TheTruth

Philfell is right on. If you look at the U.S. Ski Team off season training, yes they will do biking, treadmill, etc. However, they spend a lot of time on strength training also. Exercises such as Back Squats, Deadlifts, and especially the Olympic Lifts (Snatch and Clean & Jerk). The Snatch and C&J develop whole body explosive power like nothing else. Ted Ligety has been training the Olympic Lifts hard for the past few years, and it has really paid off. They also do a lot of balance training and plyometrics for variety.

:eek::eek::eek: This guy only weighs 185 lbs., and can generate enough power to throw 400 lbs. over his head in less than 1 second. Talk about functional strength and conditioning!

Yea, good old Berkshire East. We used to call it Berkshire ICE, until the owners invested some big bucks into new snowmaking a few years ago. That little place has more character than Loon and Sunapee put together. Probably my favorite small mountain in New England. Incredible junior race program for their size--they have produced a number of top notch racers over the years.

Hey no problem. Actually, they have vastly improved the grooming too. If the NYC and Connecticut big spenders at Sunapee help subsidize Cannon, even better. But that's OK if you guys like hanging with the crowds at Loon and Sunapee. More carving with less people on the slopes for me at Cannon, plus my buddies at the Franconia Ski Club let me run gates with them.

Cannon over Loon any day. Just a few minutes up the highway from Loon, but you get much better terrain for advanced skiers/riders, way less crowded, and way less expensive. Cannon has it's own kids development area, complete with it's own lifts near the base lodge. Kids program is rated one of the best in the country, and is far better than Loon's (I've experienced both). The views from the top of Cannon are better than any other place in NH, with the exception of Wildcat. The State has dumped a lot of money into the snowmaking at Cannon in the last few years, so the conditions are as good as any of the other areas in NH. Best of all, most of the "skiers" and "riders" from MA get off the highway at Loon, so Cannon is mostly Ma$$hole free:biggthump P.S. Cannon was where Bode Miller learned to ski and race, and if it is good enough for Bode...

100% right. That's why I have a major problem with the anti-gun hysterics in Massachusetts. The prevailing mindset, especially in the uber liberal eastern third of the state is all guns are evil. I know of politicians around Boston who have proposed that parents should be brought up on child neglect/abuse charges for even allowing their children to touch a gun, even if it is for a supervised target practice session or legal hunting. The problem is, that a growing segment of the population has learned no respect for the damage a gun can do if not handled properly. It is not a toy used to threaten someone. In contrast, other eastern states such as NH,VT, PA, and WV that have strong gun ownership rights and maintain a strong gun club and hunting culture, children are taught a very early age to handle and respect guns. Gun ownership is a right, but that right includes responsibilities.

Not all the states in the east are as draconian and unenlightened about the 2nd Amendment as Massachusetts. Up in New Hampshire, open carry is legal and it is a simple procedure to get a handgun. I believe its a similar story in Vermont. I not sure about Maine's gun laws. Pennsylvania is a full open carry state and a "shall issue" concealed carry state. That means anyone of legal age can carry a loaded handgun on their person out in the open, and the state must issue an concealed weapons permit unless you are a convicted felon or have a history of mental illness. Pennsylvanians not only have no duty to retreat, but if you break into their homes, they have no duty to even ask why you are there or to find out if you are armed before they shoot you. Considering there is something like 2 million heavily armed deer hunters in PA, I would not recommend breaking and entering in that state either.

It is a state thing, and Massachusetts is the worst of the worst. In Massachusetts, there is an document known as a CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information). One is generated everytime you have an official interaction with any police department in the state. Get falsely accused of something, you get a CORI for life. Get arrested, but all charges are later dropped, you get a CORI for life. Get a speeding ticket, you get a CORI for life. If you witnessed a crime, but had nothing to do with it, and are officially questioned by the police, you get a CORI for life. It goes on and on. Employers can tap into the CORI system to do background checks on their employees. Volunteer organizations and schools can do the same. I had to have a clean CORI check just to be able to go to my daughters school and read a book to her kindergarden class! Every interaction with the police shows up in code, and most people do not know how to read it. Yes, it is used against people all the time. Many organizations do not want to take the time to figure out the codes, so if anything shows up on a CORI check, they just dismiss you. I have another friend (who is a 45 year old successful professional) who was not allowed to coach his sons baseball team. The league requires CORI checks on all coaches, and something came up on his. 25 years earlier he was busted at college by the campus police for underage drinking. He was celebrating his 21st birthday, the night before he actually turned 21. The policed arrested him at 11PM, 1 hour before his birthday!!! Of course, the local judge threw this out, but the absurd arrest record was his for life, only to prevent him from coaching his son 25 years later!

