bigwavedave

You really should be able to get it done with your bindings. Like Sean says in the video, the boot cant is more of a fine tuning thing. I only did it once in UPZ's. I think I had slight outward cant on my bindings with the UPZ's and then had to cant the cuffs inward. I think Beckman once mentioned that UPZ's are canted, which might explain that. I was able to get even cuff pressure with MS.951's simply by adjusting the bindings, cuff cants are neutral. On my wider boards (23cm) I use shallower angles with a slight inward cant, all done with the bindings. Without the inward cant on the bindings, my boot cuffs were pushing my legs outward.

Start with setting the binding's cant/lift so you can stand and flex and move naturally and fluidly. After that, if you feel more pressure on the sides of the boot cuffs in a neutral stance, try canting the boot cuffs as described. I used canting on my UPZ cuffs, but no cant with MS.951's. Before that, I didn't know enough to get myself confused, I just rode. Though, i think I ride better now. My binding lift/cant differs slightly on different width boards, boot cuff remains the same. This is what happens when you get lots of different boards. You'll sort it out. May the force be with you.

The blue Incline? The legendary "Delrossi"? It was an "absolute tank"er for me at 185lbs. My favorite soft snow carver.

Another skiff of snow overnight and it's getting warmer day by day. The snow was great today! Sky Hooker was a dream. Everytime I went down, I had it all to myself, able to make large sweeping turns across the hill with the added encouragement of hoots from the chair above. Ken was there riding his 157 Rev. I rode the Super 2½ hrs today. An XC race course at the bottom diverted any traffic east of 4pipe to the Summit chair. It will be a zoo this weekend; xc races at the bottom, Alpine races on Gandy, fat bike races on Timber & JugglerJoe, $5 lift tickets and rentals for Duluth residents. I'll be heading over to Indianhead tomorrow. Heelside on SkyHooker...Yup, still pretty firm, but soft enough to leave hand tracks.

Feb 25-28th Any forumite racers coming to this? Jack, any of your kids? It appears this is the 2nd of the only 2 North American comps this year. They usually have a Jr FIS and a youth rttc in addition to the main event, NorAm race to the cup. https://www.thegteam.com/rttc https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/event-details.html?sectorcode=SB&eventid=48566&seasoncode=2021

Maybe ½" overnight, a dusting over the groom, enough to soften it up for a great day of carving. Noticeably easier on the old knees! It was snowing lightly at first and then the sun gradually shone through. Not very busy either. Ran into Steve from the twin cities who was on skis today, but carves down at Buck and Welch. No sign of Russ. Sky Hooker was nice today. Rode mostly on the express side and as usual the best snow was under the chair. Juggler Joe was fun on a turny board carving around and over the humps. Tried the titanflex risers on the PCjv and liked it. Took a few runs on its big brother, the PC 181 just for fun. Even though it's a powder board it's really a fun carver, and technically speaking there was a dusting of powder, so.... Ended up on the 171 XC for most of the day. Seems this has become my favorite and most versatile ride this season. Rode from 10-1. My tracks from the morning, though only 1-2" deep, were eraser resistant... ...from the last chair ride up...

https://www.thirstsnowboards.com/xc Rides like a race SL board, very similar to my 163 SG full race titan, except that I like this way better. While it can be ridden just as hard and never loses its edge, it's also is very amenable to more relaxed carving and willingly completes turns.

Broke through the zero degrees barrier yesterday, briefly. Back to -15°F this morning and 10 below by 1st chair at 10am. A balmy +10 at 1pm when I left. Clouds moved in, flat light, more people on the hill. I think I prefered the subzero temps with sun and no bodies. Started out riding the Super. Snow is about the same with the best groom under the chair, 1-2" deep carves. And the typical hard everywhere else. I even think I heard the ice base under there somewhere. Ken was there.

Thanks. I never found a website for them, just saw them advertised in Carving magazine years ago. Still not clear where one can actually purchase them. Looks to me like they've taken ideas from other products and tweaked them or combined them.

