Dan

I'm curious about that thinking too, Neuffy. I don't think it applies to me: I can pretty much guarantee that I'm 1,000 times safer on a board than on skis, both for myself and the people around me. (Pause here for mental image of Dan careening through a knot of Ski School students at 30 mph, poles flailing wildly, barely maintaining balance on one ski. As long as you're imagining, assume I've got my face painted like my avatar too - it would be rather appropriate.) Do detachable bindings make things all that much safer?

Yeah baby! That is one of the sexiest snowboards I've ever seen. Black/red color combination works like a charm. I'm years and years away from _needing_ a board like that: my skill level, not my gear, is definitely the limit on my performance now. Still, a luscious slab o' carbon fiber like that one certainly exerts a powerful pull. I have to echo Scorpio's question: assuming you're lucky enough to get waitlisted for one of those bad boys, what do they run?

I put myself down as "maybe, hard to tell" but actually I think the idea of an Tahoe/Reno event is fantastic. The costs associated with SES are a significant disincentive for me: lodging plus car rental adds up. If we were based in Reno, we could stay at a cheap casino hotel, and there seem to be enough ski buses that rental cars wouldn't even be necessary. And hey, nickel slots!

Hey Astrokel, yes, that is indeed Mt. Tabor. Portland's great - you should definitely move to town! Hey Ed, yep, that's a regular Wednesday night session, loosely organized by the Eastside Longboard guys. They do all kinds of group rides: right now they're planning a trip to the downhill at Maryhill this week and a road race for October ("The Portland Pusher"). I'd be stoked to see you on Tabor - would be really nice to have some other carvers up there. Let me know if you plan to head up some week. Hey Oldvolvos, I pretty much agree with your treatment advice: that's what I did for the road rash on my arms, and it made a big difference. After washing out well, I used a lot of 3M Nexcare and Tagaderm pads (waterproof/gas-permeable adhesive bandages) to keep stuff clean and moist - you can even shower with them on. The areas I treated like that had no scabbing, healed much faster (as in 85% healed up already), and had very little scarring. The problem with my leg is that it's just too much surface area to cover with one of the new-school dressings - that and the leg hair would make that painful anyway. I can't deal with leaving it open/applying neosporin because I need to be able to wear long pants at work, so all in all letting it scab over was just the path of least resistance. The abrasion on my leg was really shallow, so I'm hoping for minimal or no scarring, but we'll see. I kind of hope it doesn't scar, but I can live with it if it does: it's not like having a big old pirate scar on my face. On my leg, most people won't even notice.

The T-board looks nuts! I tried one in REI once and promptly fell on my a$$. The kind of sad thing is that I have a Dirt Surfer, and I've hardly ridden it at all. The Dirt Surfer is fun and pretty easy to pick up, but drifting corners on longboards looks so cool...it's actually a little sexier than the Dirt Surfer for me right now. Agreed that 2 wheels are probably more stable at speed than 4, though there are exceptions (have you seen any of those crash clips showing racing motorcycles developing speed wobbles? Yikes.) As far as skating in shorts and t-shirt...well...I've made enough bad decisions that I'm not in much of a position to talk. However, I can't imagine riding without a helmet. One of the kids I ride with (literally; he's a high-school sophomore), is a really strong, talented downhiller, but had a brush with Murphy's Law about a month ago and wound up with a concussion - through his helmet. Scary stuff. When it's hot, it's hard to put on jeans and a long shirt, but I will say that on the occasions when I've been smart enough to wear pads, they've definitely saved me some pain, and maybe a broken wrist or two. Lonerider, thanks for the advice on the Bearpaws - I'll check them out. Hope to be riding corners like <a href="http://eastsidelongboards.com/movies/2005/Sept./Tabor%20Rollers%20.AVI">this</a> before the rain starts. :-)

