carlito

Thanks Corey! Watch me dodge rocks on my 184.... Jack Michaud pretty much nails the Biax/triax distinctions in his take - i especially like the bit about the stick of chalk! Great example! Basically anything meant to carve will be built with a triax type of construction to try to enhance torsional stiffness, Biax (0/90) boards are usually seen in the freeride/twintip category where buttering ability is seen as a feature. the carbon aesthetic choices are just a result of different approaches. A lot of the stuff on my website is actually of wet topcoats - like actually just sprayed and I thought to take a picture then - it isn't usually that shiny - and I have done stuff with semi-gloss or matte finishes. The board in the video actually has a polished epoxy topsheet (scratches a little too easy...) The Oxess stuff is probably a topsheet (polyamide or polyethelyene) that includes a texture, but clear to see the carbon underneath. The current favorite is the "carbonium" topsheet seen in lots of boards. Just clarification to the terms prepreg and autoclave. A prepreg is simply a PRE imPREGnated composite material, that is, the reinforcing fibers (carbon, glass, Kevlar, hybrids, etc.) have the resin included with the fibers at the factory. They come frozen, to stop the epoxy (usually) from finishing their cure cycle. There is no inherent advantage to prepregs - it's just that they are usually impregnated with "better" epoxies than we use in the ski/snowboard industries and you don't have to mix resin as it's included in the material. Those epoxies are usually "better" in that they resist higher temps and have increased mechanical properties compared to the typical ski/board industry epoxies. Those advantages are not really any better for things that are typically used in temperatures below 0 degrees C ha ha! Also the generic prepreg resin cure is at about 250 F/120 C which moves us into the thermal expansion/warping p-tex zone where you have to start to take cares about other stuff. A cured prepreg looks like any other carbon-epoxy layup. An autoclave is simply a heated box that can be pressurized. You place you tooling/part into the autoclave, and turn it on. The pressure goes up and allow the bagged part inside to be pressed using bag type tooling at higher pressures than available to vacuum bagging (at least on this planet!). The heat allows you to use those fancy prepregs and deal with complex cure cycle requirements. I doubt that much production is done with autoclaves as they are expensive, and their advantages can mostly be achieved with standard contact presses for boards. Prepregs are available with lower temperature cure cycles. Met Shred at the Whitefish get-together last winter - He was riding a pretty mint (for 1990?) Kemper Apex 170! I thought it was snowing a little too much for that board's degree of assymetry! ha ha! That was a pretty cool trip as it just snowed most days I was there and I ended up doing a bunch of all mountain riding during a good snowfall with John. It's a nice mountain. Might make the trip to the Turner mountain thing this year as it is the same distance from me (Golden, BC/ Kicking Horse). I unfortunately missed, again, a fellow "Canadian" from Revelstoke who apparently showed up the day after I left.

