John Gilmour

Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. Just kidding SBS

Dominator... the stuff really works.. As spring approaches pick up some Dominator Rocket for when the snow gets wet and slows you down... rub on some rocket.

hard to tell without seeing you. 1. Lots of heelside bias moves your heel backwards in high stance angles... it's ok to move your binding forward to compensate... (I do) 2. Turning your rear angle will help for heelside - but at some point will really hamper your toeside. Going too flat in angle will make it initiate a bit too fast before you can get low. Too steep and your ankle doesn't work that way. having a strong toeside will help give you more time and balance for a good heelside. FWIW most people I try to help with their heelside turn are way tooooo tall on their board. So let's say you are doing your comfortable toeside.- You nudge the board with your front knee to start the tilt- you drop the hammer with your rear knee- effectively lowering your center of mass right over your toe edge- and you make sure you help that knee with even more front knee a millisecond later...so you aren't steering from the rear. Now look at the height of your center off mass- if you really dropped your rear knee (almost scuffing the snow) ...your center of mass should NO HIGHER than the height of your knee to your bellybutton. Do this on your carpet to check it. Ok so it would follow if you want the same grip...... on your heelside..... It would make sense if your center of mass was at the same height on your heelside.....or lower (which is pretty easy on the heelside once you relax and don't press against the snow-see my avatar photo which is a heel side) But most people have their center of mass WAY above knee height on their heelsides. (can you say....CHATTER OUT?) So ...uh ............fix that. Or come riding with me. I'm in SoCal but about to go to Aspen. Some people run anti-"Gilmour Bias". Ray S. does on his narrow Virus. He rides great and rides about 70 degree angles ..ride what works best for you. I am super bowlegged ( hard boots I run 63-65 front and 48-51 rear- Soft I am 45 front and about 32-36 rear) ) ...everyone is built differently. "Gilmour Bias" was first used by me to ride boards that were too wide for me. Then I found mild amounts of it was really good for carving because it enables me to face downhill more- and ......makes the board feel more stable running flat (wider platform laterally) ....and helps with endless traverses because you no longer have to lift with your toes or stand on your tip toes... (just put weight on the front heel without tipping to go heelside or weight on the rear toe without tipping to go toeside) . Lots of people ride without it, and are perfectly happy. But then again 50% of the people probably voted for the wrong President. Do what works for you...even if it is wrong...and someday you might try something that you thought was wrong but works far better. try Anti Bias...if nothing else... just to prove to yourself that you were definitely on the right or wrong track for you. If I ride without "Gilmour Bias"...It totally stresses my ankles. It makes me a weak rider. It puts my joints at risk for a strain or sprain at higher speeds in clumpy snow. YMMV. "Gilmour Bias" helps on my front foot for heelsides, but "Gilmour Bias" really helps on my toe sides when I let my rear toes hang off a bit...particularly my 3rd and 4th toes. BTW Everyone above my post gives excellent advice.. all are things I mention to people. I would also say try to relax on your heel side...it requires a lot more body compression than toeside. Most people hold their breath heelside becuse of the uncertainty of hitting someone..and become stiff... this is BAD. SOOOOOO... You know those inflatable snowman things you see on lawns with the blowers going during X-mas? The air keeps them rigid. If you unplug the snowman fan..he can fold up and get low. Make sure you exhale when getting low....and keep exhaling...if you run out of air before your turn is over...take a few tiny breaths in and out to stay relaxed..so you can absorb the terrain with your core... soft core is better than hard core. Do not push against the snow (particularly when you are moving across the hill - INSTEAD ...absorbtrack. ..I know this is absolutely completely counter-intuitive----YOU DON'T WANT TO OVERLOAD THE SNOW when you are moving across the hill ) Why because gravity adds to your downward force and lateral forces on steeps... and that makes the snow blow out. RELAX/ABSORB/PILOT/TRACK ---->do not stiffen and do a leg press...you'll just blow out and chatter out at speed. Lastly... since I'm "Mr. Safety".... Something I said to someone ... Let's say you have a board with a 12M sidecut radius. So if you carve a 360 carve which everyone says I can not do... you make a circle with a 75.36M circumference. OK.. FINE. Now you are snowboarding downhill... and you do a toeside turn. You move your head about 10-15 degrees as you arc and you see where you are going... you are not tense.. you have tons of balance (your haed isn't moving much - balance is in your inner ear) ... you have ankle articulation and adjustment. No you do a heelside turn. 1. which is blind. and causes issues. First off... any person will have issues until they make sense of risk. With toeside...the perceived risk is low, you stay relaxed, you can see into the turn, you see all "threats from above" and can turn relaxed knowing you are safe. Heelside comes with a feeling of uncertainty. You set up for heel side- take a quick peek up at the end o... but in the back of your mind you think you might have missed someone. You start your blind turn- looking