st_lupo

Not me!

What, you have a foot fetish or something? Sicko. ;)

That rules! I sense a new board in the 2017/2018 lineup at Donek. The Mad Slipper!

Just wondering about the overall longevity of the board and cost of maintenance... Reading through their website I got the impression that occasional base grinds are needed In order to keep fresh glider exposed, but there is not indication of how often.

Definitely stoked; got a new Coiler and a barely used Kessler to add to the bag of toys. The main goal is to have fun (of course) followed by not hurting anybody else and upping my game. Looks like I'll have a trip to Utah in mid March, so hopefully I'll be able to trick somebody from BOL into meeting up and showing me how to really carve .

Bring out the Finn. Finn's sleeping... Well I guess you're gonna have to wake him up now won't you?

That’s another great reason that whatever online community emerges from this ought to secure the rights to the forum and the content for the community. I feel bad about the financial troubles of Bomber especially given the effort Jim and Angie put into trying to grow the sport. But I’m pretty sure that for most of us, the forums, the freindships and the collected knowledge go beyond the business concerns of Bomber, and it would be too bad if that whole history got lost due to legal issues.

Oh hey, you're that guy! I saw some of your videos a couple years back and it helped push me past the tipping point for ordering my first Coiler. Thanks!

That's great that we are getting multiple rally points, but we also need to try to prevent fragmentation of the group. Until we get a clear indication of the fate of the bomber forum, it might be best to keep the posts on lucid carving to things related to the technical aspects of getting the forum up and running the way Corey wants. Keep snowboarding things on Bomber still?

The self hosting price for Incision doesn't look too bad. How much traffic does the BOL forum generate? Shared hosting on Dreamhost can be a cheap alternative if the traffic is low.

I'll give this a STRONG second. I started riding hard boots on an F2 Silberpfeil and was having a great time. Then I ordered a Coiler from Bruce and was completely blown away. The difference was like driving a sports car with suspension (Coiler) and without suspension (F2). The Coiler was a much more stable and forgiving board (but also more aggressive) and allowed for me to focus on bulk technique, whereas the F2 in addition requires a lot of attention to negotiate the chatter. Plus Bruce is an all around great guy that will work with you to get you set up with a great ride at a price that is pretty inexpensive for custom boards. I've got a 2 Nirvanas (my original is a balance which I highly recommend) and #2 is an energy that I just bought this year and haven't ridden yet.

Haven't compared tables, but I use a Swix 120x45cm folding table at home for snowboards (up to 174) and skis (180+). I'm in the "ski hut" about 2 hours every week tuning skis for my daughter (while hiding from the rest of the family), and I love me that Swix table. Really burley and really stable. I use the Swix T-Bar clamps for my snowboards. It's got enough room for the files, stones, clamps, waxes, iron and a small stereo. As far as waxing irons, I use a Toko T8 iron. I'm generally pretty happy with that (definitely a huge step up from the clothes iron), but next time I will probably opt for something with a bit more thermal mass. But for the price it works really well.

I was sure that I'd stay out of the porn section this year, having scored a too sweet to believe it deal on a barely used Kessler 162. Then I talked to Tanglefoot and heard he was going to get a new Coiler. Then I heard Mrs. Tanglefoot was gettin a new Coiler. So I started thinking: how would an NFC Energy compare to my NFC Balance, and what magic could Bruce do on this time around now that I could give him some feedback on an established baseline? It was all just theoretical, mind you, and besides, my wife skis, so a custom built Coiler for her wasn't going to win any hearts and minds. So I sent Bruce an email "A Couple Hypothetical Questions", just to waste his time. Unfortunately, he was positive to the ideas, things escalated quickly and now I have to add my new Coiler NFC- Energy. Like Tanglefoot's board, it has .4mm titanal and is optimized for energetic riding and icy narrow slopes. I'll bet Bruce wound up with a record sales year for boards going to Norway. To rocket scientists. The new board is the blue one on the left, next to her 2 year old bigger sister (a .3mm tinanal NFC balance with slightly bigger length and radii).

Oh we know. I've been trying to print up t-shirts for the KFC, but keep getting rejected due to trademark infringment. I keep suggesting that we change the name to the Kongsberg Karving Klub and use those initials on the t-shirt, but everybody seems to have a problem with that?

