SteveInOregon

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Reply: Yes , yes of course under "control" and on a vacant mid week slope :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thank You for the welcome: Include me I have been hit and had close calls by the score by out of control types, basically immature young guys who are trying to put on a show. The differece is I am 46 years old , a matured seasoned rider, (been on a SB since 88), never ever ever hit anyone,I dont thread the needle either. Iv'e never been stopped by the ski patrol, ( unless Hios nae was Fin , lol ) Iv'e never been confronted by an irate skier etc.... so I don't fit the classical definition of "strait liner". I mix speed with turns, I find 20mph boring, I come from an amature road race motorcycle background and love for speed boats. ( was "Carver on line" domain taken ) The problem could be from with taking your identity from what you do for fun. 1st I carve, ( not really well ) but I do I ( but I'm not a carver ) I also fly fish ( not really well ) but I not a fly fisherman "and" I fish with a spinning outfit too I'm not even a spin fisherman. I apologize if I am dragging this out a bit but I get "bombed" ( pun intended ) for speaking about going fast all the time. ( I put my foot in my mouth by starting another thread about bombing ) I'm neither a carver nor a bomber , I "am" a highly experienced snow board rider who can go moderatly fast under good control in bad conditions ( I was raised on so Cal snow making & golf ball skied moguls ) who is switching over to HB to build more high speed & turning skills & experience through patience and better equipment. As for fishing I am a cross over I do both, I carry both to the river, the fly fishers look down on the spin fishers as troglodytes, and the spin fishers look down on the fly fishers as snotty purists I laugh because I peruse both. I ride Harley, a clean one, I wear clean leathers, and have a buzz cut, I don't drink smoke or act anti social "and" I still get treated like a dirt bag biker, and I ride a BMW and get treated like a white collar yuppie. My dragged out point is I don't take my identity from fun hobbies , sport and past times so I don't fit stereo types If I were a pro GS SB'er I would still not take my inner core identity from it, ya I would say " I am a racer" but I know deep in my heart it could be over in one crash, so I remain detached from such identification. I surf but I am not a surfer I snow board but I am not a snowboarder, The only identities I care to wear as being part of my total self have nothing to do with past times, sports and fun. Sorry for the rant, but this is deeper than being an out of control dangerous dead head dork going strait down a hill willy nilly not caring if he runs up on someone or threads the needle while giving a close shave to some innocent person, I dont fit that "identity" and never did.;) Take Care.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Reply: Ya , weight , bulk & lack of hearing is the issue with motorcycle helmets, but here is the best most versatile one around, its my road-sport bike helmet. If I ever get up to the 60's or above in speed I will bring my Nolan N43 Air along, till then I will stick with my Scott. http://www.nolanhelmets.com/n43trilogyncom.htm PS: Yes some very cheap helmets meet or beat some of the much more expensive helmet's in A.N.S.I testing , "but" they are usually very UN-comfortable to wear lacking all the plush cushiness & extra goodies that high end lid's have.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Reply: You can also ride a Hayabusa at 200mph with no helmet just a body suit & sun glasses, lol. It's all about Value my friend , how much do you value your life, health and future vs ego satisfaction. Example of poor value vs satisfaction , bad risk vs reward: I rode my old RD 400 2 stroke street racer at top speed doing wheelies in every gear until I hit a slick spot in the road and found myself clutching my femur sticking "out" of my leg trying to stop the bright red blood "shooting" out of the hole were the bone was sticking out, as the paramedic said almost the same thing you just said after they got me into mast / splint . That was only 1 of the multiplicity of injuries I brought on myself on that particular bad value judgment day. What I remember the most was the 2nd thing he said "why don't you save your bravery for something like war" !!!! Now that I have been injured seriously so many times (I'm in pain all the time ) I wear a helmet and some form of armour and / or helmet on all my rides, motorcycle, roller blades, kayak, or snowboard etc.....

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Naaaa, I just cant get over the Mac Daddy Puff Booty Diaper Buddy thing but my A** is on the line. Here is what I am going to buy because I have a quiver of motorcycles and these have asphalt race tested & approved armour http://www.actionstation.com/catalog/proddetail.php?prod=BGLA

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is that the Red Monster / Red Devil -Diablo I saw up at the repair shack in Mnt A ? There was a super long red one leaning up right next to the metallic silver 180 that I tried out ? Then there was the one probably even longer I saw on You tube, I take it that was You ? That Big Red Gun reminded me of growing up in San Diego and surfing the reef break on old long boards, lol. UPDATE: So I have a 2 nights and one full 5 hr day on my E-bay bought hard plates & hard boots attached to my old gun and I am loving it. You guys are right about 1) the need for cant & tilt , riding flat is not good, 2) parallel plate degrees is also not good , 3) and more forward low degree numbers front foot position is better.

