1xsculler

Use a new mid-life crisis as your excuse and never get wants confused with needs..

Awesome, high angle, great angulation, board bending carving, IMHO, Daveo. Not that I'm in a position to judge. Is that, a stock K168? You're, basically, 6' 3" tall and weight 180 #s, right?

Very happy to be a Gold member. Thanks for all of your hard work to help all of us carver geeks, and wannabes keep up the stoke. I'm gettin' there, dammit! Of course it's all about the right board to make one a hero; rider skill is over-rated. If Jack can recklessly add to his quiver during a mid-life crisis so can I. I'm on my fourth or fifth MLC anyway (my wife would say more like 10th) and I don't have many left. I may die (literally) or get seriously injured perusing the good carve but I can think of worse fates. I could also die laying on the couch watching MSNBC, CNN or even Fox News while eating Bon-Bons. Pick your poison.

What would suggest for a weight range for a stock 168 Alpine?

It seems to me the 168 is, as has been stated earlier, sort of a "tweener" board, i.e. neither a slalom nor a GS board but a good all around board for us freecarvers. The 171 is the GS board for lighter riders and with a 9-16 SCR which wouldn't likely be considered a turny board or an ideal freecarve board. The 162 would be a very turny race board with its 7-12 SCR, and not so well suited to freecarving on groomers. Correct me if I'm off base which I frequently am.

FWIW, I basically cut the toe portion off of my Deeluxe 131 liners in my UPZ RC8, size M28, boots and finally acheived total toe comfort and didn't get cold toes as I feared.

Another wannabe (I feel I am a little better than a total wannabe but not a lot) story. I have a lot of respect for soft boot carvers too but have no interest in being one. It's hardboots on carving boards on groomers that interests me. For all other conditions I'll ski. I have done some bottomless pow heli-boarding and enjoyed it too but I used hard boots on a Tanker board. Skied pretty hard from age 10ish to 60, several years heli-skiing in BC, Canada in the mid '70s, and then watched Cliff Hamada on a VHS in about 2000. I was instantly hooked and determined. I rented softies for one day and then bought carving gear but stuck with my SX91 skiboots which worked pretty well. Never had any interest in softies and never wanted to "snowboard" but I was bound and determined to seriously rail. By about '05 I could lay down some decent, linked-up pencil-line trenches but only on a couple of runs, i.e. Quicksilver at Crystal Mt and one run under a chair at White Pass. When I tried at Sun Valley or at Aspen where the runs were just a little steeper or, in some cases, a little narrower I couldn't hold a carve. I became very frustrated and quit carving in part because of that frustration and in part because no matter how cool I thought carving was not a single one of my ski buddys shared my enthusiasm. For the next ten years I went back to skiing with them. When my grandkids wanted me to take them skiing I became bored standing around watching them snowplowing and I decided to learn a new sport (carving) while they were learning to ski. They laughed endlessly at all of my faceplants so we had a great time. For the past two years I have totally devoted my Mt time to carving with all of the best equipment and I'm about as good as when I quit in '05. I am determined to get to the point where I can lay down non-skidded turns on a variety of groomed terrain, especially a little narrower and a little steeper stuff. Low down, dirty, board bending, feelin' the Gs turns are my goal. I have found one other guy who can do that at Crystal and hooking up with him next year is in my plan. Changing edges, in a zero-skid turn, after crossing the fall line or even when going a little back up hill is a component of a real carved turn I was recently reminded of on this site somewhere. (Saturday April 28th 2018. I just added this which I read somewhere on this site but can't now find it. I remember looking down at my tracks, in 2005 when I had a rudimentary carve down and the Quicksilver chair was on the edge of the run rather than over in the trees where they moved it to, and I was pleased to see pencil-line arcs interrupted by an apparent total disengagement from the snow when the edge change occurred perpendicular to, or just past that, the fall line. I was happy to be reminded about that aspect of the carved turn. Almost anybody can carve turns pointing down the hill but changing edges after crossing the fall line is one of the hallmarks of a well carved turn I had sort of forgotten about since getting back into carving during these past two seasons. New boards on the way...RC8s are dialed in.. churning the quiver...etc., etc. will keep my interest up until I run out of B-days which is creeping up rapidly. Thank you to all if you guys for indulging me.

Why do you suppose all SG Full Carve boards are all glass? Cost is probably the logical answer..

