piusthedrcarve

Thanks for sharing...but Ouch. I will pay more attentions from now on.

Sorry for scaring you. It did happened after landing from a jump that caused my upper body to go over board. The other happened when a soft spot held the board. while I was charging.

:) hmm.. When I think back, it wasn't the reason but betterment of carving. :) But after those 2 accidents, I totally ditched the softboots. My boots were made by Marker, ... they were bullest and stiffest boots with plastic insert for its tongue and thick and bulky highbacks that were integrated with Marker's side step-in bindings. I rode them on probably 40-50 degree angles to carve. Riding style was old-fashioned way, for-after movement. I was at late 20s. When it happened, my front knee hit the snow. Boots were still locked into the bindings but the front binding pulled the heelside inserts out so were hanged loose. Ouch. I learned that No matter how stiff softboots setup is, first thing that fold would be the boots' ankle without any stopping. Last few seasons, I started to ride softboots on BX or carving specific snowboards. I had to suppress adrenaline to ride super aggressive and focus on my weight distribution more. I rode hardboots at same condition with less attention, knowing that hardboots will have a hard stop point that eventually break the board or pull inserts out before my ankle gets fold beyond point that it shouldn't. I will be much more happy standing with a broken $2k board than lying on the toboggan sled. The 3rd strap idea would be perfect solution for high stance angles with surfing style carving (I know you already do). But, softbooting needs ankle movements for various type of ridings with low stance angle and the 3rd straps idea is restricting the movement, I think.

I know it works with high stance angles. But I broke my front ankle and metatarsal (twice) when I nose-dived with higher angles. (Probably 45-ish). That’s why I started hard-booting initially. Looking for binding solution for low stance angles.

Yup. Carving specific bindings seems must if riders wants to keep the stance angles to be 'normal'. As you mentioned, I also noticed heelside blowout (at end of the turn) when I rode with 27F/12R. The board flex also played. But if I have more support on heelside turns, I could press or stack more the edge. Only way I can get those kind of support from highback is to sticking butt out with the binding angle. Maybe.... more forward stance angles (40/30) and watch for soft spots? or Extending highbacks where I press on heelside turn, like wings. (as a regular stance rider, I need left wing on both bindings)? Dang..another thing or two to test...

So true. but the technique can only do so much if they have wrong tools for a job.

It has been. More and more, we see softbooters carve on the hills and more people has asked me how to carve than before. Some youtube videos of pro-riders carve in half pipe were shared thru social media channels. To me, it seems carving is shown as a technique on already possessed gears that they have on. That's why we see a lot of toilet-sitting heelside turns. I think current available bindings play big role there,

I disagree. BX boards has much larger SCR(s) to go fast. Year after year, BX boards have been designed specifically to its race courses (few turns here and there but with more rollers). Now some well known Worldcup BX boards are built with 15 -17m SCR. As a alpine rider, I know how to bend it but a lot more effort are needed. Generally speaking, if a snowboarder want to carve like hardbooters with a softboot snowboard, he/she will be better off with a board with different dimension and construction of current BX boards. And I am finding very promising designs from above discussed Asian softboot specific carving boards. I can't speak for all hardbooters but, at least for me, I am searching for a softboot carving board because I want to ride with kids and have fun with them, like doing ground tricks, jumps, and etc. but also carve well too, according to our 'carving' standard. Some (at least we know one) are just too lazy to pack multiple boards for a once-a-year trip so looking for one that carves well. :) But I bet majority who wants to carve like hardbooters on softboot snowboards would be coming off from mass-market rocker snowboards or magna-crap camber boards with grom size effective edge length that has promoted skids rather than turns. Those Asian carving specific softboot boards' hammerhead decambered nose, long effective edge length, similar but progressive SCRs, familiar flex, and new construction (probably necessary to compensate the "normalization") have led them to learn and carve properly, as we seen them on YouTube. Now the Asian board companies even offer various models for rider's level or type of ridings (i.e. BC Stream's RX, R2, H). It all evolve with demands. Few years ago, North America snowboard brands took a chance with backcountry riding, A lot of POW specific boards (swallowtail, split, etc.) came out and added to their model line up. But I think ROI of those models must have been pretty bad. I see this carving trend is more favorable. If they see this as an opportunity, they need to step up, instead of promoting 'already-existed', 'misleading', 'hype-driven' technologies.

From Tetongravity.