Ok. I'm your huckleberry I cover most of this stuff in the technology docs section on my website (exegi.ca). Still a work in progress! So a few dead ends on there, but the documents dealing with carbon construction and responsible weight reduction cover most of the questions people tend to bring up. I think there's also more good stuff in there! ha ha! but I'll try to summarize: Carbon fibers are stiff, strong, highly directional (anisotropic), and light. The range of stiffness is something like three times as stiff as glass for standard modulus fibers, about 20 percent stronger, and about 70% of the weight. Other grades of carbon increase stiffness and strength (and price!) and are almost never used in boards. I do use a bit of higher strength standard modulus stuff (toray t700) because it was on sale, and the strength numbers were significantly better without the stiffness getting too crazy. Bla bla bla. So what? What does it give me? Basically, you can use the superior strength/stiffness to build a board that significantly lighter (better numbers allows less material to be used, and the material weighs less) and just as stiff/strong (on one end of the spectrum) or just as light and be stiffer and stronger (on the other end of the spectrum). You could also try to land somewhere in between, maybe a little lighter, and somewhat stiffer and stronger.... This shows what happens when you "swap out" carbon for glass. The typical glass formula (kinda industry standard) is 22 to 25 oz/sq yard triax glass sandwiching a wood core (the glass biases are 50% tip to tail, and 25% in each of the 45 degree directions, ie about 11oz tip to tail, and 5.5 each 45 degree direction - a little more for the 25 oz.... Typical core thicknesses range from 2.5mm to 8mm to 2.5mm (nose/waist/tail) in various types of wood, this is a free-carving sorta thing - definitely not a park/jib/butter board. (note! no metal!). In this case using 4oz of carbon from tip to tail and 4 ounces at 90 degrees (top and bottom) would yield a board with about 50 % more stiffness and not quite two thirds the strength (tip to tail) of the glass equivalent (assuming 22 oz triax) at a significant weight reduction (probably about half, a bit less, in the weight of the fibers/resin...) Problems: If you don't change the core thickness (thinner!) you will crank up the stiffness too much - the board will be a plank, with tightly wound tendencies to react to weight shifts. Having a biax board will make the torsional stiffness proportionally too low in comparison to the longitudinal stiffness and the board will tend to feel "twitchy" as the lengthwise stiffness makes the sidecut try to initiate a turn on roll, then the board twists off before the board can bend into the sidecut - this will usually convince someone to leave carbon alone and stick with glass! "this thing is shit! it's all over the place, doesn't damp anything and is basically no fun....!" Further, the fact that the board is actually weaker now (at least tip to tail, where all boards fail) makes this even worse! Especially using plates where the point loading of higher loads through the plane of the fibers will tend to break things on the top of the board. Sigh. Why bother. Well... Let's think outside the box a bit. What you really want, especially in carving boards, is the board to be stiff enough longitudinally to snap back but soft enough to bend into the curve induced through sidecut geometry while remaining stiff enough to resist twist while rolling the board (remember, the sidecut/rider pressure inputs will try to bend the board lengthwise and twistwise (in torsion)). If the board "twists-off" all hell breaks loose (so to speak): The sidecut geometry is "reset" by the twist/release; edge hold goes away (board washes out); and this can cycle! and you get that special fun shudder/chatter mid turn.... Carbon gives a designer a way out. By using proportionally less fiber longitudinally and more at +/- 45 degrees one can ramp up the torsional stiffness and make the board want to turn more easily! Further, since the board is "twisting-off" less one can get away with less sidecut making the board more stable while still easy to turn (this only goes so far!). Shit, I tend to geek out on this stuff. Basically, carbon works, but you gotta work with it for a while to figure out a method to the madness. There are no right or wrong ways to make boards - materials wise - but a bunch of compromises that can be finessed to make things work; and the best way is to try a bunch of different stuff - and ride it. Carbon construction will be lighter and stiffer -this can be good or bad depending on.... It better have some fibers going at +/-45 degrees (most do) - It should be thinner than an equivalent glass board or will likely be too stiff lengthwise - will feel somewhat livelier/more reactive than an equivalent glass board, sigificantly more so than a metal/glass/lotsa rubber board. Again this can be good or bad - depending on what you want, and what the designer/builder wanted.... Beckmann's point is sharp! Be careful what you wish for. I guess I'll wrap up like this: I have been doing this since the early 90's (building boards) and can build them out of anything I want. I'm choosing carbon fiber because I like what it gives me as a rider AND as a builder. I have built some dogs in my day - But I think those days are behind me! ha ha ha!

