bigwavedave

a little fresh on groom

Saturday Well, the lake effect was turned on last night and gave us 3-4" of huge, light, fluffy flakes overnight. 4Pipe had 1" over groom, 3-4" on ScissorBill and 2" on DoubleJaw. It was nice! Ken was there. Despite there being lots of people, I rode for 3 hrs and managed to get free & clear runs til about 1pm. With 3 chairs running, the lift lines didn't get long until about when I left. Even after everything was tracked out the new snow mingled with the old and made for fabulous carving. SkyHooker still has that unpleasant icy crunchy snow. Gotta remember how to reset my Gopro settings as it's just taking single pics instead of a movie. This one wasn't bad. I'll be on it early tomorrow.

Bomber Boiler Plate 4mm light v2, 4 hole mount $300 shipped (conUS) (will ship elsewhere if buyer pays any extra cost) Bought this new from Bomber by Gumbo 2 years ago. Got it so I could ride while recovering from a knee injury and not aggravate it from jarring bumps. It worked great for that, and now that I'm better, I don't need it. I only rode it a handful of times for very short sessions.

About 15° at the top, flat light with a 15-25kt uphill wind that made downhill travel slow. Light lake effect snow and whipped up snow in the wind was producing snownadoes across the slopes. Looks like everything is open from BigAir to TimberCruiser. Snow conditions are pretty nice, still some man made crunchy, but carvable stuff on Gandy, SkyHooker and BindleStiff. Some nice rollers on BearClaw. Not very crowded, but XC races at the bottom and a full parking lot. I only lasted a couple of hours. Should have worn more layers for the wind. They're still calling for a 4-6 inches of lake effect snow late today and overnight. Plan to be out tomorrow morning.

Rode this setup again today after we had trenched up the hill and the light went flat. I really like it. The change in the flex of my 175 Rev is ever so slight, yet the edge pressure and sureness is increased significantly. Turn radius is very slightly increased. The edge sureness combined with the dampening of ruts gave me confidence to ride at normal speeds even though I couldn't see the terrain in the flat light. I suspect that putting this on a shorter board, like a SL board, it might have a more noticeable effect on board flex, maybe. The version I'm using is the 4x4 mount. While it appears that Geckos are no longer available from Apex (maybe from Virus?), I still see the F-plate (4x4 only) on the Donek website. Not sure if Sean still has them in stock, but anyone who wanted the hard-to-find Geckos, or just a compliant easy to ride plate, might want to look into an F-plate.

Thurs Another great morning of carving. Temps up to 29° (makes me little nervous when it gets that close to melting) and dropping slowly, sunny for the first hour or so, then super flat light. We had a dusting of snow overnight, maybe some more tonight and tomorrow. I switched over to the 175 Rev with F-Plate during the last hour in super flat light. Could barely feel all those trenches we made earlier. The F-plate really smooths out imperfections and gives such a solid edge hold that I wasn't hesitant to keep carving full speed, even though all definition was lost in the flat light. ...but when it was sunny...Russ riding his CC+ and me on the Super.

I finally got to ride an F plate today. It is the original prototype Sean modeled from my daughter's Kessler K plate, comparable to a Vist. According to my daughter the Donek F-plate was more compliant than either the Vist or K plate. She preferred it and used it for her last WC racing season. Although the F Plate is designed to be used with a SL board, I mounted it on my 175 Donek Rev. Close enough? I have used both Geckos and a Bomber BoilerPlate 4mm lite on this Rev. Both the Geckos and the Boilerplate made the board feel stiffer, effectively lengthening the turn radius–the BoilerPlate noticeably more so than the Geckos. The F plate has a similar ride dampening quality to Geckos in smoothing out ruts, but it provides significantly more solid and uniform edge pressure. The F Plate is noticeably heavier than the Geckos. The F-plate is barely 1mm taller than Gecko. TD3 sidewinders with bp bases mounted on the F-plate were imperceptibly higher than standard td3sw (with the thick e-ring bases) mounted on a plateless board. Didn't actually measure, just wasn't noticeable. I was never really interested in plates until a couple of years ago I when started having knee pain with every bump after a knee injury. Plates really helped me enjoy getting some turns without further damaging my knee while the ligaments were healing. The only other plate (and first) I've ever rode was a Donek AF about 8 or 9 years ago at SES. Sean mounted it on a 180 Rev for me to try.