Hey Bryan, I wish I had, but I didn't think about it until you suggested it. Too bad... I took a photo of my left leg just now though - check it out. [apologies if anyone is eating.] The road rash on my leg was really shallow, but it covered a patch about the size of my hand. The elbows were deeper and will probably take a little longer to heal up. All in all though I'm afraid it was the MLY. Poor thing, it leaves a nice household where it's loved and taken care of (your place), and comes home with me, where it gets the snot beat out of it on a semi-regular basis. The base still looks nice, but there's definitely some new scrapes/dents around the nose...oh yeah, and some tire marks. (from a parked car - fortunately I wasn't on the board when it happened.) Everyone, thanks for the advice. It wasn't really that gnarly a wreck: I was probably doing around 30, kneeling on the board, when I got the wobbles and went down. I don't actually have Randalls now, just Indys and I'm not sure what model they are. I do have risers, but again, I'm not sure about the duro. Basically it was me being sloppy - I'm a new longboarder and I didn't realize that my trucks had worked themselves so loose. Compounded by the fact that it was the _only_ time I've ever ridden that hill (Mt. Tabor) without pads...yes, I'm a moron. Ridden there a bunch and never wrecked, so when I was walking up one day and saw the Eastside Longboard crew coming down, I figured I'd just jump in and throw on my pads at the bottom. Murphy's Law in action. All things considered, I got off easy: road rash but I didn't hurt my shoulders or wrists, so can't complain. I haven't gotten the kevlar yet, but I think I will. I haven't learned to slide yet, but I can foot drag pretty comfortably. Sliding is tricky 'cause I'd like to use my wrist guards when I'm learning, but they're not compatible with sliding gloves. As far as NCDSA.com, agree there's a lot of good info/knowledgeable folks there, but the signal:noise ratio seems to be a lot lower than here...maybe it's just 'cause I haven't spent as much time there. Anyways, thanks everyone for the advice. I hope we have an early, long winter so I can take a break from falling on asphalt for a while and spend some time falling on snow instead.

Can you find a way to fit in a section on BOL? :-) This is the only worthwhile online community I've ever been involved in.

I have a number of questions about speed wobbles...a topic of great personal interest since about 10 days ago. Could any of you skate savants clue me in? 1) Tightening trucks reduce speed wobbles, but which truck has a larger impact, front or back? Or are they equally important? 2) Is it possible to "ride through" speed wobbles? I.e., is there a certain speed where a given board/rider combo will be wobble-prone, but above that speed it will smooth out again? Or will it just get more and more unstable until the rider bails? 3) What should you do when you start to wobble? Specifically, which if any of these is effective? -3a) Weighting the front foot and/or moving the front foot over the front truck. What about moving the front foot in front of the truck? -3b) Relaxing your ankles and just focusing on riding smooth in general. -3c) Change the frequency at which the board resonates by putting a hand or a knee on the deck. (Or, if your hands and knee are already on the deck, taking one or more off the deck.) -3d) what else? Is there something else that works? Yeah, that's everything, I think. And the scrapes are healing nicely, should be good as new in another week or so. :-)

Hey Erik, fancy meeting you here :-) Lonerider, Erik is my cousin; I can assure you that your snowboard would have a good home with him.

Hey, I'm going to jump on that <a href="http://www.summitskishop.com/ptcsummerrefinish.php?page=PTC">summer tune deal</a> at PTC that people have been talking about. Does anyone want to ship boards w/ me and split the cost of shipping? If you're interested, let me know soon - if I don't hear from anyone, I'll probably ship my deck during lunch tomorrow. Oh yeah; any reason not to use the USPS for this? Thanks!

I'm only 3/4 of an inch taller than you, and I'm really happy with a 172 GS deck. (I do weigh 20 pounds more than you though.) I'm riding an Oxygen Proton from I think the 02/03 model year (black with red/white graphics). It's pretty soft (not a criticism by any means - I love this board) and I think a Proton might be a decent match for your weight, either at 172 cm or the next size down. I've never ridden other GS-specific decks, so I'm comparing to freecarve and freeride decks, but I find the Proton pretty accommodating: very damp, nice and soft, and highly tolerant of operator error (I've been riding it a couple of seasons, so it must be used to it by now :-). Whatever you end up with, enjoy!

Portland, OR. Born and raised here and I've been away for long enough to appreciate its good qualities: affordable housing, great people, great restaurant scene, world-class local beers, proximity to outdoor sports (See C5 Golfer's post - I think we have most of that and I would argue that Mt. Hood is better than any of Seattle's local ski areas), and just general laid-back-ness. When I was growing up, it was widely accepted that there wasn't a single restaurant in Portland at which you couldn't dine in jeans. This may have changed over the last 2 decades, but it's still a remarkably relaxed/informal town. A few weeks ago, I walked outside my house with my longboard to go to the store and two guys were biking down the street. I said "hey, can I get a tow?" and they responded "sure, grab on." Can't imagine such friendliness towards strangers on the East Coast, or even in most West Coast cities. Having said all that, if I could only get a work visa, I'd move to Vancouver BC in a heartbeat. :-)

Hey Aisling, I'm 30, but it's an old 30...(it's not the years, it's the mileage). Ken, I agree with you on the Watership Down movie: a high water mark in animation not equaled until Miyazaki came along (and Pixar of course!). I remember seeing it when I was a kid and getting the p*** scared out of me at that scene where one of the rabbits gets caught in a trap and starts hallucinating. I just reserved it at the library - it will be interesting to see how it stands up 20 years later.

