st_lupo

Here they come... Hei drittsekk metroland! His riding is limp, like the luuuutefisk, just without the delicious bacon fat. Leg position all wrong! Perhapse he has some discomfort in the kjøttbollene? Also, I see no sign of an axe or even a sword and absolutely no beard! Completely unprepared for ragnarok... We will not be seeing him in Valhalla!

I'm pretty sure I never even approach the shelf where I store my angle grinder unless wearing chain-mail.

I hope this is off topic enough, but maybe still relevant for some... My family and I were just on vacation back home in New Mexico and Colorado and on a tip we stopped at a kind of art installation in Santa Fe called Meow Wolf. Everybody, my wife (who typically hates weird things), my two kids (6 and 10... short attention spans) and I just had our minds completely blown. The best way to describe it is half Burning Man, half real-life adventure game, half mystery, and half freak-out. It was really one of the coolest and most inventive artsy things that I've ever experienced (and imho after the SRL shows and Skinny Puppy concerts that is saying something). Upon entering the exhibit you are presented with a back-story of a mysterious event that happened in a neighborhood. If you want you can just walk through the exhibit and marvel over the creativity and resourcefulness of the artists that created the place and it'll probably take about 3 hours to go through. But... if you really want to experience it, there is a mystery to solve which will take upwards of 6 or more hours. Luckily they have food vans and a DJ in the parking lot and the re-entering policy is pretty easy-going. The coolest thing is that pretty much everything in the installation wants to opened/read/switched/manipulated/explored... The more you try to do weird stuff with the things there, the more you are rewarded. I've got some photos from our visit attached, but I won't give any context, you just need to experience it. Did I mention that the place is owned by George R. R. Martin (Mr. Game of Thrones)? They also offer workshops in 3d-printing, micro controllers, welding, ... More info: https://meowwolf.com/

I never ride in walk-mode, I mean who wants to look like a looser? The last thing I double check before barreling down the mountain is that those levers are DOWN!

Mountain biking, road biking, longboarding or hiking followed by a couple sets of half kilo curls at home.

[THE MINISTRY OF OCEAN SKIMMING SUPREMACY ISSUES A REMINDER THAT THE FULLBAG HAMMERHEAD IS NOT A NEW PURCHASE BUT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A DOUBLE PLUS GOOD MEMBER OF THE QUIVER, HAVING SECURED THE GLORIOUS TRANS-ATLANTIC CROSSING OF LAST YEAR.]

Until saturday I had been reading this thread smugly confident that my Black Diamond gloves were truly special and exempt from the problems discussed here. An extended hand drag (trying to prevent a massive faceplant on frozen corduroy) quickly abraded most of stitching on my right palm and left a couple of gaping holes. With it being the end of the season for me, I tried to get by using duct tape. Now I learned not to use duct tape. Before a quick and catastrophic failure, the tape loosens and acts like a nice scoop, pumping the inside of the glove full of snow.

Better your knee than your head. Or most likely you would be dead. And on the snow a big spot of red. On Bomber Onlin lots of tears would be shed. And could I then add your boards to my quiver from which I shred? Ouch!!! Good luck with recovery!

"And, then there are those who text while skiing, so..." This is surely a joke? I hope...

Camber!!!! Trying a rockered Burton was the last straw that convinced me to finally switch to hardboots and cambered alpine boards.

I wonder if the BOL community is even the right place to search for an answer to this question? BOL'ers are already "tainted" just by knowing how cool carving (or hardbooting) is, and we are probably the last people to be able to identify fundamental reasons that prevent a larger population from joining the sport. I'm not sure it's just marketing... Sure the mainstream marketing is failing us now, but the major fabricators had their day and they had their PR machines rolling in order to sell hardboot gear in the 90's. For some reason that never maintained enough traction for the sport to remain profitable for them. I think we might get a more truthful answer asking this question at a "mainstream" snowboard forum or even a skiing forum. This kind of reminds me of when I was a student in Boulder in the 90's and wondering why the hell the Warlock Pinchers never became a national phenomenon. Maybe I should have asked a Morrisey or Tiffany fan why they never listened to the band .

I'll move this over here from the hard-boot community forum. Sounds like the snow in Utah is still good and I have a slight chance that I might have a slight chance to go boarding next week while travelling through Ogden. What is a good area for carving around Ogden, is there any place that has a capable instructor? Are there any places that rent alpine boards/boots or should I bring my own? Thanks!

Thanks!

My goal is to pull out a brand new Coiler instead of always sharpening the edges. Until I win the lottery though, I'll +1 Corey's method. I've got a Swix 2nd cut file and diamond stones at 200, 400 and 600 grit (red, yellow, white). Also have .5 degree base file guide and a 2 degree side-wall file guide. When setting a new angle on the base and/or sides I'll use a sharpie to color the edges on the board and then use the file until all of the the sharpie color has been filed off. I'll then use the diamonstones 200-->400-->600 to remove burrs and get a progressively finer edge. Throughout the season I just use the diamond stones and guides to maintain the edge. I use however many passes I need with the 200 to remove burrs and then 5 passes with the 400 grit and 5 passes with 600 grit. And like Corey said keep the stones wet and wipe the edges down regularly. Also, don't forget the sidewall cutter, otherwise you'll be clogging up the file/stones with plastic from the sidewall. I usually tune all of the skis and snowboards in my family and really find it relaxing. I get to dissappear into the garage for a few hours a week and listen to the radio. One thing I've heard from some folks that are involved with the racing scene out here is that they finish up with a some really fast diamond-stone passes over the edges to harden them. Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me but does anybody have any insight into this?

