st_lupo

I would recommend ordering a bag of extra t-nuts for the F2s (Donek sells them), and inspect them at least once a season. I've had half of s flange break off of one of the nuts after about two years of use. They are definitely stainless though.

Hmm, Bombogenesis? BOMBERGENESIS! Fin needs to get the store up now and capitalize on this!

That one is so 2017, all the cool kids are using these now...

Hey cin welcome to the best place for carving off of the snow! I've only been at this for three years now so a lot of my first questions/uncertainties about the sport are still pretty fresh in my mind as well as what brought me my biggest initial payoffs... Your personality type sounds ideal for the sport and I think that you'll find BOL to be a rich source of information to get you started and to keep you advancing. There are lots of fantastic people here who are incredibly helpful and I would expect for you to get tons of feedback when you ask for it, often it might seem like the fire-hose treatment. Some will be very practical and easy to apply some may be more zen sounding and might take a year before you understand it. I keep revisiting my old threads and find that with a accumulating experience comes a better understanding of what was being taught. Some Kesslers do sound really scary, but I've got a friend that insists that there are some Kessler alpine boards that are absolutely wonderful to ride, even for the beginner (I think he was referring to the 168?). I learned the basics on an F2 Silberpfeil which is a perfectly adequate board so I don't think those other F2s should be too bad. Yes and yes on Corey's video. Along with learning the fundamentals (posture, balance, etc) you also have to learn to effectively apply those fundamentals to control your situation. Learning the j-turn (and linking completed c-turns) is a critical application (if not the critical application) of the fundamentals that gives you the tool you need to control your speed and graduate up to the steeper slopes. When I was completely new, this battle was typically won or lost in the first two turns. Either I would stabilize at a controllable amount of speed early or my speed would start running away and each successive turn would become more difficult and consequently more shallow, leading to even more speed. Beckmann described this to me as a momentum cascade which is an apt description. I think it is a good idea to start on groomers to get a feel for what you are shooting for. Get out early and try to experiment and push your technique when the groom is still in good shape. Then learn to apply what you've learned on the chop later in the day. When you start linking those turns and really carving, I promise you are going to feel it. Also play it safe: 1)give yourself some margin for error; your velocity vector is going to be pointing off towards the trees a fair amount of time and you don't want to get booted off into them at mach speed. 2)keep an eye on the people that are both downhill and uphill. (Probably especially the people that are uphill). Beware of some rabbit holes on BOL. There are lots of folks at really advanced levels here that are maximizing their carving and sometimes it is difficult to discriminate what is essential for the beginner and what is fine-tuning for that extra 10% performance. Definitely read the tech articles! Tech articles Read them, go: huh?... . Go riding. Read them again go aha!

I can sympathsize. We've had nothing but new snow at my local hill for the past couple of weeks. It's shaping up to be a crappy season?

Thanks for the info!

Maybe a really stupid question, but I've always wondered what the UPZ spoilers are for? What adjustment to they provide for that isn't accomplished by the lean adjuster and booster strap? Is it just fine tuning that only a pro-rider would appreciate?

@bigwavedave if you get a chance to try the MK, I'd be really interested in hearing your impression of it compared to the Kessler 162.

This just came up in my YouTube feed: Looks fun and the sound of the board on the snow is fantastic.

God Jul! A great gift waiting outside on the second day of Christmas! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to be up on the hill in 10 minutes ?

Every review on this board sounds so awesome! Why aren't there more vids of it on youtube?

NOT Mg! During portions of the year they'll salt the courses for the local racing club, so pictures of emmental cheese comes to mind.

I guess there is going to be some relativism, but at our local ski hill in Norway there are definitely some of the park rats that are figuring out what those steel edges are for.

A loner sport with fiddly hardware and a steep (pun intended?) learning curve? Suites me fine! Is there anything better than taking smug glances at the rental equipment on the feet of the other people sharing the chairlift while sitting with arms folded and leaning as far away from them as possible? Even better are the nights where you suddenly wake, bolt upright, with your heart pounding in sweat soaked sheets with the taste of pine bark in my mouth and the dim recollection of shooting off into the woods at 60 mph after catching an off-side edge on chopped up ice. Or... Maybe its Europe, but I've probably met more people and wound up riding with more random strangers because of the weird looking board dangling from my foot. For me one of the best social aspects of hardbooting is that it almost brings back the vibe of snowboarding in the early(ish) days, where most boarders were weirdos and just doing their own thing, and when you met another like-minded snowboarder it was always a party.

With all the Colorado folks here I’m surprised that no one has pointed out that those are actually Buffs colors.

I like love the sunrise but it needs an airplane to make it perfect .

Good stuff, thanks!

the stock screws are definitely too short. The discs are still seated in the bindings from last year when they were on an F2 Silberpfeil. For giggles I took a calipers and measured the depth to the opening of the first thread and the Kessler is a hair over 2mm deeper than both my Coiler and Silberpfeil. Yes, that Aass Fatøl was to provide an easily relatable length scale . In my house it is called by it's proper name Fat Ass beer While we're on the topic of bindings, I've always been a little unclear as to the different mounting schemes beyond 3-D, 4x4 and Burton's channel system. Below is a picture of 6 Kesslers with apparently 3 different hole patterns (for plates). Can anybody clue me into what the different hole patterns are? .

Perfect, thanks!

Hi all, I realize I've got two strikes against me from the start (non TD bindings and a European board), but here goes... I just bought a used Kessler 162 sight unseen, and received it not to long ago. There has obviously been a plate system mounted on it previously. I'm just trying to mount a pair of F2 Race Ti bindings and the stock screws are not long enough for the job. It looks like there is a lot more material above the threads of the 4x4 inserts than I'm used to and the stock F2 screws get probably get a max engagement of 1.5 threads. I obviously can't ride the board like this... So the two question are: 1) I though that 4x4 was a 4x4 so I'm surprised that these screws don't work... Can I use my Race Ti bindings without a plate on this board, or are the inserts designed to support a plate? 2) If I can use my bindings, what is the proper screw dimension? ok three, questions. it's actually three questions 3) What do all of the numbers mean in the first of the attached picture? Thanks for any help!

Love the flying beanie in the first wreck.

Along with the variant "Kamikaze" where slide on your back, head first, towards the trees, on ice.

One Scoop - Typically in slushy conditions where hard into a turn the snow just gives up resisting the board and the board kinda shluffs out from under you. You wind up plowing a lot of slush with the board and scooping up tons of slush into your jacket.

This is the best news I've seen in a while, and am stoked that BOL is back up. I'll also say I'm pretty impressed at how well the community stuck together and how several individuals went that extra mile to help keep everybody in touch and informed (both the obvious: Corey and Fin, and the not so obvious: folks who helped distribute copies of the tech articles, etc). I guess the hardboot community is like the snowboard equivalent of the cockroach? Just to make things more robust for the community in the future, is there anyway to extricate the BOL forums from the legal obligations of the BOL business? I realise it takes money to run the forums and that BOL pays for the hosting because it derives a lot of its business from the forums, but I'm sure some arrangement could be made. A lot of the information contained in the forums is community derived and it really sucks when it gets held hostage due to a bad business deal.