1xsculler

Skilift operator said, "Wow, cool vintage board. How old is it?" "I had it custom built for me last spring...latest design ." Coiler NFCB. He said he had never seen a board like it which was, of course, no surprise.

It's not all that difficult to make out nearly word in those vids if you use earbuds.

Very, very interesting...both this post and the following one ..."softboot carving has made me a much better hard boot carver".

So, eliminate the event of parallel slalom and run a giant slalom event run like you suggested. Did anyone who ran the blue course win if both competitors completed decent runs?

Why don't all competitors run on the same course and just time them as in all of the other speed events?

Proud to be both!

I thought the red course was faster too. I can't believe the competitors weren't forced to run on the blue course if they won on the red course on their previous run.

Do any of you have experience using the 300mm rotary base finishing device which Tognar sells? Does it work well? Can you clean-up a base and edges well? Is it anywhere as good as the machines that board shops use? edit: After spending a little more time going through the Tognar catalog I see that this 300mm thing is only a way to brush wax on/off and clean a base up. It evidently requires some of their files and stones to actually tune a base and edges.

I think I may have done the same thing to my ankle. The outside of my rear foot all the way up to my knee is very sore and the outside of my foot is dark purple. I have no idea when or how the injury occurred. Maybe it was due to normal foot/ankle torquing. It is very sore and tender to the touch but once I get my boots on and am riding it really doesn't bother me much. I won't be able to board until March 9th so I am hoping for full healing by then.

For someone at my skill level along the continuum, i.e. just beginning to figure carving out and just becoming comfortable with my progress, this topic and its posts are among the most helpful of anything I have read on BOL.

I always find it funny how when I say I'm not interested in something or other the next thing I know, I'm interested in it, i.e. Warren is a good softboot carver and he's the only other carver at Crystal Mt. so maybe I should get into softies and try to learn from him. Warren, text me the next time you're going to Crystal between March 8th and April 6th so I can get a feeling for softboot carving. Waist board width, length, brand and model?...boots, bindings? How about hardboots on softie bindings/board? I tried that combo when I heli-boarded for 1/2 day years ago and it seemed to work ok. Watching the Grey Snowboard promo video on another topic here on BOL has piqued my interest.

Hey Warren, Today, Monday, was awesome for groomers but every run was crowded except for Quicksilver so that's where I rode. I am really determined to get down low on groomers, bend my board and make tight Corey turns on hard Boots and a carving specific board. At this time I have no interest in boarding in pow. If faced with pow I'll do it on skies with my old skiing buddies. That's probably not going to happen though as I intend to expend all of my Mt time improving my carving unless I am with kids or grandkids. I may outgrow this narrow view but I will probably run out of B-days first. Look forward to seeing you up there again maybe on a new 175 Donek FC after March 8th as Maui calls.

I appreciate the comments. As of a few days ago I am out of the early, frantic, frustration phase where I was disappointed in my progress and am into the longer term fight to get lower, bend the board more and turn sharper. I am also over thinking that I will find some special board with magic sauce which will, all of a sudden, make me a ton better but I always take two boards and frequently switch 1/2 way through my day. That really helps me differentiate between boards of different specs whelps me sharpen my pencil on what I like about each board. I think I am looking for something in between my 163 and my 172, both of which I love. My 172 NFCB was my least favorite board last December but is my favorite at this time although I have a lot of fun on that little 163 too. Lessons...undoubtedly a good idea but I doubt it will ever happen...for what I'm trying to do, i.e. Corey turns, I will continue to be a loner here at Crystal Mt. and I am becoming very comfortable with that and may even prefer it. It does no good to be working on going slower and trying to make tighter turns when your carving buddy is into bigger, longer and faster turns.

All Coilers currently in my quiver built for my 150 #s: 163 SL built to be as close to a 163 Rev as Bruce could do, 172 NFCB, 180 EC, 176 AM VSR. My 163 and 172 are my current favorites but that seems to change frequently. I like a waist of 20* to 22* and tightish SCR as 99% of my carving is done on slopes that are a little too steep and narrow for my current ability. I'm considering Doneks: 171 FC or 168ish REV, or a SG FC or Race 168ish to 172 or whatever you might suggest, hardboots, regular, 55/60, 3* lift and 3* inward cant on heel, 6* and 3* outward cant on toe. All suggestions will be appreciated.

Softies or hard?