I did a pretty good "a** pass" when in transition from one late afternoon chunky groomer to another at about 40'ish today. I took an A-Dump on the ice field between run's , my "buttumous bonous" went WACK against the ice :freak3:when I tired to carve heal side to turn into the next groom, I all of a sudden knew I was vulnerable right in the back side so now I am gonna shop for a tail bone insert, one that is comfortable enough to walk around, sit and chill beer in hand and has enough protection to fend of a hooligan body check or dump at speed . The moral of the story is "CYA"

.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Reply: If my KMP to MPH conversion is right your blazing along at 60 mph:eek:, WOW that is my goal to go as fast as possible given my equipment and terrain, which seams to be ( guessing ) to be in the 40's tucked in all the way, but 60mph is evil fast ( bowing, I'm not worthy ) I love it, I like it better than carving , I like hitting a small convex and flying thru the air strickly due to speed, just like I did when I have a tunnel hull jet boat > the slightest swell and the whole boat would catch some air, the board and my old boat like it smooth and flat otherwise it get's a bit "jiggy", lol. I will have to go to another mountain to hit 60 and survive. Maintainable & controllable speed seems to be very run specific, the mountain I am close to ( litteraly only 10 miles away ) is so steep with such narrow run's only a "highly" experienced bomber , a semi pro or pro could do 60mph on a long board "and" negotiate the narrows, turn and / or stop in time. The mountain I ride the most has runs that are only the width of a 4 lane freeway with hardly a strait away to be had anywere on the mountain. Now Mnt Bachelor from what I hear seams to be the place to "test my testicles" around here , lol, they say it's long & wide perfect to do an F14 imitaton on a F2, lol.

As a beginning H-Boot'er, and a highly experienced S-Boot'er, ( riding since 88) this is my "1st Impression" of two things. 1) Hard booting > after *free carving in Burton Driver X on an old Morrow 176 * F-Carve board for years, I bought my 1st H-Boots and hard plate's ( old 2nd hand gear on E-bay of course ) last week. & 2) Testing a brand new *Diablo brand carbon fiber laminate / composite boarder cross type carve board as I remember it was a 180cm ( a lot longer than my 176 ) with a shallow side cut , narrow width and , round tail with mild turn up in the tail, ( sorry about the lack of true measurements ) but the maker/ owner of Diablo who posts here often will give you all the particulars. I was having my old Morrow drilled to accept the hard plates and the Owner of Diablo Eric was SUPER kind, patient & generous enough ask me if I wanted to ride a new board and volunteered to bolt my hard plates to his new long board demo and "let me loose" 1st ride Impression> WOW this is "da s*** !!! The boots: ( clean old Reichle SBH & good condition Rossi bail style hard plates are love @ 1st ride !!! I must have been asleep all these years !!! , the feel , the drive , the control and feed back , the snap turn-ability was 110 %` better than softies. The Board: Man-O-man, the new long & narrow Diablo was WAY out of my league , it was much faster than mine, and it did not want to turn or even hook up unless you are going FAST ( and that was easy to do ) then all of a sudden WAM it comes alive and bites a tite line that you must drive into or it will throw you off like right now if you dont fully commit to staying in a carve at speed. Sorry but I dont have enough H-Boot experience to give you a technical evaluation, only a newbee H-Booters 1st impression's. The Diablo lulled me into an idiots false sense of confidence, because I love to bomb then pop up and carve a hard couple hybrid toilet butt & surf tube'er linked turns then tuck in for another 100 yards or so and do it again, but the Diablo with H-Boots made me feel , perform and look like a scared bar stool jockey on a real rodeo dull, I was just hanging on for dear life but I couldn't not stop because the sense of slick power was addicting. This was on a just little shorty hill , LOL but in seconds flat the Diablo ate the hill and I was mesmerized so much by how knife like the Diablo was I would forget to slow down and I ended up making a few 20 yard long panic plow stops before I blasted into the lift line, because I got so into trying to handle the board that I would run out of hill, I knew I couldn't take this in the big mountain or I would end up having a 1 man yard sale , lol. I brought the board back exhausted ( the bindings needed cant & different angles, but so what ) I told the owner/builder in the repair shack that this board is possessed it really is the Diablo the Devil and it tried to kill me all the time it was lying to me telling me I can handle it, lol , Diablo lied and I almost died, lol. I'm HOOKED on hard boots, I now have a couple dozen night time steep intermediate bomb-carve runs on my old Morrow with the new ( 2nd hand ) hard boots and plates on it and its Sooooo much better because I know this board its not the Devil lol, its much more forgiving and "all mountain" oriented. The Diablo is not "fancy" looking, it has a small label , plain black Ptex bottom, no racing stripes or cool color type splash just a nice modern metallic carbon fiber look, but the builder / owner agrees with that some retro 50's / 60's mucle car racing stripes or number plates would be cool to do some experiential stuff to ad visual appeal. The Diablo seems to be made for a clean steep groom & long n real wide run's , also it seams to be made for an "advanced" carve-racer ( not me ) the Diablo is not suited to the typical ski'ed up ice chunk that I have to put up with. Anyways with the hard boots & plates on I almost feel like a real carver, :) That's my beginner HB'er impressions