I know Jack, this incident would be funny except for the implications behind it. My friend now has an arrest record for the rest of his life for defending himself on his on property from a weapon bearing trespasser. In Massachusetts, if you apply for a job, and if the company does a background check, his arrest for "assault and battery w/ dangerous weapon (his shoes) will will come up. In fact, he told me that in his last two job interviews, he was asked about it. He didn't get either job. Was it because he wasn't the most qualified or was it because the company was worried about his arrest record? To add insult to injury, he just told me that his town in refusing to renew his permit to have a hand gun because of his arrest. In Massachusetts, if you want to own a handgun, even if it for just target practice or home defense, you need to go to your local police chief and ask his/her permission to own it. The police chief has the final say on gun ownership, he/she can deny it for any reason, and it is very expensive to appeal the decision. Personally, I think this is a complete violation of the 2nd Amendment, and I hope someday a federal court throws it out. You might be saying "Sue the police for false arrest" After all he was on his own property when it happened. He tried this and it got nowhere. In Massachusetts, the thresh hold for a legal police arrest is extremely low. They can detain you, process you, and charge you with something for just about any reason with no liability on their part. It is up to the DA to determine if the charges can be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" , and if not, they will drop the charges. But, you still have the arrest that never can be removed from your record. The only thing my friend was able to do successfully do (besides getting the charges dropped) was file an complaint with the town concerning the officers conduct on his property. Actually, now he wishes he didn't even do that, because both he and his attorney now think the police chief is retaliating against him by refusing to renew his handgun permit, using the arrest record as an excuse, all because of the complaint against the police department. He told me last week, that by the time he is done fighting the handgun decision, along with fighting the original arrest charges, he will have spent close to $20,000 in legal bills. All for defending himself against an attacker on his own property!!!

Hey Fin, I'm 100% for what you did. You are lucky you live in a place that still allows self-defense of one's life and property. If you lived in states such as Massachusetts, New York, or New Jersey you would be the one going to jail for trying to protect your property. The thief would only get charged with a misdemeanor, and you would get charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon. Even if you got it dropped by the DA, you would still have spent a good $10,000-$15,000 defending yourself from government charges stemming from defending yourself and your property from a criminal. Sounds crazy, but the gun laws/self defense laws in some states have become draconian. I know a person in Massachusetts who was arrested and charged with assault with a dangerous weapon from trying to defend himself from an attacker swinging a pipe at his head. In self defense, he kicked the legs out from under the attacker and pined him down until the police arrived. This incident happened while he was on his own property, and the attacker was a trespasser. The police did arrest the attacker, but also arrested my friend. They stated he should have tried to "walk" away from the incident. LOL, like you can "walk" away from some nut swinging a pipe at your head while you are on your own property! My friends dangerous weapon: he was wearing shoes. Apparently in Massachusetts, shoes are classified as weapons! After hearing his side of the story, the DA refused to prosecute him, but he still has an arrest record for the rest of his life.

Hey, I wouldn't be that hard on Jon Dahl. Direct quote from the CDC on the flu: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined the new virus is an extremely unusual four-way combination of human genes and genes from swine viruses found in North America, Asia and Europe." I'm not saying it's man-made, but I'm really curious how common it is for swine virus from 3 different continents to mix with human genes naturally. Do we have any viral experts on this board who know the statistics behind such combinations?

Remember, it's not about "downsizing", it's about "rightsizing". The goal is to match a shell's internal measurements with your foot. Forget about the foot size stamped on the shell or liner, it's all about the internal size/shape of the shell (which never matches what size the boot companies call the shell anyway).

