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monkeyfarm

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  1. Wow... This sport is going to make my brain hurt as much as my a$$...
  2. Yup... Base grind, edge sharpened fresh (fast!) wax, etc. I'll have to give all of these a try next time I go up. Thanks so much for the help. At least I have soem idea what to do (North +/- 70 degrees is better than my random shooting in the dark! :) )
  3. Well, I had the opportunity to work from the "alpine office" today. Went to Sugar Bowl to try out the board I just got from eBay. I now have as far as set up goes: Oxygen kr72 UPZ RC10 boots SnowPro Race bindings After spending the first three runs spending a lot of time on my butt and questioning this whole decision I sorta got the hang of it. Ended up being able to link some weak carves on shallow slopes. However, one thing that I had a heck of a time figuring out is that when I'm on heel side, just initiating the turn, it seems that the board wants to pivot around my left/lead foot. That is the tail wants to come around. Not a "skid" feeling but the tail seems to want to come around in a lot longer arc that it "should" vs. the front. On shallow slopes I could control it by really concentrating on leaning on the heel edge, but as soon as the slope got steeper the same thing happenend. I totally understand that as I learn I'll figure out how to deal with this stuff, but I'm wondering if there's anything I can do setup-wise to mitigate this issue? My rear foot is about 5deg shallower than my front. Could increasing the angle theoretically force my hips to be more square and thus get rid of this rotation? My stance is as wide as the board's inserts will allow and I can't really move it forward or back on the board. Any suggestions? I've tried searching for "rotation" as I figure it's gotta be a pretty common issue, but there's so many threads that are not quite like how this feels. Like I said, it's not a skid feeling or a washout feeling... Ever ride those rip-sticks? Kinda feels like that...
  4. Man, thanks for all the feedback! Interesting points on the knee/tuck issue. I could swear that I read here or on CarversAlmanac to do the whole "drive your back knee into the front knee" thing... I'll try not doing it next time and stand up straighter. One thing that I know I need to do is get used to the feeling of letting the board do the work. A few times I could really feel the edges kick in and more than once it kinda scared the **** out of me! :) I'm so used to having to "work" to get the board to stick in snow. In doing some more reading, I think I need to find some shallower slopes next time. I like Alpine, but there's not enough long runs that are flat enough for me to not crap my pants and focus on technique over survival. :) As to the foot pain, I think I just need some arch supports. I get the same issue in soft boots, rollerblades, basicaly anything that involves weight across the entire foot and it never gets a chance to release, pronate, whatever. I'm going to have to find an excuse to go up later this week!
  5. First time on hard boots! After assembling the bare minimum of gear (i.e. new Snow Pro Race bindings and new UPZ RC10's off eBay, bolted to my regular Never Summer freeride/all mountain board (not an alpine board) I headed out to Alpine (seemed appropriate :)) Meadows in Tahoe today. (Used alpine board is on the way, but I was impatient so binding switch and voila!) After the first hour of wishing someone would do a field amputation of my feet because they hurt so badly, I started getting the hang of it. I can see why people like large SCR's an narrow boards though. Took a while to get a stance that seemed to work. I tried out the default 3deg front cant and an extra 3deg (6 deg. total)rear cant and a heel-lift in back. Settled on binding angles of 45deg. front angle and a 35 deg. rear (I tried both @ 45 and it felt like my back knee was going to self-destruct... Probably because I'm terminally duck footed). I was able to get into that, "tuck the rear knee into the front knee" stance and "sit" back and I could actually feel it working. Pretty awesome. I was able to "carve" (yes, in quotes:cool:) when the slope was just right. But here's my first big question... I've been riding softies for years and at the end of the day it's always my rear (right) thigh that gives out. With this new hardboot thang my front (left) thigh was the first to go, and my right felt fine. This seems odd to me as I could swear that I was using my rear more to hold myself up as I tucked, but nope... My front leg was the one that died. So is this normal? Front leg getting more use? Or could this indicate that I need to do something with my setup or technique? These boots have more adjustment options than I can even begin to make sense of.
  6. I finally have boots and bindings, now I just need a board to stick them on other than my "regular" Never Summer freeride type board. I'm totally new to hard boot, but I've been riding since '96. I'm 5'9 and let's say #190. I live in NorCal so I go to Tahoe. Not much ice, pretty wide runs, etc. I'd like a good board I can grow into, push as I get comfortable, but won't kick my ass out of the blocks. I've heard that the Donek Axxess is pretty good, but after spending all the money on the boots and bindings, I can't justify $700 for a board just to try it out. Anybody got sumptin' they think that would work they want to unload? If you're in or around or go through Sac. on the way to Tahoe that would be cool.
  7. I'm trying to plan a trip Park City. I've heard there's at least one place there that will rent/demo full hard boot/carving setups. Is that still true? Can anyone tell me where (shop name, #, etc.)? Thanks!
  8. I've read all the guides, I've read BOL's store sizing charts, but I'm still confused. I measured my foot and get 26.8cm. According to BOL I round down to 26. But that doesn't make any sense to me as I wear 9.5 for like 80% of my shoes & boots with a few 10's. Everything I see online as far as Mondo->US conversion says that 26 is an 8 and that a 9.5 is 27.5. I could never wear an 8US shoe! Even posts in the for sale forum here have size references that seem to go against what I read on BOL's guides. Like this post http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=27289&highlight=size that references 26M=8US. Did I just do a really crappy job measuring my foot? I remeasured like three time and it comes out to 26.8 from heel to tip of big toe. Can someone tell me what I should really be looking for? Again, I'm 9.5/10 US and a little on the wide side. I'm guessing 27 with a mold-able liner would work. Yes? No? Help... I can't drop $300+ and have them not fit or kill my feet.
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