Wait...wuh? Are the helmet straps supposed to go inside the sunglasses?

This goes for everything! Took apart a pair of F2 Race Titanium bindings this last season to swap out some shims and discovered that half of the flange on one of the t-nuts had completely broken off.

Loved reading this post! Since turning 40 five years ago tend to fret about being "over the hill" (especially since I'm a "late bloomer" for hard-boots). Your post is a really good reminder that with work and investment in one's own health, things don't have to decline like a lot of people fear. As far as keeping the stoke... for me it comes and goes. When I moved to Norway I totally lost my stoke for snowboarding for probably about 13 years. I'd keep riding each year and would have some ok days, but I never had _that_feeling_ like when I lived in Colorado and would wake up early just so I could scream on over to Loveland with a car full of Red Bull and pop-tarts just so I could wind up battered and bruised but totally blissed while having a beer and a bowl of whatever at Tommyknocker's on the way back home. When I started on hard boots a couple of years back that feeling is totally back again. I kinda feel like I missed out on those first 13 years in Norway, but then again I had other things that kept me nearly as happy. As long as you've got something that gets you excited and puts a smile on your face its all good.

Hey why not spectacular Norway? I'm thinking of taking the family to Folgefonna for a long weekend in June. Season starts in April (when they dig all of the lifts out of the snow) and runs until September.

Hey if this thread is still a thing I'll now add karate (as a year round thing). I started up together with my oldest daughter and it is helping to improve my overall agility and balance, which have obvious applications to snowboarding.

I like that Sigi video, and I know of a few others that love that video. My current favorite is still: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhShRKlz5lQ . But maybe that is mainly to get brownie points from the people on BOL

If Kessler is following the definition of a clothoid, this should be right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CornuSprialAnimation.gif If I get the Kessler I'm biding on I'll take some side-cut curvature measurements and compare with my Nirvana Balance (really sorry about nerd mode tonight, I had to look up clothoid a long time ago, otherwise I kept thinking of hanging laundry whenever I heard about Kessler snowboards).

F^3 Carving then? Somebody should then definitely develop the perfect cubic sidecut geometry for the ultimate free-form-free-carving deck.

Hey Tanglefoot thanks for the feedback, but you might be undoverstating things a bit. You had tons of graceful carves that had me jealous. @Beckmann AG: Nothing gets by you does it? Yep, I think heel-sides were a visibly shallower that night (if I'm totally honest it's probably persistant issue). That portion of the trail runs a bit off-camber so not sure if that is going to exaggerate or reduce the visible effect. I'm gonna have to get my datalogger working again to get that confirmed. I think the board decision might be made by my wallet. There is a slight possibility I might have the chance to buy a new Kessler Alpine 162 for really cheap. And one last question regarding applying a small weight shift towards the back of the board during the turn to improve stability... Is this equally applicable to single radius sidecuts or is it just for variable radius sidecuts?