This was my self imposed rule for years. 2½ hrs driving (each way) for a day trip from the twin cities to Duluth. Worth it for the decadence of having several hours of unfettered carving on empty midweek slopes at Spirit Mt. Tough on the legs though. Now I'm just minutes from the hill I need new rules. I suppose my new metric is to hike up and earn my turns on days when the hill is closed and there's fresh snow, or for some post-season slush slarving. P.S. Living in the center of the polar vortex has supplanted the pandemic. We haven't seen temps get above zero °F for about 12 days with 20-30 below each night. Hills are empty, great for carving as long as you can tolerate the cold. Every day is sunny, but no new snow.

Good to hear you have the same impression of them. I only took 3 runs to get the feel. I'm trying to get a softer, flexier interface to match hardboots on a softer flexing powder carving board. While the Carve RS might fit the bill, they're designed for lighter riders. Hoping this might be better solution. Gonna stick with my TD3SW for my carving sticks! Sounds like you're using the intec step-in. I'm sort of doing a hack and using them under standard Race Titaniums with a toe bail. They may be even squishier without the ridgid stepin.

It's been a little cold here. Last week when the hill was closed due to subzero temps I decided to recheck and re-adjust everything outside for maximum boot contraction. So, put my boots and boards outside for about 15-20 minutes and then went to work. I set everything so the toe bail would close with solid two finger pressure, opened & closed them several times and wiggled the boots around. Everything has been working well so far since then. After starting with warm boots and a tight fit in the bindings at the top of the hill, the fit has remained fairly consistent through the day. The fit does get slightly looser as the boots cool and shrink, but it's still an acceptable 1 finger pressure to close the toe bail. Hope it continues to work when it warms up. I suppose I could check the fit with everything warm and inside... btw, the MS .951 maintain a consistent flex in the cold, whereas my old boots would get really stiff.

Tried the risers that @AJCdice lent/sent to me. Mounted them under F2 Race Titaniums on my 185 Contra AT. The snow today was firm groom, not really the conditions I would choose to ride a board designed for soft snow and powder. The Titanflex setup feels noticeably softer than TD3 sidewinders (w/ yellow e-rings), on the verge of being squishy. But they also feel like they absorb vibrations and bumps. It might be described as something in between Geckos and TD3 sidewinders as far as smoothing the ride. I hope to try them on some softer snow. 1st impression is that they might work for me riding soft snow, powder and chop. I have a feeling they might feel too flexy/squishy on a stiffer carving stick.

Little colder today. Drove to the top for the noon start. -8°F with some wind. Very few people. Rode for 2 hrs until I felt like I was risking frostbite on parts of my face that I had trouble keeping completely covered. The snow is getting softer under the chair. Carving was very satisfying. Rode the 175 Super. Feeling weightless in the transitions. The groundhog day spell is broken. No Ned Ryerson.

If watching the Pure Carve videos gave you the bug, that's where they were riding much of the time. Nice snow, good grooming, mostly gentle terrain and typically not as busy as Aspen's other mts. Aspen plush... ...as opposed to Minnesota firm which hones your skills with feedback that rewards good technic. For Aspen-like conditions we drive east a couple of hours into the lake effect snow globe of the U.P. and Indianhead. I know you're not likely to come here, but we'd certainly put out the welcome mat for you. I used to teach, race, coach and would be happy to help you. The smallish hills we have are good for learning. You get lots of runs on terrain that becomes familiar which is good for practicing new skills.

Starting to feel like a polar vortex groundhog day. So cold I had no propane pressure and had to go out and give the tank a shake. The slowest start for my car so far in this vortex. -27° this morning, about -5° by noon start at the top of the hill. We have not risen above 0°F in days. So, what to do when living the same day over and over? Drive to the top of the hill and make 1st tracks and catch the 1st chair back up and try to do it all better than the day before. Ken was there for the next ride up...or was it Ned Ryerson? Snow was about the same as yesterday. After several runs more people showed up on the hill making it more difficult to get a clean run. Still, we made it for a little more than 1½ hrs when the cold started getting to the core.