Hmmm. This isn't the usual "best practice" approach to damaging the binding zone of boards (he hee hee). As Phil mentioned: and this makes it a pretty good approach to getting damaged on a personal level. Binding zone damage is usually a result of extreme board flex that, in the binding zone act as a stress riser because the "corner" of a binding starts to push really hard on a small point of the top laminate of the board. Plate bindings (especially older all alloy ones that didn't allow much flex) and stiff plastic boots can really push this over the top load-wise. My personal favorite approach to destruction is not the nose hook/flip over (though this is definitely the most spectacular - especially when followed by a "scorpion" landing!) but the shuddering low side slip out to desperate try to stop sliding off the side of the run into the trees "judder stop" on heelside - on occasion this even includes a secondary nose hook! This particular maneuver really loads up the board in front of the front foot. Now, general purpose boards aren't really designed with resisting this sort of loading in mind. They tend to be longitudinally soft (especially older, longer models (burton supermodels, ride timeless come to mind...) and this leads directly to the point loading described above, especially when combined with the teenier inserts sometime being spec'd now. I am sure that Donek, other alpine focused manufacturers, and the like (I know I definitely do!) take steps to help with this. This can include lots of stuff from more robust cores in that zone, to more glass/metal/strength in the zone, and basically making the board stronger/stiffer around the feet than typical soft-boot boards are made as well as better inserts and insert reinforcement. That said, I would still do it. Life's short. Ride the board that works for you. Keep in mind that it'll probably blow up someday and be prepared to get something from one of the manu's that will address the binding issues and perform in those conditions. Just quickly looked up the specs for those two boards, and despite the same overall length the Ride's ECL is over 10 cm shorter! That'll make a difference....

Touche. Wasn't trying to claim that these desperado type boards ARE BX boards. ha ha. Trying to highlight the fact that if you were going to reinvent carving with softboots (as a sort of "thought experiment") BX boards would be a tempting starting point. They have long effective edges, carve well, deal with speed effectively and are aimed at being used with softboots. If you look at the desperado, this is basically what they have done. Taken a generic BX boardshape, tweaked the stiffness, construction, and materials, to provide a funcarving (like the term!) board. And Voila! There are problems.... For big footed gorillas the boards are still too skinny. Those highly effecient shapes (high EE to overall length ratio) lead to all kinds of mayhem freeriding in Rob's Lake Louise context: The short noses submarine if not watched in soft snow of any depth, the tails (wide and corner-ey) catch on bumps/terrain irregularities, the short wide corner-ey tip profiles hunt and hook in fluted/hollow/gullied/sidehill softsnow riding (why do you think all those powder-sticks coming out of japans deep snow/mad gully systems all have extended noses!). All this can be handled by skill and attention by a competent pilot, but compromises the experience... Give em some tip and tail, widen em up, a bit o' taper and you got something. Hey that Virus thing looks familiar. Fullbags Diamond Blade is pretty sweet. Endeavor hammerhead thingy is sweet. There are boards out there lurking in the corners of the design envelope, they just seem a little narrow for the big guys to deal with the high angle carving component with (even moderately) duck footed stances.

Well, a couple of things... Nice looking boards. Price could make one hesitate. Quick money exchange check makes the desperados about $2000 Canadian. Sheesh. What do they pay waiters in Japan? I think there are some issues with what Rob called scaling here. None of the (really nice/skilled!) riders are very big folks with probably small feet (hard to tell). The big board is 26 wide. with an effective edge off the chart. Probably rides really nice. If your feet fit on it. And you are used to boards that are really long. Most people coming from an all mountain/softboot context are not. These guys are riding with forward stances. This allows for a bunch of stuff, compared to duck, but fundamentally duck requires more width to avoid bootout. You wonder what this is heading towards/where the trend is going. I think the Japanese show is pretty cool right now. The focus on "line" the "turn" the "carve" combined with what looks like a certain freedom to serve small niches (snowsurfing/softboot carving) is showing us a bunch of new cool toys. Or is it? These desperado boards are fundamentally BX boards. If people are looking to ride softboots with the same angles (or at least trending that way ha ha ) as their hardboots and fight with making bindings work as they get more loaded, Donek, Coiler, Prior, Kessler, et al have already got you covered - If you want to stay narrow. The Gray boys have made things wide enough for their softbooted feet,( probably not Rob's) and softened them to the point where softboots will push them around. But I don't think a BX/all mountain carving stick is what people are really wanting; else stick with the hardboots and angles. I think the unspoken thing is people want to be able to have a board they ride around on when it snows, or the mountain has variable conditions/terrain, or , basically, they feel constrained/limited by hardboots, that will be able to carve with aplomb when they are looking at a beautifully groomed slope. They want more versatility than their hardboot setup, and better carving than the (typical) softboot setup (including board) currently demonstrates. These boards are a step in the right direction - addressing the carving aspect nicely, but have some issues with versatility.... Ah, what do I know. To me the snowsurfing/softboot carving resurgence sure looks like 1989 "glisse" without paragliders and neon...