downhill in front of you. all of a sudden you are moving across the hill and chattering out..or maybe this occurs during the uphill climb... screw that. ------------------------------- Ok.. some logic.. Lets go "SPOCK" on this. Lets say you are going 15-20mph (easy..pretty slow ..verging on LAME) You can easily see 4 seconds in front of you. (i.e. where you would be in 4 sec. if you went straight downhill). If you did a perfect heel side turn of radius 12 meters. How many feet would you travel before you were moving direct across the hill....ie not going the down hill anymore? Well if you are starting your turn at 3 o'clock on the dial and 6 o'clock is perpendicular to the fall line... you went through a 90 degree arc. (A 1/4 turn). so 75.36M divided by 4 equals...... a little more than 18M. ABOUT the length of 2 Chevrolet Suburbans. Do Ya think you could not look downhill if you only have to worry about what is a 2 Chevy Suburbans in length in front of you? OF course you can. On a 12M sidecut board as soon as you initate a turn....... In the length of 2 Suburbans ....you will no longer be going downhill . A 8.8 M Madd 158 might be a Chevey Tahoe. So basically- you can memorize what is a car length or two in front of you and look away. Sooo lets say you have just finished looking uphill toeside. (moving your head 10-15 degrees.) Now you wanna go heelside. If you swirl your head 140 degrees real quickly.....in a turn- while tilted... to look uphill....... it is really disorienting. You have crystals in your inner ear for balance. It takes a bit after flicking your head for the liquid to stop swirling and to regain your balance. (Gymnasts overcome this with cues...we will assume you are not a gymnast) If you look downhill it is worse because you are fighting the direction your board wants to go. BAD. So when do you turn your head???? IDEALLY when you are not tilting your board a lot (requiring maximal balance) ie WAY EARLY in the turn (Like when pointed nearly directly downhill. that is when you whip your head-when you need your balance the least! . That way... your balance has a few milliseconds to recover BEFORE you really need it at high board inclination angles. SO SPOCK logic here.... after you start turning ...in the length of a suburban ...where all all the "threats?" are they downhill?...NO, they are ALL uphill. So in one car length which at 15-20mph goes by in like less than .5 sec....... nothing downhill MATTERS AT ALL.... only uphill threats matter. You couldn't even count to two before you are barely moving downhill and mostly moving across the hill. Which means...you had better start looking uphill and not downhill ....ie twist the crap out of your body and head so you don't kill someones kid. Because... if in .5 sec or less you could hit someone in your blind spot... ...You had better fix that blind spot. If you are low and twisted- and looking uphill in the direction you will be in 2 seconds.... (and someone was on your heel side) You could change your mind (quickly roll onto your downhill edge) and avoid a collision. but if you aren't looking uphill when you start your heelside... you'll never have that margin of safety. (And neither will everyone else on the slope with you) -------> SELFISH. HINT.. If you stand tall... unless you are Linda Blair from the Exorcist you can not twist enough. You must be compressed and low to be physically able to twist enough to see uphill. NOW.... Stand up from your keyboard. Stand in your stance Without twisting your hips...try to see over your front shoulder uphill. YOU CAN'T SEE CRAP. Now try this... get in your stance. THE FOLLOWING IS THE KEY TO THE UNIVERSE FOR THE HEELSIDE TURN: move your rear elbow forward of your front knee(get your rear wrist over to the heelside of your front leg) while flexing your ankles and knees forward up the center line of the board...dropping your navel to the height of where your knees would be while exhaling.... it will be very easy to look uphill from this position without straining your neck....in fact you just drop your head down a bit for a sec to see behind you without having to violently whip your head around (so you don't have to give up much up balance temporarily ). DOING THIS WILL MAKE SURE YOUR ASS CRACK IS OVER THE EDGE..so you will not be sitting on the toilet. If you hit bad snow clumps..your ass crack will still stay over the edge However,..... If you are sitting on the toilet (ass hanging off of the edge) and hit snow clumps you will be thrown further from the edge until you lose your balance and chatter out. Now you have seen behind you...now you are low, now your body AND MOST IMPORTANTLY YOUR HEAD is leading (twisted) in the direction of the turn ...ONLY NOW... CAN YOU TILT THE BOARD. If you did this right on your carpet you would feel the heelside side of your front foot load up with weight...which is obviously....GOOD. BTW try to keep the uphill armpit open to the slope. yes it feels weird... but it works. Don't forget to relax/absorb/exhale/pilot. And involve the rear foot too way before you hit the apex or you will 'spin out" (rotate skid) on your front foot. Do not EVER look downhill while turning aggressively heelside...look uphill...before you turn...and certainly before you leave the fall line. Who said snowboarding was not counter intuitive? Carving is mostly counter intuitive... which is why a website forum about just turning can exist for years and years. This was serous test of your ability to pay attention for more than a few seconds. PPS >When doing that hand thing..BTW make sure your wrist is totally pointed downwards. If you compare the wrist up vs down you will see downwards you hit a biomechanical "Stop" sooner.