Wed Another warm day (above zero/below freezing), really flat light but near perfect groom. Rode with Ken for a couple of hours. A little busy today, not big lift lines, but you had to watch for traffic. Did a little test riding today: Rode a 176 Coiler all mt with an 11m single side cut. A dreamy smooth, mellow ride. Easy carver. Then rode my old 175 Donek Rev, 11-12m side cut with a Donek F plate. I think I like it. Similar to Geckos in dampening the ride, but felt like it increased my edge pressure more than Geckos..

Great snow today! Temps rose above zero today with intermittent sun. Great crew on the hill today, just missing @jolson. Nice soft groom on 4pipe, DoubleJaw and ScissorBill. Still kinda crunchy on BindleStiff and SkyHooker. Races on Gandy. CinderSnapper and BigAir need to be groomed out. Rode a bunch of different boards today, just for fun and the XC continues to be one of my favorites.

Yea, Spirit is owned and run by the city of Duluth, so taxes help subsidize it. Giant's Ridge is subsidized by iron range mining tax dollars and run by a private management company. Highland Hills is owned and run by 3 Rivers Parks of Hennepin County. All should be safe from corporate takeover. Guess we can thank all those egalitarian minded Scandinavians who settled this area. Indianhead/BlackJack (Big Snow), Lutsen and Wild Mt are still all privately owned. @trent Are you coming north this winter? I was just over to Indianhead/BlackJack last Friday after they had over a foot of snow which helped get their coverage up to speed. Weren't you there for your daughter's ski races last year? I have signed up to help out with the NorAm/RTTC races (PGS & PSL) at Giant's Ridge on Jan 20 & 21. My experience at Giant's Ridge over the past several years is that they have the best grooming.

Will be out tomorrow for 1st tracks and more. It's going to be above zero.

@Burtonalways Sent you more photos as requested.

Yep! pm'd.

@1xsculler I should have re-read your original post. I don't know much about trading off parts and what fits both ski boots and snowboard boots. Good luck with your experiment. But, regarding the discussion of binding flex. Titanflex? I tried them and hated how squishy-washy they felt. Love the feel of Race Titaniums. Sidewinders have a similar lateral flex, but don't have the same direct toe/heel to board feel. The SW e-ring dampens the ride without a squishy-washy feel. Although I have not spent much time on Carve RS, I think they have a flex somewhere between Titanflex and Race Titaniums.

Sunday -10°F and blowing 15-25mph downhill, so roughly a gazillion below windchill riding the lift straight into it at at 12mph, not so bad riding down! No crowds and sunny with the bluest blue sky. Snow was racecourse hard and fortunately no grooming features. I had to really weight the board going into turns to get the edge to penetrate ½". Despite how hard the surface was, the smooth grooming made for fantastic carving. @khoward was there. Ken just didn't have the body mass to make a track. Even BigMario would be reduced to merely making grooves. I lasted about 2 hours. The XC was the tool for the job today. A lot of the snow from the last blizzard ended up in the trees. The wind today was blowing that loose snow back onto the slopes and filling in the cord. Free refreshment!

I rode Cateks for several years (10+ yrs ago). They certainly look bomb proof and you'd think they'd be the stiffest. After mounting a gopro on the board behind the boots I was surprised to see significant lateral rocking between the boots and bindings. Kind of like what you see with F2's. My daughter raced with the SSWSC when they were involved in developing the td3 sidewinders. She actually worked for Fin at the time. Yes, they were trying to duplicate the F2 movement using Fin's bomb proof materials. My daughter (and most racers, I believe) pretty much replaced all their equipment (boots, bindings, boards) each season. Maybe keeping last years stuff for training or back-up, depending on your budget. Racers are way harder on equipment then recreational carvers and break stuff a lot. She switched back to F2's after one season racing with the SW and sold me her prototypes. I liked them way better than my Cateks. They were my first pair of Bombers. She had a bad season with the them, even broke some bails. Being on the same equipment as the racers that are beating you levels the playing field, otherwise you won't know if it's you or your equipment. Eliminate the variables. I have had some bails break on both F2's and TD3 SW. They were on bindings I bought used and likely had been abused. Haven't had any failures on stuff I bought new. I have to say I'm liking how F2's feel under foot. There's better board feel, despite the lateral play, the heel/toe connection on the board feels more direct, and they're lighter. I like having a certain amount of play or forgiveness in both my bindings and boots to dampen any shocks and bumps before they reach my old and damaged knees.

