lonerider

Yea, as I mentioned before. I don't need them to supplant tire chains since my car is only FWD. So I'm looking for all-season, not dedicated snow tires. So decent wet/snow capabilities are what I would like... since I'll still be putting on chains when it gets bad. I plan on my next car to be a Subaru... one can dream... I've been periodically scanning Craigslist for spiders and have seen a lot, but they are never the right size for my tires (seems like only Honda uses 185/65R15). I haven't looked recently though... Yea, I have a Pricenton Aurora Headlamp (used to use the Petzel... micro? but this one has a tiltable light) that I keep in my driver side door space. I got it last year after being fed up with holding my flashlight in my mouth while I put on my chains last winter. I used to use a pair of old GMC motorcross leather gloves, but they were so thick that somtimes I'd resort to using my bare hands for the feel. Now I own a pair of sealskin gloves that worked great two weekends ago. They were thin, waterproof, and relatively warm (much better than wet, cold hands). I had on my chains in 5 minutes! I refuse to pay $20 for such a simple task (well you need to practice it a few times to get good at it). Still spike spiders would be nice because you could put them on and take them off in 30 secs... whereas with chains you usually leave them on longer than you need to becuase you don't want to have to put them on again.

I don't subscribe to Consumer Reports, I would love to read their article about the benefits and drawbacks of plus sizing and probably their reviews. Maybe it's worth subscribing just for that... anythoughts? So would you recommend the Charger HR or Ultra HP4's over the others (Firestone Affinity LH300, Bridgestone Turanza LS-T, Goodyear Regatta 2). I live in Northern California, so most of the year is dry road, then in the winter there is heavy rain and snow. I'm not a performance freak, so decent handling for dry road, low noise, and good handling in rain and snow are my main needs. Thanks again to everyone for all the advice.

I'm 100% sure it's 185/65R15. It is definitely a weird size and has annoyed me because I've been trying to buy used spike spiders, but they are never the right size. Does anyone know if I can go up to a 195/55R15 with the same wheel rim? I saw Kumho tires, but don't know much about them... what models do your suggest and do you have any comparison to the models I mentioned before Firestone Affinity LH300 Bridgestone Turanza LS-T Goodyear Regatta 2

Hi, I'm planning on replacing the tires on my Honda Civic and was wondering if anyone had suggestions of what/where to buy? Looking for a mid-priced Passenger All-Season models that are decent in wet/snow conditions (don't need to supplant chains) without being too noisy on dry roads. Also don't need super high performance or extended mileage tires (although not against them). I was thinking about getting 2-tires and putting them on the front wheels. Does anyone recommend getting all four tires so I get better braking/handling? So I checked out www.tirerack.com and the ones that looked good were the Firestone Affinity LH300 Bridgestone Turanza LS-T Goodyear Regatta 2 (Aquatead apparently doesn't come in 185/65R15). Reading up, the Goodyear Regatta sounds like a good tire. I went to a local place that recommend the Dunlop A2, Kelly Charger HR, and Ultra HP4s. Any thoughts? I figured if I needed to replace my tires, I might as well get some ones that are better in the water/snow than my crappy OEM Firestone F690. I'm pretty used to putting on my chains though so it's not like it will be the end of me if the roads get covered. Thanks for all the help.

First the above thing is for softboots so you know. Yes, I what I'm doing is a "cross-over" where like I stand up out of the toeside (popping of the tail flex) and then crouch back down again on my front hip (helps initiate the heelside at the front part of the board). The problem is that if I'm carving hard and fast, this shift of weight off the back leg from the end of the previous carve and onto the front leg of the next carve is too slow and imprecise where like "falling on my hip" is a little sloppy as I feel there is excessive movement going on for such a subtle change. I think I need to do more of a "cross-through" as it states in the Bomber Article. Thanks for the advice though!