FWIW I prefer laces because you can custom tighten areas of your foot to reduce foot roll without cutting off circulation.

Shoot me your contact info...dial DISCO-DRAFT and text me your contact info. What days work for you?

Any day is good for me.... Fewer crowds are better. Best snow prep days are just before major holidays like a few days before Presidents' Day.

Got a nice Escalade ready to go to Mammoth, looking to share gas and lodging with another couple or two singles. Could go any day.

Remember... the key to getting better is to not get hurt. Keep your weight way back on toesides in the pre-load ... if you botch it,,,you can bend your rear knee more if you find you are late in getting your weight just prior to edge engagement. Just a saving bacon move so you don't get pitched.

johngilmour at rocketmail . com shoot me your phone number so I can pay you for these...thanks!

the plastic lever- these are going to be cut up. :)

OK those look pretty good, can I see a close up shot of the release lever? I still need 2 more pairs on top of the one above. If anyone has NOS Switch that is ideal...

Looking for a set of switch bindings for a project. Ideally not scratched up. $45-55 shipped to Newport Beach. depending on type.

Ankle surgery 2 days before Thanksgiving. Bond spur removal 5-6mm. followed by insane joint swelling in several areas. Some secondary issue, could possiby be Gout. as if I was being hit with a hammer every 20 seconds.. worst part is... No Nsaids (bad for kidneys clearing uric acid), no aspirin (makes blood acidic causes Uric acid crystal formation), no Ice (causes uric acid crystals to form). Allergis to Percoset, can't fo vicodin either. Pretty much no solution for pain... just another one of those days. Had to take a wheelchair on the plane. Ankle dorsi-flexion should eventually be perfect....eventually.. :o Foot is too big to fit into anything smaller than an oversized ugg boot. Sore sore sore. Maybe Feb. if everything were to go miraculously well and stars aligned well... doubting it...... Maybe next Nov. :( On the bright side. Hans Jurg Kessler is going to make me a replacement board, good thing I did not get it made for this season. I'll have all summer to mull over a design. Most scary.... if no meds or anything works on this..maybe NEVER. I'll have to go 100% into design/manufacturing....ugggh. I knew I should have gotten more video shots . Or I will have to look into joint replacement. When are those nanobots going to be ready anyhow? Time to finish designing the worlds most accurate car audio system. 2000 watts of sweet McIntosh amps and and an ultra rare imported Nakamichi remote pre-amp, Scan Speak 12M Midrange ... add a little 24bit/192kHz signal upsampling to 384kHz with killer parametric EQ stuffed into a Handbuilt Benz. I'll be sitting around, but loving it. I wonder if I will miss a banner year?

odd I dont see the yellow tag. If I do a mistake quick... I get the box on the left hand lower corner,,,and I have used it before... but once it signs me out.. the box never appears again. using Safari Mac os 10.6.8. What happens is I get signed out after I sign in. Without knowing I was signed out ...since I did not sign myself out. Then when I hit "post" it asks me to sign in again. if my post is short this does not happen. I think there is a time out feature. You would think after 10 years of posting stuff I would save first... but sometimes I don't ..and arrrrgh. and... if I get signed out... that restore saved content button never appears. if I make a quick mistake it does..but if I type, take a short phone call... and continue.. it loses everything.

