st_lupo

This, plus Jack's Contra Contra post actually turned me off on the concept of the Contra and Thirst, but that's another story. Totally in agreement with @Corey and @BlueB about timing and feeding your board into the turn. And if @softbootsurfer's picture is accurate: I might guess this is a new board (or at least that you recently changed up boards this season), and you just need to get into the rhythm of the board. I usually start my season on a "bigger" Coiler NFC and then transition to a Kessler 162 mid season. That transition is _always_ painful and ugly until I sync up with the board's rhythm. 2 or 3 days is usually required for me to sort it out. Until then, my body is always _lagging_ behind the board: hence the "open" stance on SBS's picture Also: reach for your boot-cuff (or preferably edge) with your outside hand (never under estimate this)!!! Also Also: complete the turn? The carve in your picture looks fine up to the apex of the turn (so you are almost at max-pressure), but then it starts falling apart. Are you giving up too soon? IMO, the dude in SBS's picture could be doing much more if they rotated their body more forwards, and reached for their bootcuff with their outside hand (to help get stronger angulation), but those binding angles do look slacker than mine.

Just wondering why the contra isn't your thing? I think I've finagled approval for a new board for next season and the contra has been pretty popular in the reviews, but it would be useful to hear a "contra" argument to get a better perspective on just who the board is for. Is your perspective coming from a racing point-of-view (stivots, doing what you gotta to get to the next get) or a free-carving point-of-view (max-pressure, perfect trajectories on steeps)? How does the Contra contrast to the Kesslers that you've ridden (no plates)?

Focus! Jamming your knees into the snow isn't an end, nor is it the means to an end, and focusing on acheiving a low body position is likely to make you adopt bad habits that need to be unlearned later (it was for me). Low body position is a byproduct. Focus on: _maximizing_pressure_on_every_single_turn_. As you learn to increase pressure on the edge, you find that you just have to lean in to keep from flying out of the turn! Focus! On one aspect of your technique at a time. Don't try to change/improve everything all at once. Improve in increments and at most, focus on one aspect of your technique through an entire run. For example: focus only on reaching for your boot cuffs, or focus only on where your hips are facing through the turn, etc. If your run is going really well let it roll and keep going but don't over-think. Save the analysis until the chair ride up (or if your run is going to crap, stop and refocus). Steeper runs help, but moderate blues are just fine. If you have a bigger quiver, maybe focus on just one board (or similar riding boards). But still, most of all: forget pencil-lines, forget skimming the snow with your body, forget that person who's style you want to copy and focus on maximizing pressure on every turn. When you get to the point where your carves feel as solid as if you are standing on a concrete foundation, you'll probably find that all the other stuff comes for free. I think you already know what you need to, know technique wise, just be systematic and patient.

Thanks for all the great info. It doesn't seem to be possible to buy only the bails, but I can find the entire toe-block in Europe (I would be pretty steamed if I had splashed out on the CNC version of the bindings). @Corey: is there any low-cost source of LPI testing stuff? The theory on wikipedia seems simple enough and I'm wondering if some kind of penetrating oil (WD-40) and talcum powder would be better than just a plain surface inspection?

Up until I broke a binding today, I was riding my K162 and it reminded me why I would pay fat stacks of cash for another Kessler, if only this board wasn’t so God awful beautiful.

I didn’t lay it on too thick at home but still got a consolation bike ride (the other winter carving) Kinda scary how common this failure mode is and I had no idea. Will add that check to my routine along with the t-nuts. Anything else??? i’ve sent emails to carvers.si, yyz, carversparadise and F2, anybody else I should hit up for bails? I might just spring for a pair of TD3s and spare parts next time I’m in the US. Which parts wear out earliest on them?

...when you wipe out in the middle of a turn and while flailing around in a cloud of snow, you realize only one boot is attached to the board? Fortunately it was my back binding that gave up so I can keep myself off the AIL. Don't suppose any of the mechanical engineers can read anything from the fracture pattern? It was an F2 Race Ti from 2015. Needless to say I am replacing all of the bails on my bindings asap! At least I've got a pair that are a few years newer that I will use while waiting for parts.