I was wondering how fast I am on a tucked in run. I know I am not "FAST" like some of You race & GS guy's ( and gal's ) but I "get air" on the moguls and convex so I must be going "pretty fast", it feels like I am in the high 40's in MPH, but I am guessing So this begs the question apart from an expensive hand held radar gun plus a 2nd person is holding, just how fast do You know for sure You are going. Have you eve used a GPS ? and how fast is "fast" for you ? I was thinking on buying a hand held wind speed meter the kind my sniper friends use to measure wind speed and holding it or wearing it line a helmet cam to measure my speed / or calculated & converted mph or buying a GPS with MPH readout . What say You, how fast is fast for you ? Have you measured your speed ?

I use / wear a Cortech *brand textile ( 600 denier nylon ) motorcycle racing jacket with all the built in race approved armour, with removable cold weather liner, vents etc... M/Cycle jackets are a lot better for hard and high speed hits and can be a lot cheeper than S-Board jackets. Since I ride motorcycles a lot more than I ride a S-Board it was a no-brain'er. I don't over heat much because of the venting system and I also wear a cool max* wicking T-shirt underneath. I also wear a roller hockey type under-armour tights / body pants with built in shin-knee and hip pad's "and" I wear soccer knee pad's over that, all under my military large bib suspender overall's , You wouldn't even notice that I am all "puffed up" and built for a hockey game underneath my bib and jacket. Plus , I waer Kevlar palm & knuckle lined Motorcycle gloves with S-Board mitts over them !! so I don't scrape the leather off from left handing the groom in a hard over goof side Toe-Side ;). I will NEVER bomb without my body amour outfit,& helmet mostly because of other "out" of control riders, and less for taking a fall by myself. I think M/Cycle gear is cheaper due to the broader mass market & competition over ski & SB race gear.

I drove 100 miles each way to Shasta in nor Cali , 2 runs and "Im outa here", rain-sleet pellets, fog and human bowling pins every were on new year day.:(

Well since I am an intermediate bomber (( wanting to go faster )) and a beginning carver (( still in stiff softies )) I cant ad much high brow cool carver "tech talk" to the thread. All I can say is I went up on the bunny and tried a few runs to see how my home tune compared & complimented the icy conditions of Xmass day @ Mnt Ashland. My board is an old Morrow 175 free carve and it doesn't come "alive" and start to hook up & turn unless your going about 25 to 45 (( or faster for You advanced guy's )), but I am always fearful of bonking the 1st runs so I go slow on a small hill the 1st few times to get the lay of the land then, ride a Green or Blue hill then if all is well go "back in Black". The problem with being addicted to Bombing as a apposed to carving is its Ssoooooo easy to get in over my head & burn myself,. A Blue hill is plenty fast if I keep the board perfectly flat and tuck in LOooooow as in aero- dynamic curl surf tuck I can susually pass by 95 %` of the crazy park boy's like there old lady's but some of the skiers they just got the speed that make me look retarded, the super G casual skiers can pass me and look so cool with an imaginary glass if wine in thier hands blowing by me and me in my low tuck looking like a teenager on an new 600 sport bike all tucked behind the wind screen like Valentino Rossy only going freeway speed, lol. All is well, 4th time since Xmass, getting better Hard boots & plates on the way, cant wait. Bomb doors open.