Hey Rob! If you are seeing Alex, say hi, he'll probably remember me. ha ha. It seems the number I have that is supposed to be yours is ... not. Call me 250-939-8129. or text me. I'll call ya back. We can figure this out! If you are driving trough and have time, stop by and say hi.

Rob: I would be excited to move this project forward! Chucky gave me your number a while back. I'll call you in the next couple of days. Lets build something cool!

Flex is something I'm going to be most worried about when it eventually comes to getting a custom super wide as i tend to have a preference for boards that are very stiff from the insert pack right out to the tips but a tad softer between the feet but i don't know how this would translate to wider board at all Beckmann here is echoing the right idea. Softer longitudinal and stiffer in torsion. But, I mean, if you're gonna connect the feet, you might as well connect the rest of the board at the same time as long as, and here's the catch, you don't crank up longitudinal stiffness. This should let your feet deal with the loads more sympathetically. How? Well, when you have a hammer, they say, everything looks like a nail. I am a carbon fiber guy so I am a big fan of increasing torsional stiffness by changing the +/-45* fibers in relation to the longitudinal (0*) fibers by using different weights of carbon on the different axis of the board. The standard snowboard sandwich, for years, has been a roughly 22 oz/sq yard triaxial glass comprised of roughly 10 oz in the 0 axis, and 6oz in the two 45* axis'(?plural). Now you can change this in a bunch of ways, like adding metal, swopping out some of the glass for metal, going for a metal board with carbon or glass unis tip to tail to gain some mass/damping and torsional stiffness. Don't forget that rubber. But most of those options increase longitudinal stiffness in lockstep with torsion. For what we are trying to do we want to change the recipe of the triax. This is hard to source. But most of the custom builders can help you out with something like this. I know I can. Another school of thought is to very carefully try to match the flex profile of the board to what the particular rider wants. Sean at Donek can certainly address this with much more wisdom than I can, but fundamentally, stiffness is altered through core thickness. This also affects torsion. By carefully altering the core profile one should be able to positively effect the soft bits/stiff bits/rider aims. This is tough in todays market. Boards are, usually too short in the edge contact length to have much room to vary the core thickness. This is because once you remove two feet from the middle of the edge contact length for foot stance and inserts there is just not that much left to work with. The "ramps" are pretty short. Most companies don't even bother to do anything sophisticated with those ramps - they are usually simply slopes beginning at the end of the reference stance or insert pack and stopping at the edge contact (this is definitely not the case with most of the carving folks - they all know better... further, they usually have more length and thickness to work with). Basically, by carefully profiling the core and tweaking the biases of the fiber weights you should be able to get the stiffness you need in torsion without ending up with an unbendable plank. Remember, you are trying, while carving, to get the board to bend along the sidecut based on the board to slope angle. Too stiff longitudinally and it doesnt really bend until you are dumping lots of energy into the system. Not stiff enough in torsion and the sidecut "unwinds" as pressure builds and you don't generate longitudinal deflection. Actually, one of the biggest unsung heroes of increasing torsion stiffness is that you can get away with less (bigger number) sidecuts. This makes the boards more stable while remaining turny because they are riding a "bigger" sidecut, but it is not unwinding and disappearing as much. Just built a 27 wide 170 for a big fella. 10 meter sidecut, with a little bit o' decamber, more in the tip than the tail. Might have to take it for a spin and put my hardboots in a duck stance...