We had a regional slalom (ski) race at the local hill today and I wound up talking with a couple of the racers. Got the comment that they were shocked that a snowboard could carve turns as cleanly as I was doing today. I also heard from my wife (who was catching up with a bunch of the coaches) that one of the out of towners was asking about the snowboarder that was carving up a storm on the mountain today. A local coach replied, "Oh yeah, him. He's one of the only snowboarders here that can ski" (said with a fair amount of irony, I'm certain since I haven't been on skis in over 30 years). K162 FTW!!!

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not?

With a free (gimp or paint.net) program or reasonably priced (photoshop trial period) you can go crazy and make really good results that can be highly personal. You can find some super high-res artwork/comics/photo images on google and zooming in on a specific portion can have dramatic effects. Use one layer for the main image and other layers for placing logos/model names/ etc. Another plus with Bruce is that he doesn't seem to be too worried about copyright. I wound up sticking with WW2 aircraft for my boards and always sneak in a QR code somewhere that can be scanned and redirects to a url that contains board ownership info (just in case). Just remember to account for your bindings being on the board when doing the graphics. PS: you don't need to have the graphics ready until fairly late in the build.

Anybody else bring multiple boards to the hill, but can't bare to loose out on 20-30 minutes of riding to go back to the car and switch boards?

Physically, yes. Emotionally, not so much (says wife).

Yeah, if you can swing a Kessler I would seriously consider it. I picked up mine (a 162) used from a rental store in Slovenia (think I paid $200 for it). It had seen a few seasons and I’ve been riding it for 3 seasons now and it is still just a fantastic ride. It has the best edge hold of all of my boards and handles a variety of snow conditions very well.

built…

And here I am dreaming of getting back to aluminum instead of carbon!

Ahhh, say no more ! My kids are soooo gonna have to buy me an Oxess and some new boots in my geriatric years.

More importantly, are you married?!? How did you lay the groundwork for getting that accepted? I’m already sweating and conniving how I’m going to justify a new Virus next year!

Regardless, I'm fine with eco-friendly whatever, but it needs to deliver performance on par with conventional state-of-the-art materials, otherwise it is just so much added junk in the landfill and that isn't eco-cool.

Hoping for a speeding recovery for you @barryj!

Sure, that's unfortunately unavoidable, but doesn't necessarily make us hypocrites since there are no alternatives. But where alternatives are available I'm willing to shell out a bit more for items that are manufactured closer to home (bikes, tools, snowboards, food). I really wish it was easier to find more alternatives that are at least produced on the same continent as I live. The Burton guy is definitely an ass and couldn't have defended their business case any worse. Just admitting that they only focused on maximizing growth and don't actually give a shit about improving the planet would have been better than the waffling he was doing. The even scarier thing: now Burton's nuts are in a vise. I doubt that they can say anything critical about their gracious host, without that leading to serious bottom-line repercussions. Consider what happened in Norway when China put pressure on the government during a visit from the Dalai Lama: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-norway/china-says-paying-attention-to-norwegian-change-of-heart-on-dalai-lama-idUSBREA3R0OB20140428

UPZ RC10 + F2 race ti + 65/60 + 51cm stance width + fairly long legs. front: thin toe lift+ no fwd lean on boot cuff back: thin heel lift + 25% fwd lean on the cuff From here I have really good mobility and both the heel and toe side turns are equally strong. If I adjust either cuff, the whole system will start to favor one of the edges over the other.

Hi! and welcome on board! I'm sure you are going to get tons of replies quite quickly and I'm going to guess that the first thing to debug is your stance, since this is the root of many problems. First off, what angles are you riding? What width stance, and is your stance centered longitudinally (length wise) with respect to the binding inserts? What kind of boots/bindings are you using? One of the first things you need to do is find a good comfortable and stable neutral stance when just standing on the board on the floor. A really good start-point is going to be found here: https://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/a-hardboot-manifesto-v1 look for the section "Boot/binding board interface". Give that a read and come back with some more details on your stance. I'm guessing there is probably some fundamental differences between softboot and hardboot carving which plenty of folks will get into. Needless to say there shouldn't be undue pressure on just the front foot. I like to really jam on the nose at the start of the start of my turns but the board winds up feeding itself through the whole turn, shifting my weight towards the back. At the end of the day (unless I'm riding lots of powder on a narrow board) both of my legs are equally worn-out.

A classic! Here is another hilarious and more recent skiers vs snowboards (which is kinda shocking given that it is from 2012)

All’s well that ends well.