If any snowsport boot (ski or snowboard) feels that comfortable from the get go, it is almost always way too big. I generally go down 2 shell sizes from my actual mondopoint foot measurement, My weighted foot measures 27.0 cm long, and I use a 25.5 shell for both skiing and snowboarding. This is where it pays to have a really good bootfitter at hand. They can stretch, punch or grind the shell to make it fit. You can always make a smaller shell larger, but you can't make a larger shell smaller. Generally speaking, most "25.5 cm" shells have internal lengths around 26,0-26.5 cm long. When you use a custom made footbed that supports your arch, most people find that their actual foot length decreases by 0.5 cm. So in my case, the shortening of my foot with a custom footbed, along with a few punches and grinds by my bootfitter, allows me to fit quite comfortably (after liners pack out) in a shell that on the surface would seem 2 sizes too small.

I tried it already! However, my Lange RL12s are the 160 full race plug, and calling them mega-stiff is an understatement. Incredible ski race boot, but way too much for snowboarding. I was really worried I was going to snap the Kessler right in half! An experiment I do not recommend to be repeated unless you have a bottomless bank account for new boards! Agree with you on this one. For my tastes, all the hardboots out there have way too much forward lean. I always ride mine at the most upright position--front and back. Just seems like I can initiate a turn better that way.

Right, the idea that the widest part of the sidecut is way up on the ski tip and off the snow has been around for a long time. This isn't new. What is different on my 2009 race stock Dynastars, is the lack of camber when sitting flat, and that the ski rises off the surface a few cm behind where the tip curves up. I'd call it "mini decamber" -- not as pronounced as a new school powder ski, not quite as pronounced as Jack's board--but it is there. Whatever Dynastar has done it works. These skis are the most stable, fast, yet turnable race stock GS skis I have ever been on. All the other WC GS skis have similar designs--less camber and no defined turn radius other than "meeting FIS minimum specs". What is really interesting (and I'm curious how this applies to snowboard hardboots), is that you need a modern ski boot design to really get the performance out of these new race skis. For example, at the start of the season, I had a trusty pair of 2008 Lange RL11 plug boots. The RL11 shell design has been around in one form or another for 15 years. It was the standard that all other ski race boots were judged against. And it does not work with the newest race skis. Lange dumped the RL11 and now has the RL12, a design with a shorter cuff, more upright stance, and the hinge points moved way back. Nordica, Atomic, and Fischer came out with similar designs a few years ago, and have been eating Lange's lunch in racing. The new designs allow you to engage the greater tip sidecut NOW (like steeping on the gas pedal of a dragracer!!!), and then allow you to vary the turn shape along the rest of the ski length. My bootfitter warned me that I would never get full performance out of the new Dynastars with the geometry of the RL11 boot, and boy was he right. So, my question is with all the advancement in alpine board design in the last few years, do we need new thought given to hardboot design? The DeeLuxe, Head, and UPZ design are very old, and by using their designs, are we getting the top performance out of our fancy new board designs?

I've used the Starting Gate in the past and was happy with the tune. I've also used Graham Lonetto at Edgewise tuning in Stowe Vt for race ski tuning, and he did a very good job (don't know if he does alpine boards though). However, for the past 4 years I have been a proud member of "the cult of DeSantis" for both my skis and boards. Mike was World Cup Race Director for Volkl, and tuned skis/snowboards for World Cup champions such as Hilary Lindh, Kate Pace, Katja Seizinger, Picabo Street, Kristina Koznick, Heidi Voelker, and Rosy Fletcher among others. If his work is good enough for a group like that, then it is more than good enough for someone like me.

Race ski design has definitely changed over the past 4-5 years. I just compared my newest race stock GS skis (2009 Dynastar WC GS) to a 8 year old pair of GS skis (Atomic 10.22). The Dynastar is the full blown hand made, matched flex race stock (the good stuff). When placed on a flat surface, there is no camber in the ski--it sits flat in the middle by its own weight. The widest part of the sidecut is well ahead of where the front of the ski contacts the surface, and the contact point is several cm rearward of where the older Atomic makes contact. The turn radius is blended along the length and listed only as "meeting FIS specs" (minimum of 27M) The Atomic 10.22, in spite of being 8 years old, has over 1/2 cm upward camber at the center when sitting on a flat surface, and the forward contact point is right where the tip curves up. The turn radius is clearly listed as 22M. No comparison in the way they ski. In spite on the Dynastar being a much "straighter" ski, it is much easier to turn, vary the turn shape, and release a turn at will. The older Atomic seems "locked" into a single radius turn, and will plow the tip into the snow if you try to tighten up the turn. I mostly ski, but I also have an alpine board that I enjoy riding to mix things up and I have found this thread very interesting.