workshop7

My family and I will likely squeeze out a few more weekend visits to Killington. They always milk the season for every last day they can. I'm not a big fan of the snow this time of year. I have so many friends that are all about spring skiing. Not me. It's a completely different sport for a carving snowboarder. Don't get me wrong, I do love the warm weather apres ski hang on the deck of the lodge with a beer in my hand. However, when the snow has turned to mashed potatoes I'm aiming for that beer after only a few runs.

As soon as the snow turns to mashed potatoes, I'm out.

This is the equivalent to blaming your steering wheel for the car accident you just had. It's all about rider input - period.

Can't remember who I sold it to. I should've kept it, but I was trying to bring my hardboot collection down in numbers from 12 to 3 or 4. Loved that board though.

When I had a MK my family spent a lot of our ski time at a small mountain. I would ride it all day. I loved the small radius for the quickness of its handling. Avoiding other riders/skiers on a busy narrow trail made it a great tool. Taking to a larger mountain tough on the legs. However, I also had Sean make me a MK variant that was bigger in all the right places. It was great for higher speeds, longer turns and more time on the trail. 172 length, 19 width, 11 M radius.

New (2 weeks ago) Contra BXFR 169, 27.5 wide, 9 SCR.

This makes sense, but it suggests a change in waist width based on a need for change in binding angle (or boot length). Again, this is a "boot out" issue. What @crackaddict is suggesting is that a board's performance on certain trails and their angle of pitch is adjusted by increasing or decreasing the waist width. Not only do I disagree, but in every conversation that I've had with Bruce and Sean with regard to waist width they both have stated that it's irrelevant. I've been told by both that changing the width to my preferred width will not change the ride characteristics. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that if the only variable that is changed is the width than it will effect the ride. However, dictating a certain width to your builder for one board and a different width for another board based on the trail doesn't compute.

I understand where you are going with your point here. I just disagree. No disrespect. I just don't see where waist width has anything to do with rider's ability, trail steepness, turn radius nor rider speed.

The idea that a board's waist width and/or side cut radius is dependent on the riders skill level is absurd. Waist width is a boot size variable, plain and simple. The rest of the design aspects of a given snowboard, such as SCR, stiffness, camber profile and flex pattern, can definitely dictate whether or not that board is intended for the expert rider, but stating that larger widths and SCR is required for better riders just isn't true. One of the best riders I know was on a mass production K2 soft boot board with a SCR of less then 8 this season and tore up every trail he was on. For me, the board variables, aside from waist wide, dictate the ride characteristics of the board and help me decide which one I am choosing to ride that day. If I'm going to a small local hill on a busy weekend day, I'll take my Coiler 162 Contra 9 SCR or BXFR 169 8/10/9 SCR. If I'm going to a bigger mountain on a weekday then I'll bring my Proteus 180 13 SCR or my Contra BXFR 12 SCR. This is not a skill level thing.

Killington always has snow longer than any of the others you listed.

This coming season will be my family's 5th on the Ikon pass. Early pricing is over in May, I think. I've never truly paid attention to that specific deadline as I'm always buying our passes the first day they are for sale.

WTF! All that and your surround receiver is shitting the bed as well.

Great friend and super positive guy. He hoots and hollers like that all the time. You can't really tell from the video but he had come down the fall line and to the side of me too much. He then tried to come closer again, but from the side...my blind side. When I finally saw him he was headed right at me.

Try it now

A friend of mine took video of me doing some relaxed turns on my BXFR on our way to the lodge for an end of the day beer on the deck in the sun at Steamboat Springs. We came inches from colliding. Sharp eyes will see me change my turn radius with a lift of the front foot at the last second.

Put a new roof on my house. I know every step and have done this type of work before. I also know, being an extremely particular individual, that I will do a better, more thorough job than if I hire a contractor. I will be able to install a higher quality shingle and pay less for the project if I do it myself. I just can't bring myself to commit to doing the job because roofing sucks!

Given two boards with the same side cut depth, the longer one will make a bigger turn as this board will have a larger radius.

I pushed off my and my family's Ikon passes for this year. Turns out I got in eight days before getting injured (you just paid as we went). My season ended early but I got in more days than I thought I would. The wife and kids got in 13-14 days. I'm ok with that, especially know that next years Ikon is paid for.

P90X3 Trimetrics workout, yoga, biking.

I get that you want to tap the community experience to build a better tool to suit your needs, but I feel all of that extra input is going to cloud the waters. You're going to end up blurring your own vision of what YOU want out of the build. The best result will come from an exhaustive and complete conversation between you and the builder. You two are the only ones that matter in all this. If you take a whole bunch of advice from others and it doesn't come out right it hard to pin point where the build went wrong. What do you change on the next one in an effort to fix the issue? Tell the builder what you want and let them build it.

When Bruce built my 2 Contras last spring he said that most Contras were built with T3 unless they were over 180 in length.

This is Raff's email address. vaz_art@yahoo.com Raff is a fantastic artist. She has several graphic choices within the list of stock Donek graphics. With this board, I sent her pictures of an old Rossi Throttle and had her change the relevant Rossi info to Coiler info. The general graphic design is exactly like the Throttle. Ask Bruce, Sean, Mark, etc what they want to receive as far as the image format is concerned and then relay that information to the artist.

Depends on the rider and the mountain. I am 210lbs and 6ft. I really enjoyed having the MK which is 162 long, 18 wide and 9ish SCR. Before I rode the MK for the first time I was always a 175 and up kind of guy. I bought a 180 Proteus and loved it. It was my favorite board for a long time. The MK changed my mind. I now like a short board with a small turning radius, but only on the right mountain. My home mountains are Pats Peak and Crotched. They are small and usually have a lot of people on the trails. Having a small board in these conditions is far more effective and fun. However, riding a small board at a mountain with much longer and wider trails wears me out. Too many turns from top to bottom. I wouldn't go smaller than 160 at my height and weight. I now have a Coiler Contra 162. Anything smaller than that would be too small for me but not for someone shorter and lighter. I think 146 might be pushing the limits of "small".

Either the nose dove into a soft area, which I doubt, or it hit something raised. The light was flat so I don't know. I didn't go over the handlebars. That would have been better as it would have released some of the direct pressure on my ankle.

This past Sunday was supposed to be day one of a full week of riding at Sunday River. The conditions were fantastic. Firm packed powder and excellent grooming all over. I had spent the day following my wife and kids all over the mountain on my new BXFR. Around 3:00 I was on one of my favorite pitches, Sunday Punch. It's a steep blue that was, at that moment, perfect for carving. Hard chalk all the way with no ice. 80% of the way down, near the end of a toe side, the nose caught something and the board came to an abrupt stop. All of my momentum was forced upon my front foot. I felt a pop in my ankle. Lots of pain. I don't remember coming to a stop as I was paying more attention to immediately assessing what the damage might be. Many things ran thru my head, pulled Achilles' tendon, broken bone, bad sprain, etc. My son was with me and stopped to see if everything was ok. After, sitting for a minute or two I decided to side slip down the rest of the steep and then gingerly make slow skidding turns to Barker lodge. Got ride back to the hotel from the wife. Iced it all that night and went to urgent care in the morning. X-ray shows a small bone chip on the top of my heel. Have to go to an orthopedic next week for a full assessment. Season is likely over before I had a chance to ride my Contra 162 more than once, ride my Contra 178 at all and have @Beckmann AG finish making my custom foot beds. Feels like the season barely started and now I'm done. Booooooo!