There's a "rubber" washer in the cant disc that seems to dissolve and make a great mess. I tried to rehab a pair for someone else. Used a lot of solvent to clean up the goo, then fashioned a new washer using what I had on hand which was cut out of an old car tire. Figured it was tougher than what was in there. You might be able to find a suitable washer in the plumbing dept at your hardware store. Doubt you find an actual replacement part. I never saw what the original part looked like before it completely dissolved.

Too tired to ride today after 5 hrs driving & 5 hrs riding yesterday (trip to Indianhead). I could see racers gathering at the top of Gandy at 8 this morning. I imagine tomorrow too? Checked the webcam a couple of times today and it looked really busy. I'm planning 1st tracks tomorrow. It will be cold and windy, but sunny.

@Tddragon posted this in last year's new board porn. Not sure if he's still around as @*Ace* has been selling off his gear for him.

After Mark sent me pic of his personal 8rw Stadacarvious, I said, "You never should have showed me that, because now I want that!". So, we ditched the white topsheet design already in process for my board. My Strad's gonna be a bit bigger though.

Was Spirit open today? When I drove by it was all lit up, but the express chair wasn't running.

-25°F at the house this morning, 10° below at the top of Indianhead and rose to +10° by afternoon. and sunny. Driving here is like driving into winter. Over a foot of dry polar powder fell over the past 36hrs. Most of it groomed in today with pockets of partially tracked powder on the side. The groom was a mix of crunchy hard and really soft, a bit challenging, but still fun. Apparently the base was quite thin and hard before this recent snow. Rode a few different boards before settling on the 181 PC swallowtail. It has a gentler ride through variable terrain and puts a smile on my face like riding a fatbike. Feels like a trip out west, but it's east...way east B Rode for 5 hrs with a ½ hr lunch break, so almost met my self imposed quota to justify time behind the wheel with equal or more time on the snow.

2022 Thursday: I almost went to BlackJack today. Kinda wished I had since they're not open M-T-W and don't groom when there's new snow. They had over a foot with this storm and have lingering lake effect snow today! Forecast calls for more snow overnight. Planning to head over to Indianhead tomorrow. Also, it will be 5-10° warmer than here at Spirit.

Thursday day23 1st tracks from the top. -10°F, light wind and clearing skies. Best groom was on 4Pipe. It was surprisingly crusty everywhere else. Snowmaking is done. JugglerJoe is open. Still grooming out the park and Cinder Snapper. Rode for 2½ hrs. Carving was fun and it was hard to quit, even when the cold sapped the warmth from the core. With nobody there, we never had to look up for traffic. That's what makes riding on subzero days so worthwhile. Plus it's usually sunny. Temps warmed up to near zero. Riding with @rwmaron most of the morning. He seems to be getting on with his new Thirst CC+. This was the last picture before the cold killed my battery. We were working on making a beautiful mess of the hill and we weren't done yet.

Only about 2½" so far this morning and blowing a gale all night. With low expectations, I arrived at the bottom of the hill a few minutes after opening. Wind blown snow across the hill from the north forming sastrugi ridges across the slope, interspersed with rows of crusty groom (some freezing drizzle apparently fell after grooming), made riding interesting. By hugging the leeside of the tree lines I found pockets of 6" deep dense arctic powder (like talcum) made up of very small "flakes". Temp +10F and dropping, blowing 15-25kts and still snowing. Should be nice tomorrow. It was a short day, but fun. And the crowds have disappeared.