Troy Lee D3, has similar impact protection to a DOT helmet according to them. They fit snug around the cheeks. Much better padding than a D2, and far better ventilation. Ski helmets protect similar to bike helmets or a 12mph crash. If you go 12mph or less, get a standard ski helmet- just don't let anyone crash into you going over 12mph faster than you. If that sounds impossible, buy a Troy Lee D3 or Fox V3 also a decent one though heavier but does meet DOT with certification. I didn't wear a helmet when I was the fastest one on the hill. I wouldnt get hit from behind. i had a little more control over what was in my local impact zone. Not that this is a good idea... it is just what I did. When I am injured this is not the case I tend to go slower and stop more... and so to protect myself from being collided with at high speed from behind I want something close to DOT protection.

WTF ! I just made a long post and it signed me out again. Lost it all. Too bad because it explained a lot. Oh well info and time down the drain..I'm not typing that again. Other forums have an auto save feature ..or you can go back a page and see what you wrote... here it just loses the info. When this happens to me I give up on this forum and go post on other topics like car audio instead. See you guys next month..

Does anyone have shots showing similarities in body positioning? I'm also looking for still shots of Tom Sims longboarding and snowboarding. I recently saw a shot of a group photo with a SIMS 1710 Blade in it... any other 1710 blade shots are significant because I think that was the first production board that felt like a longboard. This is for an issue of Concrete Wave. We'll need high rez images.

October isn't much to worry about. Get into November- and you should understand that with Colorado's less than dense population.... the snow tire default is different. In New England- you can get by with front wheel drive and all season radials or rear wheel drive and good snows. We have excellent snow clearance crews that work round the clock....we salt and use other chemicals, we sand, we plow. In Colorado the default is 4x4 and at the very least all season radials... preferably new snows- and if in real altitude- they better be studded if you intend to climb driveways that are icy. They sand. Nokian Hakkapellitta makes amazing snow tires- get the Eco studs (better than the regular studs and last a lot longer) In the Escalade- I swear you feel like you could climb trees with these. On one icy morning inAspen- everyone was skidding into the intersection- every car's ABS was working overtime. I couldn't get my car to skid. Colorado has more SUVs per capita than any other state.....and there is a good reason for that. I drive my rear wheel drive car there in October- and I don't even have to fill the gas tank before I leave in April.

I first saw tom Sims at a skateboard contest in Long Island NY. I got into slalom and went to a contest to see slalom racing at the Nassau Coliseum 36 years ago. Tom was riding a huge wooden deck 36" with a kicktail (not far off from what people ride today). My friend Larry bought 40 Sims cones that day. And without Tom Sims bringing cones to sell...I might not have ever gotten into slalom and won a World Championship- or gotten a silver medal from the french and spanish Olympic Committees for speed skateboarding (as I would have never tried to find Bob turner who made my board when i was looking for more Sims racing decks) or even be writing here.. I still have 35 Sims cones all with the original stickers- Larry won't sell me his- they have too many great memories. . I also had Sims bowl riders - and would race one guy who was fast on them. tea-ba AKA Cheeta, Nelson Vales. The first board I luged on had Sims Pure Juice. Sims made some of the first longboards which got me into longboarding. Being comfortable on longboards is in part what made me take up snowboarding- as I thought the longboarding would make the crossover easier....having Sims make a board just made me as a skater more comfortable in trying it. There was a huge Burton Sims rivalry back then. If I never got into snowboarding, I would not have met Madd Mike and there never would have been Madd boards, I also never would have gotten Turner going again , and slalom skateboarding might still be dormant. The skate slalom scenes in NYC by Tavern on the green and Memorial drive (Boston) would have never existed. I never would have taught anyone to snowboard. I bought things that said Sims on it because I thought the brand was cool. Loved the swoosh logo signature. I made an 8 wheeler I because I could not get a Toft 8 wheeler, though eventually I got one. I owned about 15 of the Sims/turner racing decks, I had a vintage 44 inch taperkick, several Sims 1500 FE pros, a Sims FE, Sims 1600 FE Pro, Sims 1710 Blade. I rode Sims Asyms (Loved saying that as it sounds funny) , and many Sims race decks and convinced my Home mountain of tiny Wachusett to buy 75 Sims ATV's for people to learn on. I owned Sims skate gloves with green urethane tips, When i went to Brazil the only park board I had was mounted with Sims Snake Conicals. My coach in longboarding and slalom is Ed Economy- a Sims team rider. I worked as a rep. for Sims in the early 80's. I would talk to Tom and his dad Paul all the time when I was buying Turners from Paul Sims in 1982- they were Sims racing decks Bob Turner(also R.I.P.) Made for Sims. tom got me into hardbooting after only riding a few times on a Sims 1500 FE. I asked tom what he rode (Koflach Valluga's) and immediately ordered a set. When I started the first snowboard camp in Tignes and needed photos- Tom was quick to send me slides to use in an Ad I put in International Snowboard Magazine. I remember Tom riding in the James Bond film and being stoked to see snowboarding on the big screen (it was supposed to be a Snowmobile front ski) I rode with Tom at Stratton after having spoken to him for over 2 decades. Sims and their legacy of products has had a major impact in my life. If I know Tom- he's already working on some kind of cloud surfer.

