rbaldwin
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Posts posted by rbaldwin
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Burton plate bindings with 3 hole discs. Good condition other than edge scuffs on toe clip. $75 shipped to US.
Thanks for looking!
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I don't think the survey is asking that. I read it more like, "If/when you ride powder/crud/bumps, do you ride hardboots or softboots?" I ride hardboots exclusively so I chose the last option.
A different question is what you conditions you would chose to spend more of your time in if you had a choice.
Powder. All day, every day.
And I would do it in Alpine Touring boots (technically hard boots, but ride pretty soft).
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I wonder if there would be a correlation between how you answer the above question, and what part of the world you are from.
How many do it all types are from the west, and how many mostly groomer types are from the east?
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I used to have a Hooger Booster 170. Forgot what it looked like until now!
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Steepwaters are a real gem. The 164 Steep, to me, is the gold standard for a soft boot board. I used it to do the PureBoarding clinics in Aspen last year, rode it in early season thin cover, during an 18" powder dump in Mammoth, and also as an easy carver/cruiser board when riding with less experienced friends. I swap between hard boots and soft boots on this board. The base is nearly indestructible, it laughs at rocks and stumps hiding under the powder. The 171 is a true dream to ride even at 150lbs, if you have good technique, ride aggressive and the traffic is light, it just keeps holding a line. It's awesome to see people's reaction when they see how hard you can drive it with soft boots.
Post it up on the WTB forum and I'm sure that one of us will respond. They are still pretty easy to acquire in the Mammoth area, robbing sales from the newer Arbor made versions. The sad thing is eventually NOS inventory will end.
Agreed! I picked up a 171 Steep earlier this year, and have ridden it in pretty much all conditions since. I'm riding it with Burton plates or Nidecker Free Carve bindings at 45/32 degrees. Love it! Bomb, slash, surf, float, air, and carve. Quiver killer for my style and mountains. I'm thinking about getting another Steep, or the Kite for backup/posterity.
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I'm a professional kept man/sex toy for my wife.
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Or like old slalom skateboarders? :)
Heavy grunting at the Canadian Nationals
Yes, I am the MASSIVELY fat dude in black... Haaa! Haa! Ha!
Oh man, the link does not work for me. But I have seen you skate before, and it's impressive!
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It's nice to be involved with a forum with thoughtful, intelligent people! All valid points so far.
I would like to add another potential straw to the camel's back. Two of my best friends are retired snowboarding professionals. They are brothers, and I'll leave their names out unless they want to join the conversation. One was a moderately high profile professional snowboarder, and the other was a filmmaker.
We talk about this subject, snowboarding in general, and the things we like to see, and the things we've seen enough of. Some of the problems we see come from how far modern freestylers have taken things, and how much emphasis is placed on amplitude in film and competition. When I was getting into the sport, I could watch Craig Kelly do it all with style (Including carving!) and it made me want to go out and ride, but also to try some of the things I'd seen.
What's a kid to do now? Watch the X-games and try to emulate Shaun White? Good luck with that. Plus, in my opinion, he doesn't have the style of a Kelly or a Terje. Or watch videos of guys dropping over 100 feet while cranking as many spins as possible. None of this makes me want to go snowboarding. Granted, I'm an older snowboarder who has completely lost touch (Or has snowboarding lost touch with me?), but I feel the enormity of what pros are doing has put too much distance between themselves and kids getting started.
The enormity is what partly made my buddy hang it up. He says it wasn't really fun to fire up the snowmobiles and head to the backcountry to film anymore. He would wake up feeling kinda sick to his stomach knowing that he was going to have to do something way out of his comfort zone to get a film worthy sequence. That and the possibility of somebody getting seriously hurt that day would be pretty high.
What does he see like to see? What makes him want to go snowboarding? Somebody laying down some sweet carves, and maybe some frontside powder slashes. More fun and/or beautiful stuff, and less gnarly/scary stuff. I gotta say, anymore, those short little Ryan Knapton Youtube vids and some of the Japanese softbooters are the only freestyle oriented media that makes me want to drop everything and go riding (Of course these are carving oriented... so biased for sure, but you get the idea!).
Blah, blah, blah... sorry for the lengthy post.
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Yeah, I don't get it. 90% of the people I see on the mountains could have a lot more fun if they could throw in a few carves per run. And slightly longer freeride boards would be all they really need. It does not have to be spendy or inaccessible.
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I'm not a snowboard racer, but I am a Cat 2 bicycle racer and a high school soccer coach. Lots of squats, lunges and sprints. You will have more success if you have fun though!
Play as much as you can. Ride bikes and skate. Long distance skateboarding(search LDP)involves millions of little carves, and or millions of little one legged squats. It helps to learn to kick with both legs.
Bowl skating has been a huge one for me. Massive forces pumping transitions and round walls. This one isn't for everyone, but it gives me a lot more respect for the fitness and strength of some of those kids you see on X-games!
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Hi, I just bought a Burton Safari Comp III (173 cm) and am trying to determine the sidecut radius... The distance between the widest points tip and tail is 147.0 cm. Next to a 2-meter straight-edge (level), the arc measures 12.75 mm at the board's narrowest point. So I fed this info into the Complete Circular Arc Caluculator (http://www.handymath.com/cgi-bin/arc18.cgi), which tells me it's just over a 21 meter radius. Does that sound right?
Anyone ever ride one of these with softboots?