. I actually spent a good hour in my own living room locked into my board feeling out the stance a few weeks ago (in preparation for the season). I set it to 55-45 after locking in the front foot at 55 and then seeing what was a comfortable stance. I realized that Randy adjusted my angles to 55,50 just before I rode the board and that I didn't try out that stance to see how it felt. I had forgotten to mention to him that I am bow-legged and naturally pretty duck footed (my physical therapist wants me to try and *slowly* straight my standing stance over time... but still let me feet sit naturally for my body type). For instance, just sitting at the computer, my feet are 20-30 degrees apart. No worries, one must always have a bit of humility when starting something new. That being said, I felt like I am a decent carver on softboots, I was riding a Salomon Definition 156 last season and I could take it down the slopes at high speeds in single line trenches that are deep enough to be identified from the chair lift (especially on Sunshine Chair 4 at Kirkwood). I've been able to carve up hill and make a tear drop shaped trench, although it isn't a true carve by the time I'm turning back down hill. I've also such that my friend comment they notice the bump whenever they ride over them. That being said, I mostly imitated a eurocarve, being able to get 6-12 inches above the ground while extending my arms "outward" away from my board to get more of my weight directly over the edge (as opposed to trying to actually reach down and touch the snow). Halfway through last season I watched a video with a alpine boarder (some GS racer) and I noticed he didn't bring his front hand over his board on the toeside like the eurocarvers I've seen do. It looked more balanced and stable and so I've been doing that since. My main problem is that on a fast run I'm a little sloppy transitioning to my heelside edge, like I there is a faint bit of hesistation in the board when I'm at high speeds before the nose-sidish part of the heelside edge initiates the turn. I've increased my forward lean to nearly the highest setting my board has and that help a bit. I have ridden higher angles like 45-30, but kept 18-3 (maybe 21-6) as part of my freestyle beginnings. I think I'm going to try 45-35 on my softboot setup next weekend just to make sure I'm not just rusty on top of everything as you suggested. Ok... so yea I've read there are like a bunch of different styles... on "Swiss" (CERN?) style involved squaring your shoulders downhill and never changing... I briefly tried that but it doesn't feel right. My main method was to point my hips in the same direction as my front foot. Back to the video I saw with the GS racer. I try to make a "pitchfork" pattern with my arms.. arms out to my sides, elbows bent so that my forearms are parallel with the board like liek the shape of capital "E" When I go into a carve my forearms slowly swing in the direction of the turn. My thought is that this twists my shoulders a little bit and from that my hips will twist in the direction I want too. Yea, I think that was like 55-50 as Randy S. setup my binding initial. I too also figure that a little overhand couldn't hurt intially and so wanted to do a little less so it would be more like what I was used to. The time I roughly 45-30 was becase I had too much overhand and toe drag was causing me to pop out of the carve (unusual size I have short feet - size 8). Yea I know! I bought the TD1's at the end of last season because they were on sale. Had I known they were going to come out with the TD2's I would have waited. Maybe I can sell my TD1s (only half a day use) and get the TD2's in January. I actually started on the mellow-ist and emptiest blue I knew, I wanted to try the green, but there was only one green open and it was jam packed with beginners... and I figured I would be better off in a wide open slow blue with no one else in sight than a green with lots of beginners falling over in the heavy powder. I figured the 2 feet of heavy powder (even though it was somewhat packed down by the afternoon) might have made things a little awkward as well.

So I got tried out my alpine setup yesterday afternoon at Kirkwood. I didn't try it in the morning because of the 12-18 inches of snow that fell. However, by the afternoon I found some relatively groomed trails to start out on. I was on a Burton UP 162 with TD1 bindings riding 55,50 1" setback (3 degree plates). Thanks to Randy for setting up my gear. On top of the hill The first thing I encountered was that I had an extremely difficult tight getting into my back binding... first I had a great deal of trouble simply twist my back leg enough to line it up with the binding and THEN push it back into the heel bail so I could lock down the binding. Am I suppose to be getting into my bindings standing up? One problem I had with the bindings was that the heel bail spring just wasn't very springy or I was misaligned and my heel would push it down. I had to try and hold it up with my back hand as I slide my back foot into place (while twisting my body and legs a lot). That combined with the effort I needed to lock down the binding made getting into my board almost more tiring than riding on it. Turning on the board After getting into the board, I could get down the hill more or less, but it still feels like I'm learning how snowboard all over again (I've been riding in softboots for 8 years now). I could swing the board left and right and could even half enter some hard turns both heelside and toeside, but it was very sloppy and I was liable to slip out of the turn and skid or dig my nose into the thick powder and fall over if I psuhed it too hard. I attribute this to not being used to the setup. I don't feel like I can get any leverage at all on my edges and my whole body feel overtwisted... is that due to the high stance angles? Body Position However, the binding stance felt really awkward, it felt like my back leg was completely twisted inside. What direction are my hips suppose to be facing? In softboards my hip are are aligned with my front foot (I think) which makes then point almost perpendicular to the board since my angles are 18,3. I assume I started with that, but I remembered reading that you should have your shoulders and hips pointing down the hill. I tried that as well neither felt quite right. Reading the newbie articles on Bomber and ExtremeCarving implied I should have them in line with the bindings. Stance Angles I played with the angles... 50, 45... still felt twisted, 50, 35 feeling better but couldn't get into the carve, 55, 40... 65-50... and then I realized what Jack Michaud meant about having my angle too far apart and my knees "fighting each other." Still not quite sure what my angles should be, last night I set the front binding to 55 and left the back binding loose and then I clipped in and tried to get in a nice crouched position over the board. That gave me angles of 55-45. I read that you have like a 12 degree separation and the guys as "extremecarving.com" have like a 7 degree separation. Could I ride something like 45-38 to start out? Or should I say in the fifties range? Boot/Binding Canting Does that sound okay? I'm bowlegged and I'm naturally duck footed. As a result I tend to supinate (roll onto the outer edge of my foot) a lot - could the 3 degree disks be causing me problems since they might push my knees "together" more than I would want? It it naturally to feel like you back leg is really twisted whenever you bend your knees? Should I be adjusting the cant of my boots (I have Raichle SB224 boots)? What about the forward lean, I accidentally started out with 3 on the front and 3 on the back (I tried 4 on the back and it felt different, but my angles were all weird at the time). Wrap up Ok... well I am undaunted this challenge, but would love to get as much advice as possible before the next time I go out. Thanks for the help (and thanks again to Randy S. for all the help he has already given me)

