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jatkinson

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Posts posted by jatkinson

  3. New Coiler owner wondering about tuning and maintenance routines for weekend warrior?

    in Carving Central

    Posted · Edited by jatkinson

    I am looking at a shiny new Coiler that still has factory wax on it.

    Relatively new to alpine (second season) and wondering if my usual maintenance routine is good enough.

    Normally I would hot wax with an old clothes Iron at the start of the season and every 6 days or so. Edges sharpened with a toko file/bevel gauge as needed. This was for my old soft boot board.

    What should I be doing with a proper alpine board. I will probably get ~20 days on the snow this season.

    Cheers and thanks for advice.

    JJ

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  4. Family trip

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    I doubt Whistler would work as it is not really "family" in my view. Big White or Silver Star are.

    As a Whistler regular (with kids 3/7) I would disagree. The whistler kids program is fantastic. We have our kids in ski camp every weekend and have nothing but good to say about our experience.

    Terrain-wise Whistler has pretty much everything you could want. Lots of non slope activities. Stay out of Village centre. I prefer blackcomb base or bench lands area. Easy walk to the village and quiet.

    When there with kids we aren't out super late, so haven't had any issues with the rowdy crowd. I go hard all day and am ready for bed by 9-10 anyway.

    Happy to answer any questions. Would be nice to see another hard booter more often.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  5. 2015-2016 New Board Porn (new purchases)

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    Here is my new baby!

    Coiler Nirvana 183x23 10.5/12.7/12m

    Built for a big boy. 6'4", 240lbs, Mondo 30.

    I asked for a good all mountain board for busy weekend days. Has a bit more nose height than standard and I believe a touch more taper than standard.

    Ptex top and bottom.

    Haven't ridden it yet. Looking forward to it.

    337afb037badcbaba422cc9e28ece910.jpg

    c80e5119a6c26249e233d51a83e1b33a.jpg

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    • Like 2

  9. Apocalypse carving board - a blast from the past

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    You aren't kidding about the stance width.  I didn't measure before heading out to the hill, I just set it up as wide as the bindings would allow.  After two runs of hating life and feeling absurdly tippy I realized that it was just WAAAAY too narrow a stance for me to ride.  Fortunately for me it was a good powder day in the high alpine and I had my freeride board and soft boots (gasp)with me.

     

    When I got home I measured the stance and realized that it was 4.5" narrower than my usual stance (17.5" vs 22").  No wonder it felt weird.  How did you guys ever ride such narrow stances back in the day?

     

    I can see if if you are <5' tall.  I am 6'4", certainly didn't work for me.  Going to give it back to the owner in case he ever meets a smurf who is interested in alpine.

     

    I guess I am going to need to break down and buy myself a board.  Stay tuned for the "help me choose" post to follow some time soon.

  10. Apocalypse carving board - a blast from the past

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    My friend who has been lending me his Prior has kindly gifted me with a piece of snowboard history. I suspect he didn't want me hitting any rocks with his baby, so donating an old board to the cause was worth it to him.

    I thought the snowboard historians might be interested. 177cm long, around 18.5cm waist. Feels fairly stiff. Has a rather unique channel in the base. Planning to test it out this weekend.

    e33157d0246b6d39d495234c01a4f45b.jpg

    7f05f50a0580919008be4f1d69f0fc7f.jpg

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  11. New Board porn 2014/2015

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    Wood core made from the Howard Huges Spruce Goose Airplane wing spars.

    Top sheet has a composite mix from official NBA basketballs for extra bounce.

    Base is made from the latested super slippery slidy material from NASA, Slidatonium...

    The edges are crafted from the leading edge material on the Apache attack helicopter blades...

    The core has been tuned with special blend of cosmic, organic and inorganic materials....that I am not allowed to discuss...

     

    Don't forget to wax it with a special paste of unicorn tears and pixie dust

  12. Dr. Strangeboot Or: How I Learned to Stop Jibbing and Love the Carve

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    "CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!WOOOOOHOOOOO!CRAP!CRAP!CRAP!WOOOOHOOOO!"

    I love this!  As a fellow noob I am enjoying following your progress, and can relate to being dragged onto steeper runs than I perhaps should be by my wife.  Our resort has a run tracker app that lists your max speed for the day and I was getting quite a lot of trash talk about being slower than her.  Fixed that last weekend! :eek:  (yes I know that the speed readings on a phone aren't particularly accurate, but the loser buys beer after riding)

     

    This week I had an interesting/scary thing happen.  On a very boring cat track that leads from the chairlift to the actual run, I was not paying much attention and doing little relatively low speed cross under type turns.  I must have lost my balance a bit and really dug the edge in to catch myself, because in the space of about half a second the board really hooked up into a carve that sent me flying head first off the edge of the track and 20-30m down a rather steep bank.  I suspect this is what getting "highsided" means. 

