bigwavedave

Thinking of coming up for a New Year's Day carve session. Hoping the hill has recovered from the rain/sleet/snow event last week. Anyone been out this week?

Everything above is good, but maybe your boards have a variable side-cut designed to let a racer out of a turn earlier to get them off to the next gate. It's just a bit more work to make a modern race board (~past 10 years) complete turns to keep your speed in check. It requires keeping weight on the turnier part of your side-cut, which is typically toward the nose.

I've got a pair of reactor boots size 28

Hi Bob First tracks today , 20 below at BuckHill before the races...someone has to test the carving conditions before opening up to the racers...using chair lift towers for gates...

Some of the race action today...20 below zero and bright sun...

The hill A board... The first track... ...and a half hour later...after the racer's warm-up...

Yea, Friday night was brutal. It took forever to get warmed up when I got home. Today, not so bad. I got about 10-15 runs in between race duty. I rode mostly on the beginner hill which was ungroomed and untracked. Hardboots in walk mode on my 164 Incine put a big smile on my face The groom should be awesome tomorrow morning, despite being brutally cold. Chair should be going early again for the racers (8:30?). Update: Just got a message saying races will be delayed til 10:15. Checked Buck's webpage and it says they start up at 10am tomorrow.

Conditions are looking good on the Buck webcam. I'm seeing carvers practicing on Milkrun.

I'm planing to be out at Buck Fri-Sat-Sun to help with the NorAm races and hope to get a few turns in between races. Looks like we'll have some more snow and then very cold

Always like the weather graphics this time of year Not so much for Duluth, but should jumpstart da UP Indianhead opens this weekend, so maybe Al will post a conditions report. Love to see a photo...

Looks like winter is finally here! Pulled the boards out of the storage closet. Sounds like Spirit will open a run this weekend, so we expect a firsthand report from the boarder-patrol Everyone is making snow! Buck and Wild should be in good shape by next week. There is a NorAm slalom (psl) race at Buck next weekend (Dec. 16-17-18). I will likely be there if they need volunteers on the course. Otherwise, ½ price Tuesdays at Wild til Spirit gets some terrain open. Giants Ridge might be in good shape since they've had more natural snow. See ya out there

A favorite summer track through boreal forest on St Ignace Island, northern Lake Superior... nirivea.tif

Ryan did try a "full alpine" set-up at ATC and the video was shown at the banquet. Basically Cory and Ryan traded equipment, and it was a very funny video, and maybe a bit humbling for Ryan. Not sure if there is a link to it somewhere.

Go Jane! ...and say hi to Mimi. So Ken, does the sunscreen make the board faster in all conditions or just powder? How about some pics?

The surfing analogy works for recreational riding as it's similar to the skiers code, but surfers aren't racing. Many other race competitions that put several racers on the same course, at the same time, have rules for safe/fair passing and right-of-way. SBX doesn't seem to and doesn't seem to care, which makes me much less interested in it as a competition. I suppose it's like NASCAR and people watch it for the crashes?

Man, looking at this forum lately and one might think some carving addicts don't handle withdrawal well. Transitioning into summer addictions can be as hard as the boots you're wearing, so give me a little decamber with my camber for a nice spring into a smooth transition and a good edge in the next carve.

I remember the first Olympics SBX finals in 2006 where a guy in hardboots led most of the way, clearly faster, gets passed (off camera) by Seth Wescot, who then protects his lead by clearly interfering with the faster guy about to pass him on the inside line by turning his board sideways across the course (1:49) and then continues to block near the finish by drifting across the faster guy's line. "Interference" I cried, and then realized there are no rules for boarder cross, it's a free-for-all that is not about who's fastest through the course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPxUcCTfFVk At least short track speed skating has enforced rules about passing and interfering.

Thanks to Bob for starting this thread. I think many of us enjoy viewing and analyzing our tracks, plotting a different approach on the ride back up. Just looking back through this thread brings me back to how it felt making those tracks, or imagining how it might have felt laying down others' tracks. This is from a particularly nice day with perfect snow for carving earlier this season at Wild Mt... Before... and after... This was 90% man-made snow (we wouldn't be riding here without snowmaking these days), but it had the plush, smooth-as-silk feel of 2nd or 3rd day groom after a dump at Aspen, not the typical icy hard and chunky stuff. I told one of the owners this, and he beamed and said that they had some kind of 'special process'. Now, that could have been B.S., but it was some of the best snow I saw all year, outside of Aspen!

A board can have a single sidecut radius and still have taper. They're not necessarily linked. Just sayin', as I thought that was true too, until I got a single radius REV with 2cm of taper.

Thought you might do that. I thought about going too, as I was putting a summer coat of parrafin wax on my little quiver of boards last night. I figured that should guarantee a big dump in April. Rich is going up to Lutsen tomorrow. Looks like they are getting winter temps and snow all week. I'm thinking about boats and stuff...

Is Spirit going to have it's own Bridge Run?

Thanks guys. Boardski, as you may know, it's splitting da mind in two, so a challenge to get the riding and the filming as good as it might be with one mind. And yes, icebiker, good eye, there's a wee bit of slow-mo in the mix, about 3/4 speed in some turns and about ½ speed at the end. Seems to make it more as my mind's I sees it when riding.

1st tracks March 4th. I love the contrails of snow lit by the sun.

Ken and I drove up to Lutsen yesterday, Monday. Rode from 9:30 to about 3:30. Intermittent overcast most of the morning became mostly sunny. Snow was firm in the morning and softened up later. Decent coverage, though had to watch for the occasional brown spot. No lift lines and little traffic. Started on Bridge run which had hard frozen sections , so we moved over to Ullr for a more consistent groomed surface while things softened up elsewhere. We then rode the new gondo over to Moose where the snow was way softer and already mushed up into piles by skiers, so hard on the knees, but we powered through. Made a note to remember that Moose faces south and can soften up sooner! We saw evidence of a few new trails being cut on the SW end of Moose and what looked like lift towers stacked on the ground. Back over to Bridge run in the early afternoon for some great carving and finished up on Ullr with some fine surfy carving. Ken, being unfamiliar with the trails, usually had me lead the way, and said that there was a lot of rubber necking above on the chairs as we went by. We were aliens in a skier dominated world. Tracks in the firm early morning groom... ...and the last soft surfy turns of the day