I hear ya. Been brutal cold here too. Spirit has had a delayed opening at noon all week and through tomorrow. I plan to head up to the hill soon. I only last a couple of hours before I get thoroughly chilled and run home to my sauna. The carving has been great. The snow is hard summoning an aggressive approach. No relaxed carving. It's hard to know when to leave as the slopes are wide open and empty. I looked over my shoulder a few times to see only my own tracks. I expect it may be busier today. The ride up the express chair has been tough as the winds, while only 5-10mph, are in your face and combine with the 12 mph speed of the chair. These are the days I miss the old chair with the wind shields. btw, I just heard that the NorAm Race to the Cup at Buck has been rescheduled for Feb 26-28. I haven't decided if I'm coming down to help out this year.

5 degrees below, zero people and the 1st 3

It's warming up? Only neg 18°F this morning down by the river and it warmed up to -4 by the time I drove to the top of the hill. I thought the snow was a little better today, Ken disagreed. 1½-2inch deep trenches where it was soft on 4pipe and 1" deep everywhere else. SkyHooker was hard, but smooth and consistent. My old knees approved. There were about 5 more people on the hill today, so, like yesterday you still had every run to yourself. It felt colder today with a NW wind. I only lasted for about 1½ hrs before the cold seeped in everywhere, but it was a stellar day...

-25F this morning at the river, -5 at the top of the hill at the noon opening. Upper midwest packed pow-crete? I'll just call it typical Minnesota firm. 1-1½" deep trenches. A more consistent groom than yesterday, but still required purposeful, energetic carving. Not a day for relaxed carving. It was cold and hard. Nobody there, except 3 carvers; me, Russ, Ken. So much room that we often each took our own separate run, had it all to ourselves and met up at the bottom. There were about 5 other people there somewhere, but never on any run that I went down. It was brutally cold. I only lasted about 2 hours. Was warm until all of a sudden I wasn't.

Just about every hill was closed since Sunday and opened with reduced hours today and it looks like we're stuck in the polar vortex for another week. There has been fairly persistent lake effect snow around the Keweenaw. I suspect there has been some in the Porcupine Mts too. Thinking of heading east for a couple of days in search of softer turns, and warmer winds off the big lake. Maybe Indianhead tomorrow and the Porkies on Friday. Never been to Mt Ripley. It's just 450" vert, but it's been snowing all week, 10" today, and it's still snowing. Could be fun.

Spirit open today reduced hours 12:00-8:00 due to the extended cold. It was only -12F this morning, around zero at noon and sunny. Snow was crunchy, crusty groom with spotty soft spots and some hard bumps, otherwise known as "groomer features". The groomers are barely churning the surface deep enough to get a consistent groom.... The only place you can find that is in the parks. I went through the big air park which had a sign at the top that read "caution, grooming" (what can be more enticing than that?). So, I went down somewhat slowly to scope out what they had done with our sacred left hand side. It has been desecrated with rails and more jumps, maybe some interesting berms to carve off, but the groom in between was purrfect. Looks like it's gonna be a lot of work to maintain. After one run through I was asked to stay out, and they proceeded to erase my tracks. Ken was there making tracks. One of our favorite carving runs, Scissor Bill, now has "features" like jumps and rails etc. Made my last run through pristine untouched soft groom in the rope tow park and leaving a sign, "I'll be back". The 1st track...After which I had to go home briefly to re-repair my jury-rigged boot strap (2nd buckle) made with baling wire while awaiting the replacement part from Mountain Slope.

The Bomber/Catek love child?

What boots are you using? Aside from the boots, maybe you're having a problem I've had a couple of times with this style binding. Is the heel or toe block moving and not holding the setting? Binding loosening when you ride? If so, check the nut (under the block) on the end of the adjusting screw that moves the blocks fore & aft. That nut can break loose if the block is backed out hard against its end point when exposing the 2 screws to remove the blocks. If this is the case, maybe use red, or strong locktight to re-affix the nut. https://www.extremecarving.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13646

Yeah, I've been watching the weather. I'm happy for you guys. It was -25F this morning here. All local ski areas are closed. High temp today was -1. It was sunny, but windy. Even the snow storms are avoiding us. RE the OP I guess what I was trying to get at if it's a mid-tight side cut that doesn't work as well with a plate, particularly the Gecko style. Guess I'll have to brave the polar vortex and mount them up on my CoilerAT to see for myself. I can hike up the hill to keep warm and do a test ride on the ungroomed leftovers from Saturday.