     

    I was lucky that it happened where it did, as there were not too many rocks and I missed all of them. If it happened 5 seconds earlier I would have gone down in a bunch of jagged high alpine rocks and would be rather unhappy right now.

     

    Moral of the story: I will be treating the board like a loaded gun and paying attention at all times.  Also, I will give steep rocky dropoffs a wider berth from now on!

     

    Cheers and happy carving.

     

    JJ

  13. Head Stratos Pro replacement liners

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    I have now had an opportinity to test out the SBC....  Allow me to preface this by saying that I only have 3 days hard boot experience and one day with these liners, so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

     

    The liners seem to fit the boots quite well and fill up the upper cuff nicely.  Once molded my feet were comfortable all day.  I did not open my buckles until I got back to the car.  The liners did feel slightly looser towards the end of the day than the beginning, but it is possible that my technique was getting sloppy and I was getting thrown around more.  I tightened the buckles a notch or two over the course of the day.

     

    One issue that I found was that my ankle bones on the inside of both ankles were a bit sore.  I was hoping new liners would remedy this, but I think that perhaps I just have bony ankles and need so spend some time with a bootfitter.

     

    JJ

  16. Head Stratos Pro replacement liners

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    I have just dropped a new set of intuition liners into head boots.  The model I got is not listed on their website, but was designed for snowboard boots with input from the Canadian snowboard team (or so the story goes).  I believe the model is called SBC or something like that.  I tried on several liners in their showroom in Vancouver and these were by far the most comfortable.  They are much higher than the stock liners and the overlap style of cuff seemed to fit the space in the boot cuff better than the others.  Once heat molded they feel pretty sweet.

     

    I have not ridden them yet, so can't give a definitive report.  I will check back on Monday and let you know how they work on the snow.

     

    JJ

  19. Technique differences for ICY conditions.

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    Thanks for the suggestions.

     

    My suggestion is to try a plate on your board. As a new rider most will say this is a bad idea but if you do a little research on plates you will read that plates will make a board work better in poorer snow conditions. It's just what it does. Of course you have to have done all the other things first, sharp edges, proper technique etc. Perhaps someone in your area has one you can try. There have been a few for sale recently for really good prices. As a recreational rider I would recommend one like the Bomber 4mm lite. As an Ontario rider  on mostly boiler plate conditions it is always on one of my boards, we'll three actually. You can ride longer with more confidence without getting beat up in the slough. When conditions are good put the plate away.

    The plates look interesting, but as I don't even have my own carving board yet, that will have to wait for a bit.

     

    Stand up tall and you're toast.

    I figured that one out pretty quick and have the bruises to prove it.  :freak3:   Staying low and angulating, keep weight directly over the edge (no toilet sitting or snow reaching) did seem to help.

  20. Technique differences for ICY conditions.

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    Hi All!

     

    I now have a whopping 2 days under my belt in hard boots and am really enjoying the new challenge.  I have spent more time reading this forum than my employer should know about, and by midway through my second day things are starting to click.  My carving has improved drasticly from day 1 and while far from perfect I am pleased with the progress so far.

     

    This winter has not been kind to Whistler (4cm of snow in the past month or so), and as a result many of the runs look more like inclined skating rinks than ski runs.  Are there any specific techniques I should be concentrating on when I hit those patches of bulletproof ice?  I suspect that the perfect technique is pretty much the same, but ice exposes flaws more than softer snow.  I have managed to find a rythym on icy spots from time to time and managed some decent carves, then other times I am sliding all over the place.  I have not managed to nail down the differences in my inputs that are causing this.

     

    Any suggestions would be appreciated. 

     

    Cheers,

    JJ

  22. Yield to down hill rider/skier

    in Carving Central

    Posted

    Many many years ago some ancient miserable guy came up behind me while I was doing mini turns on one side of a cat track.  He wanted to pass me so he started hitting me with his pole on my shoulders/head.  When he passed me he was yelling at me about clogging up the run (which I was only using about half of).

     

    I was about 15 at the time and so shocked that I didn't say or do anything.  If that happened today it would probably end quite differently.

    • Like 1

  24. Whistler/Blackcomb March 5-7.

    in Canada - British Columbia

    Posted

    A few weeks back it was really ugly. Torrential rain top to bottom. Since then it has actually been decent as long as you like hardback. The past two weekends have been beautiful sunny with hard fast snow. Might get a bit of fresh this week. No question everybody is itching for some pow. Don't even think about riding to the base, download the last chair. Check Facebook for Whistler Unofficial Snow Report to get some first hand on mountain updates.

    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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