Just wondering how the snow conditions in Utah are right now. I might be travelling to Salt Lake City next week and I might have a free day to go riding. How are conditions currently?

I went with the "Most Terrain" option but I still keep the hard boots on when then pow comes. Ideally I love the feeling of carving on hard-pack goomers and will gravitate towards those runs, if they are available and not green circles. However I'll try carving on whatever the mountain provides on any given day. I try to approach non ideal conditions (crud, ruts and ice) as practice and slow down and just focus on improving my carving technique (or lack thereof). I might not enjoy carving on "adverse" snow conditions as much, and it certainly highlights weaknesses in my ability, but any measureable improvement helps keep frusteration manageable. Bumps kill me though. Is it possible to carve bumps, or do people skid their turns through bumps? My goal is to get back into all-mountain off-piste riding (but with hardboots) but that is going to require a new board, which then requires some bargaining at home. Oh yeah, to keep rbaldwin and jng happy: Location: Norway, typically all runs are groomed nightly Typical snow conditions: Hardpack(midseason), Hardpack/Ice(early spring), Slush/Waterskiing(spring). Snow is definitely wetter than snow in the Rockies, but not as horrible as the east coast of the US sounds. Age: 40ish Male Days on the snow per year: typically 20-30 of varying duration (usually an hour or two at night when on the local hill, and all day when I ride at bigger ski areas) Experience: ~1.5 seasons

"FÆN!" Didn't hear it in the lift line though, I heard it about 1/2 second before getting rear-ended by a straightliner this year.

Check out upzboots.com. They have models that periodically go on sale there, picked up my RC10s there last March.

Nice riding Jim! Yet another BO rider for me to look up to and try to learn from!

Thanks for that video, great inspirational stuff. Some of the people I recognize either from BO avatars or style, but who was that riding from 2:30 to 3:30 (orange jacket, grey pants)? Also after reading JNG's statement: "Limited exposure whether in the media or on the slopes, combined with a high barrier to entry will keep the community small." I think I hit on an untapped marketing opportunity; HIPSTERS!!! Donek, Prior and Bruce should attend all of the fixie conventions, craft roasted coffee meets, and beard waxing competitions and market their boards as "Artisanal Boarding Supplies for the Discerning Individual". Maybe not as filled with awesomeness as the previous video, but like the video's caption says: "Blake Paul, Cam Fitpatrick, Wade Dunstan, and Mark Dunstan, strap into some stiff hardboots and let ‘er rip down the trails of Jackson Hole. It’s majestic to say the least.": https://vimeo.com/83958015

It ain't easy, that's for sure! (or at least that's my experience). I was a soft boot boarder that married into a family of ski racers. The first few years (before we had kids) I learned just how differently skiers see a mountain compared to soft-boot snowboarders (hard booters are different again). Now we've got a couple of kids and I just started learning hardboot carving last season. My oldest daughter who's been ski racing for a couple of years now just sails away from me when we get off the lift. Our youngest daughter who is just learning to ski is mainly in the hands of my wife. I did find that when push comes to shove I can still help teach our youngest daughter ski even though I've got my hard-boot board on. Requires a lot of ego swallowing and skidding backwards while tracing out a path for her to follow while giving advice. I sometimes borrow a slalom gate to help me keep my balance when skidding at slow speeds. I can also use the gate to give our youngest something to hold on to when we have to go down trails that are beyond her current capability. My last soft boot board is probably going on the wall soon. After switching to hardboots last season I honestly couldn't figure out how to ride it when I tried starting this season on it. It was the most humiliating and bizarre day I had on that board behind my first ever day of snowboarding. Not sure if it the 9-to-5 is the difference between a hardbooter or not. I do a 9-to-5 (actually 9-to-4:30, it being Norway and all) and I know of a few hardbooters that do the 9-to-5. The one thing that stands out is that they have developed or found a passion for the sport beyond what is normal for most other people that ski/snowboard (probably especially considering at their age), and we all want to excel at this.

>>> Telemarkers can get up hills with the same equipment they can go down... <<< I think I need glasses. The first two times I read this I couldn't figure out why telemarketers were so interested in getting up and down so many hills, and wondering if it would be heavy carrying those computers and telephone would get really heavy. Was funny to read though...

I'm with the not clicked in crowd. I'm also typically doing Bobby Buggs' thing in that I typically use dismounting and puttering around in the lift line as practice for balancing and riding on only my front foot. I could never have done that in soft boots, but in hard boots its... doable. Now regarding the suckage of tbars and platter lifts... I was riding in a small but really cool ski area called Raudalen a couple of weeks back and the only lift that was operating was a clapped out platter-lift (tallerkenheis). The springs on most of the lifts were shot and had just enough tension to hold the lift contracted without a rider onboard. However when attempting to start from the bottom the transition from standing still to full lift speed happened in a fraction of a second. The take-off was pretty much that, everyone caught air every time they started from the bottom, or they crashed in front of everybody. I agree with darko714 that some of the worst lifts are the long and near vertical (it feels that way at least) ascents on t-bars. The feeling of not being able to keep your back foot planted on the board (along with the sensation of your uphill hip joint sloooowly dislocating) is horrific. And unlike LordMetroLand, for me getting off was always a relief and never a challenge.