Cheers,
David
Instead of putting your straight edge against the widest points of the board, put it against the inflection points (where the sidecut changes from concave to convex), then remeasure your sidecut depth and recalculate. I'm not sure what the shape of that deck is like, but this method should be more accurate.
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rbaldwin- which AT boots do you use, and with which bindings?
does anyone use anything like these in soft bindings?
http://www.koflach.com/en/parsepage.php?tpl=tpl_prodotti_detail&sqlpam1=256
I've used Scarpa Maestrale which were nice and light, and have a great range of motion. Excellent boots for backcountry, but I wanted to hack them up. They were worth a lot unhacked, so I sold them and got the cheapest Scarpa Avants I could find. That way I could experiment without fear of messing up too bad. $115 shipped, brand new, and I like them a lot. Removed the power straps, cut down the tongues a little. I often leave the front boot in the max forward lean setting, and leave the rear in walk mode. I'm looking for some Dynafit TLT6 boots. They are really light and supposedly pretty flexy.
I've been using these mostly with Burton race plates, flat front, and the rear wedged with soft Khiro skateboard wedges to keep it low and soft. Sometimes I use some Nidecker free carves, which I like but don't know how long they will hold up.
Take everything I say with a grain of salt! I can carve, but not like most of the folks on Bomber. I'm more of a wide board (24cm) freerider that likes to avoid slide turns whenever possible.
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How do these newer stiff softboot setups compare to some of the newer soft hardboot setups? Anyone ridden something like Driver X boots and something like the Dynafit TLT6 in comparison? I'm curious as to where the crossover point is.
Earlier this year I was looking into getting the stiffest soft boot setup I could find. I thought the prices were staggering considering how quickly my previous boots softened up, and went with some Scarpa AT boots instead. Pricey, yes, but won't break down and get to use existing bindings.
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I still ride a 174 with burton plates and really soft AT boots on powder days. I'm sure there's better powder boards out there, but I never feel like I need one when I'm surfing on my Supermodel. I love it and will be sad when I finally break it.
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Ha! Looks like both Jones are going through some changes.
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I have ridden in Burton Torque 3 strap bindings a lot. Broke a few, but they treated me OK. Highbacks lock and the top strap is substantial. I just like Alpine Touring boots better for everyday riding now.
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Hey, wait a minute... Is the Steep the same as the Kite with 8cm of tail cut off?
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My inclusion to the big boy boards page is pending, but I am curious about that Kite 179. I'm sure I read somewhere that it was only 164cm, which didn't make any sense. Is it really 179? What's the sidecut like, and do you have any of those?
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Go back and get it! I picked one up from another forum member last month (the Steep) and love it. I ride it with plates and soft Alpine Touring boots. Stable, somewhat damp, carves great. I love the width and sidecut radius for an all around board. For me, it's a perfect heavy northwest storm day ride.
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Clearly you asked this question of the resident sage, but as long as you're OK with an answer from the b-team, I'll give you my worthless opinion. I had the 180 Skunk Ape and the 170 Skunk Ape HP Ultrawide. The 180 was fun and seemed to carve fine, but the extruded base was slow and didn't get much faster regardless of any sort of base treatment. That kind of sucked, literally and figuratively. The 170 UW was more fun, snappier and quicker edge-to-edge than the 180, even clocking in at 28+cm wide. But it was the longest Lib with a sintered base and it wasn't long enough. Both are long gone and in their place is a Donek Hazelwood. That board does everything better and teaches me new lessons about technique all the time. I believe the Lib Tech "advances" (and I love the whole idea of Lib Tech) tend to mute or plateau what you can really get out of the board. Unlike Nigel from Spinal Tap, getting a board with Magnetraction and C2BTXcubeRsine profiling is like buying a amp that only "goes to six."
Good to hear a detailed review from somebody that understands carving performance.
And yeah, other than the width, I remember being vaguely put off by the gimmicky sounding ad speak that I didn't want to take the time to figure out. Too bad since It's rare to see mass produced 180s.
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That Coiler is a beauty.
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It is not for me. I am died in the wool narrow board guy. I lay awake at night trying to figure out what the perfect "Tweener" board is . Narrow but rides pow well :)
I have done it will many. "Big Gun" by Glissade for example , Lib Tech Skunk Ape / 180 + all. They all feel like I am driving a lumber truck when I get on the piste. Do not go by me. I run 70/65 with a MP29 boot!!!
Ha! Wow! So what is a good tweener for you? There is a lot of grey area between Skwal and Fat Bob isn't there?
And how was that 180 Skunk Ape? I passed up a good deal on one earlier this year because of it being so wide (I'm also MP29). Did it carve OK?
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I've been riding that way this season and love it. I'm around 32 degrees back 40 front in slightly modded Scarpa AT boots. I ride powder in walk mode then flip the lever (at least on the front boot) and lock in a little more for carving.
For my style and circumstances, I think it's a perfect combo.
2 Big Beaters! Nitro Fury 176, and Supermodel 174
in For Sale
Posted
Don't ruin that new Donek this early winter... Ruin one of these instead!
Nitro Fury 176 has a pretty ugly topsheet, but a decent base with fresh structure, and good edges. 3 light scratches on base. This thing is a built like a tank, and has very long running edges for a twin tip. $100
Burton Supermodel 174. Top sheet isn't too bad, but the base has had a couple chunks repaired. Edges need some work, but are intact and serviceable. I might be a little sad to see this go, because it was my #1 favorite powder board. $100