Whoah, scary stuff. I'm riding standard bails not so much because I'd considered the risks of untimely release (insert joke here), but for cost reasons. Still, is any amount of convenience worth the risk of spontaneous binding release? I'm willing to take the extra 30 seconds or so per run to snap into my standard bails.

...I have t-shirts older than current high school students.

OK folks, here's a seriously off-topic poll for y'all. I was stunned last night to discover that my two 23-year old roommates have never heard of Watership Down. Am I old and out of touch, or were their parents criminally neglectful?

Hey Randy, I'm sorry about your hip - that sucks. Glad to hear that at least you don't need surgery though. Hope that you're back on your feet soon. By the way, how'd the bike come out?

I spent some time on google.co.jp last night, and I couldn't find any Japanese stores currently stocking the burner, which was not the case the last time I looked into this. Hasco, the company that owned the Japanese rights to Sims/Japanese distributor, no longer has a Sims section on their Web site. Don't know if it's just out of season or if the Burner is no longer sold in Japan either. Last time I saw them new in Japan though, they were very expensive: I think well over $800. Once you get to that rarified territory, you're looking at boards by Tinkler, Madd, or custom Priors/Doneks/Coilers...so...never having ridden one myself, I have to ask: are Burners really in that performance league? On a side note, there were lots of false positives in the searching because Salomon apparently has a board called the Burner now. Isn't that infringement?

If 110 Bomber members pony up $40,000 each, we could come up with the price of membership + three deluxe mobile homes to park on our home lot. (talk about "there goes the neighborhood") Say the season there is about 16-20 weeks long and three members (+friends) can visit at a time...everyone can use the place for a week every two or three years. Split 110 ways, dues are about $145/year. So...who's in? I can't wait to ride with Warren Miller!

1) People from the East Coast flood Mt. Hood, driving up ticket prices and crowding the slopes so much I can't stand to ride more than three hours at a stretch. 2) Work is busy so I only have four or five hours of daylight to longboard or cycle at the end of the day. 3) Girlfriend has no interest in snowboarding so instead of watching videos, I'm forced to join her on hikes in the <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd1661/columbia-river-gorge-49.4.jpg">Columbia River Gorge</a> and Forest Park. 4) Haven't set foot in a gym for way too long, so no comment here. 5) Interesting longboarding, dirtsurfing, and cycling equipment means that the gear buying season now extends year-round. 6) My friends keep trying to drag me off to kiteboard or windsurf, but longboarding, cycling and the girlfriend (see point #3) keep me too busy to join them. Yeah, you're right, summer sucks! :-)

I've tried to stay out of this one, but Michelle has a point. Plenty of men have posted about their women woes, and no one told them they should consider dating men.

The longboard club I ride with (you know, the one that's been serving me all those heaping portions of asphalt) got written up in the Oregonian, our local newspaper. It's a pretty good article; locals will be particularly amused by the section explaining how one of our more hoity-toity suburbs sees longboarders as a menace. Link to the article here: http://www.oregonlive.com/metro/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1123494998191810.xml&coll=7&thispage=1 The paper also ran this kick-ass <a href="http://eastsidelongboards.com/images/ShotWeek/Oregonian-shot.jpg">photo</a> across the front of the Metro section, 4 columns wide and in color. So, all you longboarders out there who know what you're doing, anyone want to offer a critique on the form of these two riders?

If so, got any pics? How'd it turn out? Is this an application that favors a soft hard binding, or can you get away with a Bomber or Catek? Not actually thinking about doing this myself, just curious. I noticed that I tend to stand with my feet at pretty steep angles on my longboard, but of course there's limited control like that 'cause you can't pressure the "edges". Being clamped on would help...that and a narrower deck, I guess.

The companies won't send you stickers if you send in an SASE? Free advertising + goodwill for them, after all...

The video section on NCDSA.com is a gold mine! Tons of videos there; perfect to offset the summer blahs. They link to a site with some really impressive amateur skate films: check out <a href="http://www.whoisadamcolton.com/">www.whoisadamcolton.com</a> It's a Flash site, so I can't link directly, but hit "media" then "videos" and check out the "Longboarding Adams' Style" video. Wow...