bigwavedave

2nd day groom! Wicked windy at the top of the hill and blowing downslope. Sundance, Sundance, Sundance!! When it's good, might be my favorite run on a big board. And there was hardly anyone there, maybe 10 people riding the chair? There were some people on the far side, but I didn't go over there. Beth showed up to make some turns. 1st tracks with the 8rw...the sun is getting higher, earlier... Voyageur was untracked and resurfaced with about an inch of windblown snow over the groom. Made for soft, relaxing mid-day turns. Old tracks in the ungroomed left side from 2 days ago had filled in for some 6-8" deep powdery turns. 40°F when I left around 1:30.

Hope everything is ok. Made some tracks for you today...1st day groom after 8" yesterday...the snow was clumpy... Indianhead Mt

8" yesterday! The 1st day groom today was a little challenging, but fun. It was kind of chunky on top and bumpy under the groomed surface. Started out on the 185 8rw and was really sinking the back half of the board. It was some weird snow. Making 1st tracks.... The 185 Coiler Contra AT with the "save-your-tail-tail" seemed to like the conditions better, including the freshies on the side. Al & Beth were there. Started out about 7° and breezy and got up to 16° when I left at 1:30. Planning to return tomorrow for some 2nd day groom before we start melting snow.

Okay, no more half pipe for you, Bob. At least you remembered where to post the picture of your tracks. That's gotta be a good sign. Nice pic btw. The conditions look awesome in your recent photos. Like that goggle shot too. Hope your well!

All midwestern hills are roughly 400-700 ft vert drop. Indianhead in the U.P of Mich. might have the best carving with some nice wide steeps at the bottom of their 638 vert ft. Looks like MSLM is open, north of Toronto just west of Coiler-ville. Might be a busy place, but Coilers are test ridden there. Searchmont (closed this season) north of Sault St Marie. Chouinard goes there.

@Chouinard should know.

A race slalom board will take anything you can give it, just watch a slalom race. I was told that a small board is more of a challenge for a builder/designer to get just right. Hard to design a board that will meet all the demands in a small package. A bigger board is more forgiving. I've had some great little boards and some that couldn't be pushed as hard. The modern race SL boards are amazing. But, as long as we're plugging our favorite short boards; Mark's SF is really astonishing to me in that he designed it, built it, and to my knowledge, has never ridden one. I've owned and ridden more than a few SL race boards and it's my favorite. But, I don't race anymore and I like to complete my turns.

Reviving this thread as I have been going through my bindings today. I had a rear bail (front foot) break off completely last year. Didn't notice it til I went to unclip at the bottom of the hill and my foot lifted out when I tried to skate. The bail was nowhere in sight. I liked hearing Beckmann's comments about riding with the soles of your feet. I do focus on heel/toe pressure when I ride and it likely saved me from a bad crash in this case. Today, I was trying to micro-adjust the bail length because I'm at the limits of toe or heel block adjustment when trying to achieve heel/toe balance over the board. As a stop-gap, I've been using tape on the sole blocks to micro-adjust the fit. Every lug I've tried was frozen. I used PB Blaster to successfully loosen a couple of them. I had to add a heat gun to get others to break free. I found a hairline fracture in one stuck lug when I turned it. Had another bail break off at the threads when I turned the lug. I suspect it was ready to go. This joint seems to be an area to keep an eye on. I have several pairs of sidewinders, from my daughter's pair of prototypes to the last generation with 4 divots in the sole blocks. My first thought was to use anti-seize on the dissimilar metals to prevent seizing and corrosion. Is the consensus to use thread lock instead to prevent metal stress? Might that also help with preventing the dissimilar metal thing? I should ask Walker what he thinks, as I'm ordering some parts.

Iris, Lily & Rose are the Minnesota flower power Coached by my daughter a few years back.

Thinking of going back to Indianhead for Monday/Tuesday. Snow is in the forecast with cooler temps and possible lake effect.

PM'd

Buck has a webcam with a good view of the race course. Milk Run cam. https://buckhill.com/skiing-snowboarding/webcams/ I have been an on-the-hill gate judge since the G-team started hosting rttc NorAm about 10 yrs ago, but not this year. I'm impressed that they were able to put it together this year. With the Canadian border closed, it's technically not a NorAm according to the FIS site. Judging by the turnout, I suspect a lot of North American racers decided to remain in Europe for the season after presumably going through a quarantine to enter.

Ken said he saw Collin (Donek metal FC 163) too. @jolson Yeah, I was busy...... After 3 days at Indianhead (which opens at 9am), I showed up at 8:45 at the top of the hill this morning and was surprised I was able to get a primo parking spot. As I was getting ready to clip in and make 1st tracks, I realized...it's Friday...and I'm an hour early! Glad I didn't go down before realizing that. It was overcast with peeks of sun and a building wind. Snow was soft and if you carved hard, the ice base was lurking here and there with an occasional ice chunk surprise. Ken was there. You can almost see the ice base under the 2" surface groom. It's nice carving until it starts breaking apart. Sky Hooker was pretty good as was 4pipe under the chair. Lots of lessons on the hill today.