I'm the guy with the more minor ACL partial-tear. Huh, interesting... I would not have thought of it that way (about beign continualy sore and tight). I have chronically tight hamstrings and the physical therapists has had me strengthening and streching my hamstring. I have been working out legs pretty much since 3 weeks post-injury. It is now 9.5 weeks since my injury (4.5 weeks of PT) and I'm probably going to go snowboarding for a day this weekend. My PT cleared me to go so long as I take it easy and stop if my knee start bothering me (i.e. use common sense). How much is that brace? My doctor already gave me a DonJoy lycra brace with velcro straps ($130). Here is a link to what it looks like http://www.donjoy.com/products/DonJoy/physdistrep/detail.asp?id=29 Should I go to him again and ask for a prescription for the ISports brace?

Yep it's my rear leg (so I was worried about tweaking it while driving my hips through a carve, does that happen?) Yea, I didn't think the brace would help with twisting motions that much although it looks like it gives my knee some lateral support which might help keep my knee from slipping out side to side (although I've yet to experience much if any "looseness"). Many doctors don't seem to think the brace helps that much. Ok, so no switch landings (backside 180s) for a while. Has anyone else here suffered a partial tear to their rear leg? I'm wondering how long my ACL will take to heal... 6 months? 9 months? A year? Never?

Ah... ok, yea... the popping sound is the ACL rupturing. My MRI showed a "severe grade" tear , although the ACL was partially obscured like yours should they couldn't tell for sure. However they were pretty sure I didn't completely tear it because my knee was not very loose. I didn't feel a pop, just that my knee hurt very slightly. There wasn't any swelling and I could function pretty much normally, or so I thought. I played 4 more hockey games over two weeks and finally went to the doctor to take a look at it because it felt "weak."

Was your ACL completely torn? I sprained/partially tore my ACL 2 months ago playing ice hockey. The first doctor I saw was Arati Dunbar (www.docdunbar.com) and she wanted to do surgery after an initial 30 second examination of my leg, I asked for an MRI and she still recommended it after looking at the MRI. I was pretty much in acceptance of my diagnosis, but I went for a second opinion just because they always tell you to do that. Plus I didn't really search around much before finding the first doctor. The second surgeon I went to was Gary Fanton (team surgeon for the SF Giants and Stanford college teams and consultant to the 49ers http://www.orthoconnect.com/gfanton.html) said he didn't believe that I needed surgery and was rather surprised that the first doctor was so adamant about it. It is probably due to a difference in treatment philosophy (aggressive vs conservative) but I ended up going to Dr.Fanton's suggestion of physical therapy over surgery. I figure surgeons love to perform surgery, and that a if a well respect surgeon (used by professional athletes) doesn't think I need surgery, then I probably don't need surgery. So after 5 weeks of physical therapy I'm going to start my season this week with clearance from my physical therapist. I'm hopeful that I should be able to have a full season (albeit taking it easy the first few months). I too would like to here about other people with similar injuries and what their decisions were. Am I correct in believing that snowboarding isn't particularly stressful on the ACL? I will be wearing a brace regardless.

Flash is like neon signs in your store - used conservatively and with properly, it can add zing to your website. However often too much flash is used - and those "sick" animations take too long to load, make the viewer go through them over and over, and are rarely intuitively to navigate (like how many people know to press on the third orange dot to go to the products section?). Krass.ca has some very obvious basic problems. First, its use only about 12% of the screen space to provide actual information. The rest is either filled with huge page headings like "Freeride Board specification", company logos, or even worse... wasted space. As a result, the information text and photos are tiny (obviously bad). The tiny layout also forced you to add another layer to your website hierachy just to display the board specs for board size (again bad) when you could have just added a single table for each model. Second, navigation is a awkward - for instance once you go into the board specification section for a particular board type... there is no way to go back... you have to hit the BACK button and survive more Flash animation. I could go on, but you get the idea... Flash is like using neon lights on your store... if used conservatively and properly it can be nice, but often it used without any sense of purpose or taste. In my opinion a good website is one that lets you navigate and obtain information quickly and easily... check out some of the following sites and try to find the board specs for 1-2 boards (one freestyle, one freeride) I think you will be able to tell the difference. == Examples == (Good) www.forumsnowboards.com www.neversummer.com www.elansnowboards.com (Decent) www.burton.com (Has issues) www.salomonsports.com - it's actually a little better this year, but just try and fine board specs for Definition. www.lib-tech.com - actually a pretty well designed site, but loses points for taking forever to load (Krass) http://www.krass.ca