bail shapes and boot shapes vary, though, and you don't always have a perfect match. Bomber bindings let you tweak the bail height, which helps. There are several step-in systems, but Intec is the most popular. You need boots that accept Intec heels in place of stock for that. Some older boots don't. Things to look for in hard boots: the shell should be a fairly close fit to your foot. The different manufacturers' boots have different shapes, so trying them all out is ideal. There's a lot of information here about fit, and on Beckmann's site, beckmannag.com

Slopestar, I bought the red pants. I'm more like 34 - 36 (sizing chart range for large) so if they don't fit, I'll happily sell them to you if you're still interested.

Besides the binding, the boot and footbed determine the overall angle your foot is held at. This varies by make, size, and by footbed construction. Beckmann has a good description of a sequence to minimize aimless wandering, though some aimless wandering is sometimes eye-opening. http://beckmannag.com, under "alpine skiing", the boot fitting, boot selection, alignment sections; under "haredboot snowboarding", the binding setup section. I believe TD3 step-in toe blocks are higher than standard, just to accomodate the Intec heel, although I don't have one to measure. "A few mm" equates to about a degree of lift over about 180 - 190 mm span toe block to heel block. I edited my previous post to give accurate numbers.

Pretty nice Friday except my favorite runs were closed -- Pocono Raceway (almost covered) and Rhododendron Glen (can't tell, but snow wasn't being made on it when I was there, though it needs it). Should be great until mid-next week, when it's supposed to not get below about 30 degrees for several days in a row. I'm ready for winter... any time now...

Also, are you including the heel lift you get from the intec heel pins? They hold the heel about 10 mm above the baseplate (depending on how much wear there is on the heel). EDIT: The 10 mm figure was bottom of Intec pin to bottom of heel, it's 15 mm or so from bottom of heel to baseplate on a TD3 receiver (25 mm from bottom of Intec hole to baseplate). My _standard_ TD3 toe block is more like 12 mm. I no longer have step-in TD3s other than a few spare parts, but I suspect the step-in toe block is probably about 15 mm high? That would make the boot sole about level.

PM sent (red pants)

alpinecarving.com might be worth a look for the board and bindings (are they Burton Carriers?). Maybe it's the camera lens, but it looks like an asymmetrical board? By "bindings on backwards" do you mean it's a goofy asym set up regular? Hot made nice boards. Asym would be 90s. Looks like the Spot came out in 96? http://snowboarding.transworld.net/gear/hot-snowboards-1996-1997/#5x4xw53pAAEvWHww.97

About time to start this! I was there Thursday 12/29. More coverage than I expected, but soft fresh snow + a decent-sized crowd made for instant bumpy mess. We don't seem to be getting much in the way of winter temperatures yet, but my fingers are crossed. I'd be curious if anyone rode yesterday morning, might have been good.

Thanks for the review! What stance are you riding? I wonder if the board isn't bending enough between the bindings due to a wider-than-anticipated stance. Do you know the weight it was built for, or was it stock? How does that compare to your weight?

I have a FP 173, 20 cm waist, black topsheet (I think last year of production). I like this a lot but I have more boards than I can ride. I also have the same year 167 with 19 waist.

I have the same FP in the same condition, in case JShort's is no lnger available. Race plates as well, but no Physics.

A long shot -- anyone have too many of these?

I'm sure you'll get varying answers here. I'd say lift and cant are just one of several adjustments you make in order to make your neutral position and range of motion around that as functional and comfortable as possible. That is, to minimize or ideally eliminate "fighting your setup" and pain. Boots (ramp angle) and footbeds influence that too, so have to be taken into account. With this all taken care of, edge hold comes from the board's torsional stiffness and flex pattern, sharpness, and your position in a turn. One "fight" you can have with your equipment results in twisting the board unintentionally, and that reduces edge hold for sure. Lift/cant changes may fix this, so in that sense increase edge hold.

Ski bags work nicely for alpine boards. When I fly, I use pipe insulation (foam tubes slit lengthwise) on the edges, nose, and tail, strapped on tightly with nylon straps from outdoor/camping stores. It helps in all kinds of ways. Makes the board much easier to carry, protects in all directions because of the thickness. Depending on my level of paranoia, I remove the bindings or at least uppers and carry them on. But I used to get taken aside a lot and questioned about the curious shiny metal parts.

I have a pair of F2 large race standard bail, and it's 240 mm approx between the ends of the toe and heel blocks. If you get a net 9 mm of lift over that span, that's a little over 2 degrees. The "rule of 60" is handy here: a 1 degree angle is about what you get from a rise of 1 mm over a span of 60 mm. Happy to give a full explanation via PM if you want. I can't say for medium or small F2s, as I don't know the span, or whether the same wedges come with them. If they do, you'd get more lift, but still nowhere close to 6 degrees, for example.

Yes, don't let them get cold! Other than that, there's a certain twisting motion with your foot you learn while pulling the outer tongue away from the boot outward (two hand here, one on the tongue, one on the boot shell) to make maximum room for your instep. Don't pause halfway, though. It gets easier after a few seasons. I'm to the point where it's rarely a problem. But it used to be a huge production. Other tips: 1) unlock the forward lean. That facilitates the twisting motion. 2) pull up the rear of the liner about 3/4 of the way in 3) pull the liner tongue up, but not too much. 4) slippery socks! Smartwool liner socks, for example. Change into them just before you put the boots on.

[Shudder] My nightmare is Neil's ice. I rode this once. The slope was well-groomed before the rain, so the surface was like glass. No one riding, so taking huge turns and going mach 2 wasn't a problem. It was really nice. Easy to focus on technique. I felt like a champ! As my technique improves I find conditions verging on ice really fun. Still not there for the real thing, but I'm always optimistic.

Three for Bomber, four for Catek. No swapping out necessary. If you use the long screws with little lift, you're going to gouge your board. Also, 9 mm over 240 mm span gives a little over 2 degrees lift... this is why you see huge heel wedges (custom-cut) on many racers' setups.

I'll take these! PM sent

SL race boards usually top out at 162-164 cm. I have a 171 Donek metal FC if you're interested. It's a bit too soft for me at ~220 lbs.