I wish I could do that here in NJ Steve. I'm sure you can in Oregon though. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess NJ has no tall hills / mountains ? out here they are every were. Actually the only "obstacle" for lack of a better term is anti gun anti hunting socialists types who think I am raping & pillaging by hunting and being in the snow with a rifle, I pass them on X country skis with a happy-go-lucky "Hi How Are You" to them as they freeze in stark terror and clutch there children, lol.

Don't go way overboard on one hand and become paranoid , but don't deny the need to be self sustaining. 1)Physical fitness, be fit or get fit by hicking up the slope, the chair lift is great but "huff it" at least once every time you go boarding, ride a bike, do JuJitsu , what evger it takes to be able to fight & run and stay healthy. 2) Having a couple fire arm's and professional training (( google or YouTube Clint Smith of Thunder Ranch in southern Oregon )) 3) Save your money for a rainy (( blow it on a "snowy" )) day , lol. 4) Load up on canned goods and all the other stuff you would want to eat and eat without a stove or electricity . 5) Buy a lot of 1 or 2 gallon jugs of water rotate them but alway keep many gallons of water on hand. 6) Stay out of the big cites, (( they don't have snow covered mountain in the big city anyways , lol )) 7) Have a cheep 2nd ride with good gas mileage , such as a motor cycle., or Honda car or Toyota truck. 8 ) Learn to fish and hunt. 9) Grow veggies. 10 ) Join a food co-op 11) Eat simple & clean to your immune system stays top notch. 12) Make associations & friendships with farmers / ranchers and good counttry folks who help there neighbors and make trades for goods & services. 13) Hang out with smart motivated wise calm grounded tuff moral good people, ((dump the slackers they will hold you back when the going gets tuff )) 14) Learn about Ham radio (( google ARRL )) they are a fantastic back up communications system, even better in the back country. 15) Learn to make home made beer & or wine (( trust me on this one )) 16) Read abiout survival, financial servival , moral, emotional and physical survival. 17) Dont stress, when its You time to die You aint gona be able to do anything about it, and Cancer can get a foot hold on you if Your stressed out. 18) Dont tempt death, dare devils live by chance not by inner enlightenment, ego cancels out Your inner self protection, so dont kid Yourself about Your abilities. 19) Wear a helmet and listen to the silent inner voice that says " Boy your going to fast on this Heyabusa, lol. 20 ) Watch a little TV news , listen to some Talk radio, then turn it off just dont hide you head in the sand. 21) Do massive bong hit's of fresh mountain air when your riding up the mountain on the lift, (( trust me )) take the biggest tokes on the fresh air you can (( just a few )) it will do wonders for your health. 22) Treat people nice, give off a good helpful vibe , but don't take any s**t or fall into the soap opera minds games from anyone. 23) Practice being objective with a simple meditation (( nothing fancy )) of just sitting still with your eyes closed and watching You thoughts and emotions as they suck you into day dreams, (( don't over complicate this with mantras and intellectual stuff )) Just look at Yourself and then the world & people in your daily life like a child does with simple observation that way you can act from your inner silent intuitive self and be effortless and wise without even trying, Your SA= Situational Awareness will become highly advanced and you will be ahead of the game & know what to do instantly in what ever situation presents its self. 22 ) Ad 10 more things to this list, PEACE, lol :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Reply: That's a tuff one, do what I did and get a carving - split board , then strap on a little 94 Winchester Trapper, Teli across the flats looking to jump some big deer tracks or varmit tracks, if there is no sign of game then skin up to the top of the nearest peak and carve on down .

>>>>> Jeep CJ , end of story. I have lived at 7,500 ft for 4 winters strait and watched all kinds of 4x's and SUV's get stuck, from monster 44" gumbo monster mudder rigs to old school & new school Hummers to , Mecedes, to little very good rigs like my 05 Honda CRV (( my Honda is DAM good in snow & ice, "BUT" ain't nothin gona beat a 35 rolling inches of CJ with chains. My lil old experience / opinion

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shane or Eric, ( Sorry I'm bad with names ) I met You in the repair shop at Mnt Ashland NewYears weekend, You are definitely an ambassador for Carving & the Bomber community. You took the time to clue me in as a newer free ride carver into whats happening and out of now were offered to let me take out one of Your hand made high quality boarder cross rig's (( I will take you up on that offer when Shasta get a lil better )), anyways my birthday is March 7th and I should have some hard plates & boots by by then to put on top of my old Morrow 175 all mountain and show up to watch you and the more advanced Carvers and Bombers folr insperation on my 1st trip to Batchelor . Thanks for the nice welcome. peace Steve