Hey Shortcut. Look me up when in Golden/Kicking Horse. Glad to show you around. call or text 250 939 8129

Mig! Had to be before 1990. Me and Rob Leblanc took our level one at Camp Fortune in the Gatineaus. It was before moving to Whistler in fall 1990, maybe spring '89. We weren't the first class. I think Stan was involved. Maybe it was spring 1990 after all... Jeez I feel old. ha ha

Rob: Yeah lets ride!

I am really liking this thread for a few reasons. First the board talk is always interesting to me... Second, I love the idea that what is going on is really a blending of carving/freeriding/all mountain riding in a way that focuses on a high performance approach to getting around the mountain. What defines this? Probably nothing more complicated than keeping your energy "high". Traveling at higher than average speeds while not dumping tons of energy sliding turns with slip angles over 45*; committing to the edge during a turn. Mostly it is attitude. I really like that Rob Stevens is saying that he's having so much fun carving! Stance angles are, I think, like twiddling the dials on the amps and effects pedals to get the sound you want. It doesn't really matter, there is no right and wrong, what matters is that it feels good and allows you to be as committed to the edge as you need to be in the terrain you want to ride. In a lot of ways it's probably early days here Third: Again, it comes back to boots. There have been some rants (Gilmore maybe? after the talk about Burton's new step on thingys), complaints, wishes, polls, mods and on and on. It doesn't really matter how they're attached to the board (isolation plates debate notwithstanding) so long as you can change the angles/position/and canting/lift if you want to but we need better boots. It's been 30 years. We're still thinking about modifying AT boots, Ice climbing boots, Mountaineering boots. Arrgh. Plastic boots start out shitty/painful, but after a bit of dancing with the local bootfitter a hardbooter can at least get to the bottom of the hill and their feet are still comfy. I usually experience a perverse sense of schaudenfraude (sp?) watching the kids in their softboots, who were just telling me how comfortable they were at the top of the hill, yanking their feet out of their bindings, as if they were in wolverine pens or something, at the bottom of the gondola.... But this is, really, just childish on my part. The fact is their feet hurt too. I tried going to softboots. About 6 years ago. "The boots are better now, the bindings are better, They're SO stiff! They're light and warm. After all you can't ride powder or bumps or trees or anything other than groomed in plastic boots!" I hated it. The smeary lack of power and vague connection to the board was disconcerting. I farted around with angles, settings, forward lean, duct tape, foam. Felt like it was 1989 again. It was ok in powder, well pretty awesome when it was low angle or trees actually, but frustrating when loading the board up. When Rob and BlueB mention ankle issues; flex/roll under load. I can add one more. Toeside turns under power, hitting something uneven where pressure changes fast (think: mogul hidden under 5 cm of snow; 30 everywhere else). My back foot ankle hurts just thinking about it. Finally (4 years later) went back to putting my plates on my powder board (38/21; 35/21)and giggled like a schoolgirl for the whole run. But that's just me.... Fundamentally, I think Beckmann is right. (paraphrasing here, hope I am not taking you too much out of context...) The boots (and remainder of binding interface) have to support/transfer power from the riders body to the board whilst allowing for the riders body to travel through a range of motion without inputting unwanted/inadvertent loads/forces to the board. This range of motion is simply whatever is needed to get your body in the right position vis a vis the board/slope to get done what you want done. I love the Frankenboots he has built. It looks to me like he has allowed the boot to fit his foot comfortably (he's a bootfitter kinda guy after all...) and allowed it to move freely, then allowed tune-able control of that movement through the spring loaded "travel limiters". The rest of us are trying to get the plastic shells of the boots to flex the way we want by shaving/rivetting/swopping parts (tongues) using different elastomers in the binding flex points. Every control input has too many effects. Softer, more adjustable hardboots? Stiffer softboots (made of plastic a la Fitwell?) with adjustability in the exoskeleton (binding)? I donno. Somethings gotta give...