Thanks Corey, high five back 'atcha! Conditions tonight were typical night-time local conditions with hardpack snow with a fair amount of chop. Fast snow. Met up with the local carving guru and we rode the same run all night. While continuing to focus on the boot-cuff drills, I also tried making a few minor adjustments to where I was reaching (ie. just ahead of the cuff), and this started feeling a lot more natural right away. I had also changed my back binding/stance setup (because isn't debugging more fun when you change everything at once?) Beckmann's website had some really good tips for this. Back binding is now increased to 60deg (while front is still at 65), and I removed my small inward cant shim (they are F2 race-ti). Also, I adjusted the front boot cuff to zero lean while the back foot has one click forward lean. Standing on the board felt different but not unnatural. The front leg felt more comfortable with the zero lean, and taking out the back cant-shim made the stance felt wider even though the bindings were mounted to the same holes. I think this got rid of my Craig Kelly knees and I probably have better mobility and balance. I also have the impression that it equalized the flex on the boots when reaching for the cuffs in the turns. This was still an experimental trip to the mountain. Drill, drill, drill... try pushing some boundaries... profit! (and screw-up/wipe out lots.) First of all... consistency isn't there yet. I've got good runs, I've got bad runs (on the exact same trail), and I've got chaotic-neutral runs. But they were mainly good runs, and those good runs were orgasmic/snow-cave/15 foot snow-wiener good (by my standards anyway)! I was definitely in the driver seat tonight. The best thing was feeling the turns slow down mentally (despite the snow and board being pretty fast) and it become possible to focus on a lot of the other suggestions in this thread. First of all I tried assessing my hip twist according to Corey's initial input. Yep it was there without thinking about it, the cuff-drill seemed to inherently enforce it, and that front knee drove into the hill without having to think about it. Second, I tried to actively play with the concept of feeding the board into each turn (or modify my fore/aft weight distribution). This I found could actually be adjusted depending on how the conditions/turn felt (I'm hardly optimal but it did have a noticeable effect). It started becoming really clear to me that the fore/aft weight distribution is a significant tool to controlling the stability of the turn (right after angulation and inclination) and that it is something that can be tuned and optimized given enough experience and practice. Next up is position, balance and control inputs to the board. Taking tips from Beckmann I've changed up my stance a bit and I think it really helped with my endurance. Normally the turns I was doing tonight would have completely blown out my leading quadriceps by the end of the night, instead I've got lots of turns that I am really satisfied with, and will be quite fresh and ready to attack the hill tomorrow morning. I always thought that my sore leading leg was because I was soooo agressive and tough, but now I'm starting to think that it was probably because my forward weight bias was overly exaggerated and I was also fighting against my boots/bindings. Finally, the last big realization of the night was that the cuff-reaching drill had me a lot lower on the board so I actually had a lot of room to do a "push/pull" on the transitions. I guess push/pull might not be the right term for bomber style, but it was a "push" against the board towards the end of the arc, and a "pull" to let the board come up under and continue past my center of gravity, dragging me through the transition and into the next carve? The whole maneuver kind of felt like stomping on my front foot (which seems odd?) and then releasing the pressure, and then as my CG and board crossed by each other I try to push myself towards the nose again(?) and grab for my boot cuff. Okay the exact transition is a bit muddled in my head still, but it involved a bit of up/down motion generally initiated from a push with my front foot. Sometimes I get a bit of what I think people refer to as "pop" out of the board but bugger me if I can do that on demand (it is more pronounced the further aft I get on the board at the end of a turn?). Getting low and brushing snow wasn't a priority tonight but my knees wound up scraping the snow regardless. The coolest thing was that for a few runs I could about do it on command. The cuff-drills force me to have a much lower stance and while my head doesn't think its as flashy as lay-down carves, damned if the snow isn't too far away if I have to occasionally "dab" a hand down to correct a flaw in my balance. Sooo... Many thanks and appreciation to the BOL community in general and especially to the Carving Mega-Gods that seem to always be willing (if not downright eager) to help. I'm pretty sure I've gotten some unique insight from everyone that's contributed to this thread, and have profited greatly both in my riding and my theoretical understanding of the bomber carving technique. Some of the input hits a chord immediately and works so well that I'm almost whacking myself (it's sooo bloody obvious!), and some advice is a bit more arcane, but really stimulates the self-analysis process and leads sometimes to less obvious (but equally powerful) insight. Wait wait wait! One last question so I can keep the top-most post on BOL... That local carving guru I was riding with tonight... He was on an SG slalom board. I've always equated slalom/turn-eager boards with good speed control (of course I form an opinion without ever having ridden one). But... he was just obnoxiously fast tonight compared to when he's on his Swoard, and more importantly he was sooo much faster than me (and I was just managing to hold this freight train in check). I really want my next board to be something optimized for riding steep slopes on hard snow with good speed control with minimal skidding. I thought that the Donek MK would be perfect for my goal... but if that rides like that SG slalom board I'm worried I'm gonna hit warp-speed. I think I looked like a proper cow doing full speed-control "C" turns on my Coiler, compared to the spastic parentheses that the SG SL board was cutting (note: local guru was riding proper; each turn had him dragging a hip on the snow in a physics defying stance that left me gobsmacked), but I was just barely holding my momentum in check. I realize that tackling the steeps on a carving board while attempting proper carved turns requires a bit of mental (and bowel) fortitude but seriously: that SG SL board was ridiculous and I'm not sure I want a board like that right now. So: 1) is the Donek MK a spastic-hyper-puppy on the steeps? 2) If the MK requires too much of a pucker-factor, is there any other board that folks would recommend for narrow(ish) steep black trails, beyond what my Coiler Nirvana is capable of? A series of carves are as good as any selfie on BOL?