You're welcomed. But please read reviews of Flux bindings before you commit. Flux bindings has been reported for lack of foam on footbed, which is valid point for freestyle riders or riders who jump alot. Also, the footbed are not canted. I, personally, like minimal foam footbed so that I can feel the board flex under my feet. For cant option, I am tinkering with @erazz's solution (3D printed plates). That will allow me to customize Lift, Cant, Height, and possibly firmness (70a - 90a), like TD3 e-rings or TD1 bumpers/Apex Gecko bumpers.

Check out Flux DSW bindings too. http://www.flux-bindings.com/products/dsw/

Good news. I have spoken to Shane Kang, the builder of the Alloy snowboards, and asked some questions regarding the unusual SCRs and possibility of widening the width of D.O. He told me that D.O. is built for BX also and the SCR is decided accordingly. And the final spec. has been determined from many tests. I specifically told him the avg. feet size of the western and recent trend of widening width. He told me that he'll consider widening up the waist of the D.O., as D.O. has been updated every year or may introduce a new model, based on feedbacks and demand. I feel very good about Alloy since communications from distributor and builder have been prompt and seemed they listen and willing to cooperate.

This question is probably to @P06781. Hopefully some of BOLers will have a chance to ride D.O. before me.

While I was tinkering with @erazz's 3D plates file, I contemplate to make the plates with flexible material, like Gecko's bumpers (70a durometer), with my preferred cant & lift built in. Cheap ass version of Bomber Power Plates.

Yup. The 'Steps' value did it. Changed it to 20 and got it converted in less than 10 minutes. Thanks!

Yup. I actually searched for the avg. foot size and found this. https://www.statisticbrain.com/shoe-size-averages/ Male Adult in US: 10.5 (= 285 mm) Female Adult in US: 9 (probably women size 9) = (250 mm) Avg. male Korean adult* = 270 mm Avg. Female Korean adult* = 235 mm * sourced from a Korean website. I wear one of smallest foot print softboot (Burton Driver X 10.5). I usually set at 27/12 for riding and am happiest with 26-27cm width boards. I'm planning to add canted soft material 3D plates under bindings without usual canted thick foam.

I generated 2 STL files for front & back plate separate using OpenSCAD. The rendering time took almost an hour. Is that normal? Rendering Polygon Mesh using CGAL... Geometries in cache: 472 Geometry cache size in bytes: 74343584 CGAL Polyhedrons in cache: 1 CGAL cache size in bytes: 78007448 Total rendering time: 0 hours, 53 minutes, 39 seconds Top level object is a 3D object: Simple: yes Vertices: 50661 Halfedges: 179816 Edges: 89908 Halffacets: 78494 Facets: 39247 Volumes: 2 Rendering finished. STL export finished.

Shred, I am working on that for Moss and Yonex thru Japanese alpine riders. Hopefully, I get more detailed info. of the mentioned boards soon :)

Don, Here are some of questions that were from other treads. Folks, if you have questions on D.O., please ask here instead. I can hardly keep up with all the softboot specific carving snowboard posts in separate threads. (yeah.. too lazy) so that other can find information of the D.O. in one thread.

Northern VA. I rarely go Snowshoe since it is 5 hours drive. But Snowshoe will be the only resort that is planned to open on the end of March.

Hi @Randy Kight, I'm planning to ride at Snowshoe for the last week of March (their closing date is 4/1 currently). If you can come, please join.

Yup. me too. The US distributor is in CT. I already got contacted by the guy and should be able to test the D.O. by end of this season. If not late, I will ask him if I can pass the demo to you also. Now, more and ever, I wish I live in CO. FYI, the blogger (Gatsby) is the builder & co-founder of Alloy, ex-pro rider, and board reviewer for 'BoardKorea', biggest snowboard retailer in Korea. He is a family member of the D.H. Metal company that produced Alloy's 'Chronic Booster', the inserted Nickel/Chrome alloy metal. I feel good about Alloy D.O by looking at the spec. As I reviewed Endeavor early this season, I confirmed that there are many new features that allow non-alpine board to carve like alpine boards. Most stand out features from Endeavor were seamless edges and partial titanal layer. Although it was little too softer for my riding, the soft flex allowed me to play around easily, which is good thing. I suspect this Alloy D.O. will ride much like an alpine snowboard. hmm.. I will save my words until I ride it.

The D.O. model is very interesting. They replaced titanal with different metal nickel/chrome alloy that they claims the most springy metal materials. Also, same as Endeavor 'hammerhead', they placed the alloy in two separate beams instead of whole sheet. If they dialed in with right flex, it could be the one that deliver all the advantage of titanal layers with pops/liveness.

I heard ALLOY, one of these Asian hammerhead carving specific softboot snowboards, will be available for US market for next season. Check out ALLOY D.O.