West B? ....or Buttermilk east? Indianhead Mt

Day 3 Indianhead. Keeps getting better! 1-2" over soft groom, light snow gradually clearing to warm sun. I think it was unanimous, Sundance was el supremo with 2" on top of a plush groom and few tracks other than our own. In fact it seemed less busy today. Never a lift line and unfettered carving most everywhere. It's been fun hanging out with Pat & Terry and Al & Beth. The C's are traveling east into the next timezone to visit the Porkies tomorrow before heading home. That 1st track was real nice this morning. The lifty gets it now, after watching me walk back up to snap this pic, he let me board the lift early and said, "too bad the snowmobile made a track right down the middle of the run". Rode the Super all day, 'cept for this 1st run on the XC with the gopro on a stick.

Only about 1-2 inches overnight, but enough to help the hill groom out nicely after having ~40° temps yesterday. Had a good breakfast burrito for breakfast at the hill at 8 am. The day started out overcast, then sun in the afternoon. Rode with Pat C & wife Terry today. Rode for almost 6 hrs. I started out this morning being quite tired from yesterday, but once I started making turns....it was hard to stop...Rode the XC 1st down the hill again... ...and caught an early chair back up in time to make the 2nd track on the hill. The east side of the hill has great snow, Chippewa, Flambeau, Sundance, Voyageur. The top sections of the runs on the west side are great, but the steeps at the bottom are a little thin and icy/chunky. As the photo shows, where it was good, it was Aspen plush groom until we trenched it all up.

Drove over from Duluth this morning. Met up with Al & Beth, and @Chouinard and his wife who drove up from lower MI yesterday. Beautiful soft groom and a warm sunny day . It was so pleasant, I almost fell asleep on the chair ride up. Rode for about 5 hrs, very few people on the hill. We're expecting some snow tonight and tomorrow, so I'm staying put. Here's that 1st track...

It's Bob's "happy place". You know you want to Bob...Buttermilk east.... Bobble giggling...

Usually at the Indianhead Motel in Ironwwod. Relatively inexpensive, 15 min from the hill, has a little private sauna. Sometimes at the resort, especially if it's going to dump. Are you thinking about it?

Heading over to Indianhead tomorrow, staying through Thursday. There's a little snow in the forecast, hopefully. Al will be there and @Chouinard is driving up too. If Mr Miller loads his car up with Thirst demos, including the Tesi8, and hits the road tonight, he could still make it here for Wed & Thurs.

I have the .951's. I picked them up used last year. They were probably raced on for 1 year before that. I had a cable wire buckle strap break last week. The 2nd one from the bottom, with the longer cable. I jury rigged a fix using vinyl coated wire from the hardware store while I await a replacement pair of cables from Bola. Apparently this is the most common one to break. The same strap that broke regularly on my old Burton Furnace & Reactor boots, rear foot. I guess it gets more stress. I don't tear boots apart from usage like you. I usually get several years out of a pair of boots. I can tell you that the original Northwaves seemed to be pretty durable, at least the plastic boot part. As you know, 15 yr old boots were selling for several thousand dollars before MountainSlope made their reproduction. I used to see lots of them at races all cobbled together with nuts & bolts & washers. I talked to a Canadian coach whose whole team seemed to be wearing them. He showed a pic of a collection of old Northwaves that he had been collecting and hoarding. He rebuilt them in his shop. He told me a couple of reasons they were favored was that the flex of the plastic remained stable in varying temps and that the ankle pivot was a little higher than other boots allowing a more natural flex. I suspect that may be a factor in helping heel hold. I recently came across this Northwave history, interesting. https://tomasio.at/temp/NorthwaveIntroductionV1.0.pdf

Snowed all day and we got maybe 1-1½ inches, maybe more up on the hill? I went up for the last hour before closing after crowds thinned out. I didn't have the energy for an early morning after a 10 hr day to Indianhead yesterday (5 hrs driving/5 hrs riding). Lots of nice soft snow and push piles that were easily sliced through with the 181 PC swallowtail. It has a soft enough flex so I could really lay into turns without digging in too deep, making 4" deep trenches. A pretty thick fog rolled in during my last 2 runs, but it was so soft that you didn't need to see. Soft snow is kinda fun! Sure is easier on the body than our typical hard stuff. I saw Ken ridding the chair when I checked the webcam this morning. It's still snowing. Too bad Spirit isn't open tomorrow. It would be good. Might be a good day for a hike.

Yup! Indianhead good! The 1st track... There was a young carver dude on an F2 race 166 who slept in his truck in the parking lot expecting to get that first track, and some old dude slipped right by, clipped in and took it. I didn't mean to take it from him, it's just that layin' down that 1st track is kinda my thing. ...and I didn't know! Turned out it was Doobs' kid, who races and has gotten a bunch of other kids into hardbooting. We rode together most of the day and I forgot his name. (Dakota) Of course Al & Beth were there and we all carved up the hill pretty good. Al should be my board caddy, as I was pulling out my 185 8rw he whispered, "I'd ride the Super, it's a little hard today", and of course he was right. But a "hard" day inda U.P is a "great" day at Spirit. Rode for 5 hrs, so I met my self imposed 5 hrs behind the wheel rule. It got busy after a while, but not crazy bad. Chalk it up to Polar vortex pent-up demand. Nice sunny day. Started below zero and shot up to +25.

6° front toe 3° rear heel