The SG Full Carve 170 has no Titinal, (all glass), in it, right?

Thanks for the clarification...assuming you meant FRT = full race with Titinal. Titanflex means F-2 Titanflex bindings. Aren't there many free carve boards with Titinal as well. I believe the Kessler 168, a free carve board board, has Titinal in it as well as almost all Coilers and some Doneks..

Please decipher the acronyms for me.

According to the specs the 171 is designed for about a 20 # lighter weight rider than the 168 and the 168 is an all around board whereas the 171 is a race board. What else should one know before thinking about buying one of these boards?

Is this website's acronym now FAS? It seems appropriate. The season is over for me even though Crystal Mt is open until this Sunday and the conditions report looks awesome, or did the last time I checked. Thanks to all of you for the great year. My most important goal for next season is to coordinate with the only serious railer I've met at Crystal and spend some time following in his line while he also nudges his 14 year old daughter along the path to the carve. I can hardly wait.

I've had no problems with any rocking or twisting using fender washers. It doesn't appear to be the ideal way to lift and/or cant but it gets the job done.

Lift and cant of any degree can easily be accomplished on any F2 binding with SS fender washers between the top of the mounting plate and the part that holds your boot heel and toe along with the lifts and cants that come with a new set of bindings, IMHO.

My reason for bringing this up is I have a 2018 Coiler 163 SL, custom built for my weight, and an old (1995 to 2000ish best guess) Rossi 163 Slayer that I bought on Ebay for $29 and I don't notice a lot of, or any difference, in the way they ride. I like them both very much for their turnyiness. This is probably due to my lack of carving experience.

How would you expect these boards to compare?

Toe lift, heel lift and canting on F2s can easily be accomplished with washers.

Thank you for that, Neil. Can the MK be ordered in a longer length and a little wider, i.e. 165ish, 20ish and would that be advisable?

Am I correct in thinking that an original 158 Madd and/or the re-issue of the same length is mostly for softies?

I have DGSS on my rear boot only and probably will install the other on my front boot sometime. RC8

Would most of you consider the non-Titanflex F2s to be too rigid?

Now I know why guys on this forum say going to a Trenchin' Convention can be so beneficial. Yesterday at Crystal I was getting my ten runs in and getting bored and depressed in part because the visibility sucked (super foggy but one could get intermittent glimpses of the terrain) and the snow was too hard and icy at 9:00. I persevered as I knew things would soften up as the morning wore on and I had nothing better to do. I got off the chair to start my last run and noticed, much to my amazement, another hardbooter...only the third one I had seen in over eighty trips to Crystal during this and last season. He was with three of his children one of whom was his fourteen year old daughter who was on hardboots and a carving board for her first time. So, I said to him, "I'll follow you." The minute I saw him rail his first two turns I knew he had "the look" of a carver, i.e. body angle, knee angle, board up on edge, etc. This was the first time I had seen this in person (I've watched tons of utube vids) and the first time, in my quest to rail, that I had someone whose track and body position I could attempt to emulate in the flesh. I learned more in that last run than I had all last and this season. While I couldn't get it down and rail like this guy does I could sort of carve right behind him for three or four turns. I've never felt better about my riding and I'm totally re-stoked for what will be my last four times to the Mt. for the season IF conditions hold out until April 20th. Maybe if I can ride hard next December and January a TC will be in my future. So far, there has been no point in trying to ride with you guys as I would be toast within two hours and just have to drink the rest of the day. After replying to some questions to my text to him it's no surprise that he was an accomplished carver as he was bitten by the carving bug in '93/'93 after watching Peter Bauer and Jean Nerva rip it up. My next step is to try to coax him into giving me a one hour lesson.

Thanks, Fin and Jack and to all others who support this site.

I've always thought the Warm Springs run would be awesome for a carver much further along than I am but on a 197? It's a nice bowl shaped run in the top 2/3rds but it's pertty narrow and I'd want a very turny, shorter board IF I would have any hope of linking a few turns in succession. At any rate I would love to watch you do it. It seems to me that there's awesome carving all over Baldy, since they groom so well, IF one is good at speed control. Five or six is five or six times more than I see all season at Crystal. In addition, going back forever, Limelight, top to bottom with 10" of new over groom, is still my favorite pure fall line ski run on the planet. Baldy is magic.