Interesting. It is all about the bottom, the depth, the quality of the snow and other factors. Tuesday it looked awesome everywhere and there was not a cloud in the sky. I took my son-in-law to the top of chair 6 to show him the best and steepest run on Crystal Mt., Powder Bowl. A foot of untracked super light new snow. He was on softies, me in Hard boots on my 176 Coiler AM. I knew I was not good enough to Hard boot down one of my favorite ski runs but I figured he could have fun on it and I could slideslip down it. Very unfortunately under that one foot of the lightest powder I had ever seen was rock hard, very slippery ice and the entire slope was littered with large and small chunks of rock hard ice which looked, at first glance, like you could just blast them away as you went, i. e. they appeared to be just little bumps under the pow. Our first clue should have been that no one else had made any decent tracks and neither did we. My son-in-law did make it to the bottom in one piece but while I was trying to get my back foot in my board immediately slipped out from underneath me on that ice and down I went on my back, on my front, head first, ass first, picking up speed rapidly as my body was on the ice with the snow so light that it offered no resistance. My Helmut, torso, legs, board, etc. we're getting battered by the ice chunks and I continued to pick up speed. I literally thought I was not going to survive this disastrous situation and thought the best I could hope for was a hospital stay. After about 300' I came to a stop. I had exerted no effort as the fall was completely uncontrolled but I was so panicked that my heart was racing and my breathing was very rapid. It took me about five minutes to recompose myself enough to make an attempt to skoot off to the side of the run which was still very steep and I started another downward slide, this time heading for and richoching through a patch of smallish trees which also beat the crap out of me. I finally inched my way over to where my son-in-law was on some level snow, shook all the snow out of my gear clicked my rear foot in and we had a good rest of the day on groomers. Never, never, never in all of my 60 + years in the mountains have I experienced any conditions similar to what we had on Tuesday, i.e. super rock hard ice with firmly attached ice chunks covered by feather light powder which offered no resistance allowing board or skis to go straight to the ice on which no edge would set. Oh well, live and learn. The muscles on the top and outside if my right leg, ankel to hip, are still extremley tender to the touch but there is no discoloration or signs of brusing. Everything about this accident is very weird and I feel that I am one lucky old man. I went back up the next day to another foot of new powder and made a few runs on my 172 Cooler NFCB but nothing had been groomed the night before and the snow underneath was very bumpy so there was no carving to be done for me. I had a little fun steering my board as if I had bicycle handlebars in front of me so I made some improvement in my general board handling skills.

Today, after about 65 trips to Crystal last season and this, it dawned on me that I am not busting my ass in this endeavor just for the fun of it or for camaraderie. I am doing it for my own selfish interest to learn to carve well. I don't care about pow (I'll ski pow but not much interested in boarding it although I did heliboard 1/2 day and it was fun). Today we had about a foot of great new snow, BUT, it was on top of ungroomed ruts and bumps from yesterday. I made one run and got in the car and drove home because there was no possibility of making any progress on improving my carving. I do love taking the grandkids to the Mt for whatever they want to do.

How about a translation.

I needm' because I always think the next one will make me a better rider. I'm pretty sure that's all bull shit but I keep hopein'. As I get better just from making more turns trying new boards the boards I used to suck on begin to feel better. It's a vicious cycle but at least it is forward progressing, I think. What about you? Values clarification.

That is one thing that is funny about this sport, i.e. quiver of boards. I never had more than one pair of skis (replaced every 3-4 years) during my skiing days except, in the late '50s and early '60s when I fancied myself a racer and had to always have a pair of 220 downhills, 215 GS and 210 SL, either Kneissel or Kastle. Once used purchased at the factory, Hohenems and Kunfstein, Austria, if I remember correctly, in 1963/4 for $36/pair...Marker long thong bindings, Haderer, Rogg, Strolz, leather boots...the 220s were about 1 1/2 to 2" thick under the boot...solid wood....real beasts. The guy I rode with yesterday has over twenty boards and another BOLer has over fifty. I'm trying not to go there but there is something about always thinking a different board is going to be magic, I guess.

Since about this time last year I have been on a frantic mission to learn to carve at least as well as I could in 2005 when I quit and went back to skiing to get to sixty years total on skis. I still am not great at carving. I cannot keep up with you guys who go to Aspen but I can, finally, say that I can, once again, carve nice pencil-line arcs when conditions, body and equipment cooperate. I finally made a couple of runs with the first hardboot carver I have seen during my sixty trips to Crystal yesterday. It was fun but I'm still feeling this is a very individual sport unless you find someone who is working on the exact things you are working on and who wants to compare turns, speed, etc. It's very, very individual, it seems, and I realize that 99% of my riding is going to be solo. I think that's partly why I quit in 2005, i.e. I couldn't get any of my skiing buddies interested in carving. Now I don't care. I'm happy to be the only hardbooter on the Mt. Maybe I even prefer it. I have a good quiver of boards and will probably add to it. Maybe a Donek Freecarve 171 or 176 and, for sure, another Coiler or two (after Bruce recovers from knee surgery which I think he had yesterday). I have tried every boot, binding, stance, angle, cant and I think I have all of this pretty well dialed in for comfort and performance for me for now at least. I read and re-read almost every post on BOL and from all of you I have been able to refine my interest in this sport to where I know exactly what I want to work on, i.e. I call it doing Corey turns (sorry Corey, I don't mean to embarrass you as I know many (most) of you BOLers, and others, can turn as well as Corey does, but I mean get down, angle the board high, bend the board to tighten and shorten turns to control speed on steeper and more narrow runs. I want to be able to crank out short, tight turns on Iceberg Gulch at Crystal, i.e. it's pretty steep and pretty narrow. It will take a lot of self discipline and a few more seasons, I'm sure. I may run out of B-days before I get there. Thanks to each and every one of you for being here and thanks to Fin, Corey, et al. for helping keep it all alive.

Awesome boarding especially carving whether on softies or hardboots is just plain awesome, IMHO.

Very interesting responses. Thank you for chiming in.

What % of your time is spent hardboot carving vs whatever in softies?

I'll be on either side of the Forest Queen lift or on Quicksilver working on my carving on the groomers. It may be too icy but we'll see. Yellow/green parka, grey pants, grey helmut...hope to be in the upper parking lot by 8:30. If the conditions report says ugly I may sleep in but not likely. text: 253-686-0839