Sooooo. Most of the suggestions above make sense. I ride most stuff, with the exception of parks/pipe, with hardboots and to me it looks like most of the boards mentioned above make sense if you break with the recent trend and "size up" instead of down. I feel that hardboots allow you to go longer and stiffer. Fundamentally you have to ask yourself BlueB's question about how you want to freeride - there is a pretty big range. I make my own boards and recently had a bit of a re-awakening to the desirability of a highly versatile board that carves well. I had taken out my alpine board because the grooming was looking good (from the snow report) and kinda trying to predict from the earlier storm/weather. I get up there and its absolute hero snow. Incredible. Like, really can't make a mistake. But the crazy thing was that the wind was blowing and the alpine had been wind-groomed with about 10 cm of blown around snow. I met an acquaintance and followed them down a double black bump/bowl thingy and holy smokes it was awesome. you could ride like it was powder. You could do all kinds of stupid stuff like carve on the hero grooming and mach off into the ungroomed and simply carve/slarve back after a couple highly pressured turns. Terrific day. The only thing was I was on a full on alpine board. It was shockingly good but a little more width would have been nice off the groomed....Here I started thinking, it all comes down to where you draw the line. Not too many others are riding like this and it's largely because of the boots (I think). Hardboots allow you to ride longer stiffer boards with a lot of control - if you back angles off to about 45/35 in everything. It doesn't carve quite as good as higher angles but allows for more versatility as the snow gets "variable". You don't have the ankle mobility/fine control in powder that the soft-boot carver guys are bringing to the party, but it's pretty damn good, and when the snow gets choppy and conditions are deteriorating hardboots provide more appropriate power and control for charging. The problems show up in tight confines at low speeds. You simply can't mollycoddle, and if you are tired there can be some, well, sporty moments. Basically, the power and control afforded by hardboots allow you to get a longer, more stable board than you would normally (normal=softboot context), and it can be somewhat stiffer. If you get it wide enough to avoid bootout at moderate angles you get a pretty versatile setup. A board with a large surface area shovel, a relatively stiff forebody, some decambering (around 10 cm nose, and 7 tail, assuming directional) combined with a long edge contact is even better. If you want to focus on carving more than not carving you can go a bit skinnier with less surface area nose. Actually, what comes to mind as well is Fullbags Blunt Diamond. 138 long edge contact is pretty healthy in a 163 board that is 26.5 cm wide. My answer (for me): 148 edge contact, 23.5 waist, 9 to10 m blended sidecut radius, 1.2 cm of taper with a 3 cm setback centered on the sidecut, some decamber. With a bobbed tail, eliptical rise, cut off 12 cm back of edge contact (the best part of this old school tail profile is that it "stands up" when leaned against a wall or something doesn't just fall over) it comes out at 178 overall. I am 6'1 and about 100 kilos (220).

Okay.... Full disclosure: I have been building boards since 1992 and have recently started up a small enterprise doing such in a commercial context, ie I'm selling these things now, so if there is any problem/issue with me posting please delete or let me know. That said, I feel I have something to add to this conversation. I have always had a freeride out west bent on the boards I built, but they usually had a hardboot context in that I wanted to carve when snow got hard or grooming got good and I freeride in hardboots. The boards tended to end being as narrow as possible with 45/35 angles and plastic boots. I think Rob's approach to the issue is fundamentally correct. Take the best working board for freeriding you can find and make the thing wide enough to avoid boot-out. The fundamental dimension is edge contact length. Interesting the Tom Burt model and my standard board since 1993, Priors 4X4, Jones' big Flagship are right around 132 cm +/- a couple. The alpine folks will scoff, but this is pretty long in the softboot world. This would probably be a not too bad place to start for bigger guys. I just built a 170 overall with a 132 ecl, 9/10 vsr and a 26 waist. Makes for a pretty nice board, and could easily be pushed out 2 cm wider. The temptation looking at the Japanese guys carving is to make the ecl longer. They're boards are really quite long (proportionally!) but those guys usually have pretty small feet and aren't too tall. For a six footer with size 11's you are starting to bump into the standard width for p-tex at the 132ecl/10m sidecut/28 wide intersection. Looking at the photo's of Rob from Nakiska it seems that getting high edge angles is achievable so you could probably get away with less sidecut (bigger radius numbers) as long as you maintain adequate torsional stiffness; this could allow for an increase in ecl without exceeding the 33 to 34 cm width limits in standard p-tex. Torsional stiffness could turn into the elephant in the room as the boards will tend to get stiffer overall without increasing torsional stiffness proportionally due simply to the increase in width. in order to make the boards flex nicely lengthwise (stiff, but not too stiff) it could become difficult to keep torsional stiffness high enough. This is not such an issue with hardboots as the platform is more powerful and can deal with higher stiffness better (most of the time) and the skinny boards don't have to be as proportionally stiff in torsion. I love building stuff like this. The market, generally speaking, not so much. The recent (snowsurfing) trends towards really short boards with big tapers will carve ok but quickly run into grip/stability issues as speeds increase or the grooming is imperfect. Similarly, all mountain/freeride boards are getting shorter, especially ecl-wise (shout out to Mig Fullbag and his Diamond blade - bucking the trend!). The buttering trend has led to fewer boards using triax layups that provide the torsional stiffness needed for carving. Finally the current fetish for lightweight cores and flexy boards makes for lots of easily exploded boards when driven hard and making mistakes (hard heelside carve oopsie leading to loaded up shuddering jerking stop from high speed=crunch). Ok, enough geek talk for now. If its cool for me to post this sort of stuff be happy to continue the conversation...

