dhamann

treat yo self. it is definitely nice to have these options available to us based on each riders unique riding styles, techniques, preferences and aspirations. pick your poison(s). "open up and say ahh" thanks for the feedback and support @Cthulhufish

idk arbor and evo. not to knock the effort here, but there appears to be a bandwagon thing going on. yikes. Arbor should know better and probably does. noticing torsional flex at :35 without trying as 'advanced intermediate' is mentioned. this may be conflicting information. maybe more like beginner/intermediate interested in directional carve focused riding. just like nidecker marketed that Spectre with a 7m radius as a high speed carver. get it together. the industry is better than that and i'll say it again; Jones pretty much nailed it with the freecarver. as consumers educate themselves more, marketing becomes less relevant. thankful for places like ASB. i can blatantly see 'carving' become a fading trend with this sort of marketing. not all carving boards need to be "expert" boards. there's nothing wrong with that. this Padre appears to be less than an 'advanced intermediate' board IMO. just tell it how it is without over hyping lies lies lies. great gnr album btw.

Fn aye. Glad we scooped the last of it!

some snowboard carving yesterday morning in New England. season's not over yet! could even see the backside of Stratton. clear as day. painted a few lines with @lafcadio

Select intuition liners on sale. Quite a few models. 20% off. https://intuitionliners.com/product-category/boot-liners/

i'm pretty sure that arm movements are a scored technique considered in Japanese technical riding competition. body positioning, etc. the arms are the flare for sure; controlled may or may not score better. i don't know for sure. however, the arms are raising opposite from what is normally practiced. this rider has graduated! concept understood, but can be difficult to grasp for what is considered good technique, etc. from a worldly point of view. just my observational 2 cents.

nope. tested and approved. front boot, this. rear boot, large hard basic only.

Sloppy seconds afternoon I guess. Definitive Jerry factor upon arrival. Cleared out around 2. 1-2 was sketchy if not super cautious yet aggressive. 2-3 it opened up. The few fresh groomed spots left over were nice. Wish I coulda made the morning but adulting got in the way. Looks like a solid 8-10” base out there.

glad i sharpened. yikes. got a couple hours in mid day. rode the lift with a patroller and brought the strait liner topic to his attention, so hopefully a little more awareness will be brought to the Pluto's pointers. had some words with one who passed me and saw them coming so i drifted away from their line and then pointed it to confront them. somewhat of a skilled skier and she apologized immediately (voices in my head said: sorry's don't pay my bills sweetheart). we have to share the hill, but making others aware is hopefully helpful for them to also consider others on the hill too. it's a two way street. conditions wise, it was firm loose granular (mostly firm) and very difficult to hold an edge with my first non metal ptex top board and switched to a metal board that absolutely changed things for the better. night and day. brand new set and polished edges on both. almost race ready.

Friday unlikely, but also we’ll see. Could be the worst conditions ever. 50’s to teens and high winds in 48hrs. No natural in weeks. My only motivator.

above is for rice method; interior mold and/or fine tuning hotspots; hairdryer can also be used for exterior shell hotspots. note the different microwave watts. below is also for rice method, but oven temp at 120C/250F and times used for heating is identical. all should be done with caution. also, see 'custom fitting' drop down menu at middle of header here: https://intuitionliners.com/choose-your-fit/ if using a home oven: i do one liner at a time. flip halfway if you want. works great. probably should've turned oven off like Jack says above, but i didn't. tinfoil lined on grate... second liner almost started to stick to tinfoil. oh geez. close one. no biggie though. use caution. that's all. don't get stuck on seconds or a even a minute during the process... just follow the process through in a timely manner. riding them a few times will further help form to feet/boot/etc. not all liners are fully made up of moldable foam; especially stock liners. the rice or stovepipe/tube heating method may be best to kickstart the molding and test. full heating of the liner out of the shell is preferred by some due to forming to the shell too, further lessening the probability of hotspots; not eliminating. as mentioned above, most liners can be heat molded multiple times which is good because sometimes this is needed to really dial in the fit. i've heard up to six with intuition, but feel more comfortable with three to four due to the high temps and nerd science behind what is also mentioned above. i've had success with an intuition plug wrap and fx race tongue liner using this oven method. give it a go.

nice. thanks for chiming in @andy scheen. insightful take on reading between the lines and sharing from experience. hiding in plain sight. makes sense as much as some of the information in each of the different videos shared by James and Lars. we can all learn something from folks like yourself too. all should be commended for speaking out and in the youtube world, getting on camera. dare i mention the Japan Snowboard Association? it seems very different than north america and wish i knew more about the technical riding and competitive technical riding in Japan. as a newbie learning of this, i believe this competitive environment (unlike the north american freestyle focus of xgames, int'l alpine race, etc.) is the drive for this sort of style of carving that is made so popular. well, duh. hindsight 20/20. it's an extremely different take than the America's, just as James and Lars take can differ. no right or wrong, just preferences. it's all still snowboarding. this may be a can of worms that is more appropriate for it's own thread? as an instructor/coach yourself, you may already be aware of JSBA, but check out JSBA Official on YT. long boring videos you can only decipher from viewing (20+hrs). how deep of a rabbit hole will one go? anyone care to cliffsnote this for us? TIA

Like April out there (temps in 50’s) and the crotch typically closes early to mid March. Ouch!

this seems like that could be fabricated through the grapevine from what is said in 'dear rider'. could be deeper than what is said in the film too. Donna mentions something along the lines of the vision of sims vs the vision of burton. sims was naturally freestyle focused where burton mistakenly thought race was the direction snowboarding was going and then changed quickly to meet the needs of the market. she also says, to paraphrase, Tom was a great competitor in business, despite the clash. between the late 90's and White domination is a good ten years. i knew the (or one of?) team manager with White and gave him sh.t about the tight leather pants outfits, etc. and the reply was, it sells. that was '05 or '06. the donna carpenter bomb hole podcast is worth a listen!