FYI these are not made by us. I think it is a recent start up ..perhaps from last season... surprised no one else spotted them and told us. I emailed them to consider a name change so not cause confusion between brands. They probably did not thoroughly researched their trademark...or even did a google search- since "Madd Snowboards" is listed right underneath as an alternate. http://madsnowboards.com/Home_Page.html Decent team rider though...lol.. Should I start selling Budwiser beer and Coka -Cola?

from the top menu Safari/empty cache Have him download firefox and try it out too. But i tried it on a new computer and a $200 hackintosh and couldn't see it. FWIW You can turn a Dell Insperion Mini 10V into a Hackintosh for just a cheapo $30 copy of snow leopard as a virus proof OS.

In these videos I am on a Rossignol Judge 169cm it feels like a 10.5 meter radius. I ride 45 front and about 38 rear. Size 9.5 boots. I like riding high angles with my soft bindings and a bunch of gilmour bias. It is more of a dedicated powder board and is a bitch to carve well- but with a modified technique I can carve it. It is a powder baord that has a usable sidecut as opposed to some of the others which IMHO are pretty useless for carving ..like My Salomon Sick Stick, Winterstick swallow tail...etc.. The Rossignol Judge 169 is a split tail powder board. I rode the Dupraz and it can not carve nearly as well as this board can. A really good softer hardboot alternative for you that I really liked in deep powder is the Virus UFC. It comes in a wide width which would suit you. It is extremely forgiving.... and carves extremely well on hard pack... perhaps one of the most versatile boards I have ridden. The Original Madd 170 was really versatile...but no ones selling a original Madd 170 at any price....still not as good in deep powder as the UFC...which IMHO is mind blowing for powder in hardboots on a softer setting. The wide UFC was too wide for me so it might be a good choice for you. It has amazing grip on frozen granualr ...and few boards that grip on bullet proof frozen granular can also ride well in deep pow. I offload about 70lbs at speed onto the snow you might have to dump 110. I'm having a Kessler custom made to do it all... but I worry about how long it will last. The Virus should be able to take a beating and still ride well. Chris Klug weighed about 220 or so when he rode Kesslers... you could have a custom version of the Ride made.

Selling my 512 GB SSD G-Drive Mini external... double the capacity of the G-Drive Mini SSD 256 but in the same Dual Firewire 800 + USB 2.0 housing. $1200. It runs a bootable OS nearly as fast as the native E-sata internal drive...and oddly it can sometimes be faster.

Adam Bolonsky was a friend of mine I rode with in the 1990's ...saw him about 5 years ago at a focus group... A real character- he wrote his name in huge block letters with a sharpie on everything he owned. Big Ocean Kayaker- we went out in the Boston Islands in two of his home made kayaks. I think he is a school teacher in the boston School System, married now. Great hardboot rider at the time ..studied all the ski literature for technique... we used to call him "The Form Guy" when he rode his PJ 6 at Wachusett Mt. in Princeton MA. Alex Bently was a stock broker friend of his he use to ride with. I think we collided (rare) in 1993 a banner snow year at "The Wa" he was regular and I am goofy- - toesided into each other at about 30+ pretty funny. BOLONSKY... in sharpie... EVERYWHERE- every stitch of clothing. we wanted to get his name as a lettered window tint and put it on his car so it would not get stolen.

I bought a Macbook Pro with a 512SSD ..expensive but super fast. When i sold that laptop I swapped the drive with a 1TB HD and swapped the 512SSD into a G-drive Mini enclosure. I'll likely ebay that to recoup most of the cost of my Macbook Pro's drive what is cool is that it seems to be very fast...fast enough that when using the firewire 800 G-drive mini as a bootable HD I do not notice any perforamce lag despite not using it as an ESATA.