@pow4ever we met a few years ago and rode a little bit together. coming from an alpine background and seeing you ride a contra and a rev, here's my 2 cents: get a traditional consumer based board/binding/boot. you know what to look at with regards to sidecut, flex, camber, etc.. lean towards the preferences you know that you'll be comfortable with to start from. it doesn't need to be hard, stiff, etc.. this is just a 'get to know' kind of kit. you may already have it? with this kit, ride it and get comfortable on it. try to stay to lower angle slopes and focus on different things at different times, but also try not to feel the need to have to focus all the time. just ride. if that makes sense. have fun with it and then fine tune from there. establish a base line per your comfort, goals and find out what works best for you. the softboot stuff doesn't need to be any major investment like most alpine stuff can be. there is much more forgiveness to this equipment. it doesn't mean you need to carve every turn on every run. it doesn't mean that you have to have a clean line every run. pick and choose the sections of trail that has a decent surface, no crowd and evaluate the equipment. forget about technique. you know how to snowboard and have great baseline to start from. i know you like to nerd out, etc. but for a first time softy, stay clear of hyper focused directional carvers. first, consider what is mentioned above. maybe if you like it you can get custom stuff, add plates, add boot stiffeners, etc.. but for now keep it simple. you know your needs better than anyone. what i heard this guy josh dirksen say recently is something along the lines of "you will always ride your best with the board you feel most comfortable on" (regardless of wax, edge bevel, structure, core shots. etc.). at this stage of the game, you need to decide what will be comfortable for you. it will not happen overnight and some adaptation will need to take place. be patient and give it at least a couple years to see if it clicks for you. otherwise, you always have alpine stuff. the goal is fun although performance can be fun for some too. i'm just saying forget about getting hung up on performance equipment for now. you'll get there. pretty sure you ride 80% of the time or more in northeast conditions, but maybe not anymore. i really don't want to be too specific so you can shop around and decide for yourself, but i wouldn't shy away from a 6k free carver and go with the larger size if you're thinking in between two sizes, 7/10 or 8/10 flex binding, 8+ flex boot. solomon boots tend to be lower volume. use your zippy fits or something like that in them. or not. go right for the custom board and stiffest everything but you'd be missing the point. just my 2cents. best of luck!

sorry to hear about your initial thoughts @Ster but at least you didn't have to wait a year for it. could be worse and i hope things work out with the situation. in other donek news about 24hrs ago... curious about that new Kona. "...secret construction core and a layer of rubber for vibration dampening. The new shape of the Kôna was developed by one of Canada’s top instructors to enable you to go shorter with your board for a more playful experience or keep it at the same length as you usually ride and have a much longer effective edge than your standard board of this type." -JM https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3ntkxLLcYy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== based off of the Aloha (Senna Leith design) and i think the Aloha replaced the Nomad. seemingly turny and forgiving flex for easier riding it seems, but construction layup makes it sound like a solid board. a welcoming addition to the softy free carve options. interested to see some specs at some point, but i notice no specs on Donek site for their boards. ... cause custom everything. some recommended numbers would be nice to provide a baseline IMO. i thought there used to be, but now there isn't.

“Wars” is a bit strong. Maybe misunderstanding is more appropriate. Snowboarding is not a me vs you unless you ever competed against that White guy. there also a thread previously active regarding this topic.

i'm sure James mentioned something about ASB to Lars and quoting him from a comment on YT and putting here will be ok, but... @Odd Job "The titanal thing is something I can't actually speak about. I've ridden two of such boards: Korua Bullet train and this coiler. The Korua has nothing on this Coiler Contra in any way. I did also get some rebound, for sure, but I had to make that happen myself rather - as in I had to pop out of a turn more actively than on my ash boards. Vibration dampening is on another level!! My Cheater is insanely damp, but this Coiler was even smoother - too smooth for my liking. The key is: that board with its 29.6cm waist was WAY too wide for me!! Although I have bigger feet than James, it was much too wide. This contributes much more to the sluggish feel than the construction." -LH as Lars points out, he has a different style and approach than James but the goals are the same. the my way or the highway approach does not help anything but ego. ie. the duck carver who felt the need to blow Lars up in a socials posting that is the reason for the vid above. the dark side to snowboarding. boo! i see James approach to being fairly specific and Lars being more overall. i can appreciate the fantastic information and contributions from both channels. it is very difficult and takes a lot of guts and effort to put themselves out there, on camera for this stuff. give em some friggen credit, just as the historically big names like Jones and Fawcett deserve credit for their efforts. different levels, absolutely!!! but can't we all get along?

And vs the ash core cheater. Whhhomp vs growl? No shhhhhhhh. Stay tuned, right. Does listening to music play a factor to 2-3 collision encounters per season at a mountain all to yourself on groomer days?

the majority of the mountain is riding well. Firm surface. Beware, a good handful of trails have horrible grooming conditions. Dangerous like. Plenty of great trails too. Just expect a fair bit of variability but acceptable.

store is restocked

store is restocked

That photo is sick. Labels to boot. Fantastic. Hoping for zero rollbacks.

there's no wrong way to eat a reece's. beautiful board.