Hey Fellow Carvers at WTF! Sorry no follow up posts. Left the bulldog sat night and had a nice drive home to golden. Look at the posts a couple days later and figger: "shit, shoulda stayed for the band!" ha ha Had a great time riding with you folks and Whitefish is a very entertaining hill. And despite the "carving" focus of the group nobody can really complain when it snows somewhere over 8 inches in 48 hours with a little wind. ha ha . Just a little more "All Mountain Hardbooting" focused while the weather is doing it's thing.... Those Picture Chutes are pretty nice, thanks John! After getting back to Golden early Sunday morning I slept for a few hours, rode with the family at the horse, and battened down the hatches for the incoming storm. (ie, switched bindings to a 169 Powder specific shape). Monday offered up this lovely view down "Tunnel Vision", an honest 35 degree 3 board wide line down CPR ridge on the Horse: Snowed all day. Probably got close to 30 cms or something by tuesday morning. No photo ops on tuesday, busy riding...

If you can find baseplates the obvious answer is to buy a new one. Considering the current (somewhat nebulous state of Bomber) situation you can utilize the following steps: Find someone who is good with a TIG welder. They tend to hide out in aircraft/tech/stainless industries/contexts. Buy a 6-pack of good beer. Take binding apart and make sure it's easy to get to the crack. It should take the (now successfully bribed) welder about 30 seconds to weld that crack into a solid piece of metal. Spend some time with a couple of files and a vise to clean up the bead/screw track. Admittedly this is a "worst case" sort of fix, as the welding will turn the T6 material to annealed (in the heat affected zone) - but it's better than cracked. Well, worst case is probably do nothing. I bet it would go for a long time anyhow. You aren't gonna get a one foot ride, massive bending/clicking/loose foot first. Shit, it might just break catastrophically. I donno

Anyone? Anyone? Just finished riding and am in the day lodge. Any way to reach you guys. Great riding with you all today you can call/text 250 939 8129. Thanks if anyone sees this

Add another person to number three! Though I do a fair amount of 2 when conditions just aren't so good for riding off piste.

Should be there friday or saturday. We might be getting some snow here in golden on thursday afternoon...

Neil: Fair enough. Could handle a multi hill sorta thing. As long as they are drive-able from the rockies. WTF works for me, but not so much for lots of other folks. I do kinda like Kimberly. Haven't been to Revelstoke mountain resort yet... If people are passing KHMR give me a call. Can be a sort of unofficial guide on a surprising number of days...

Hey Folks. I live in Golden, so I obviously have a dog in this race. I say: come to Kicking Horse! There seems to be a preconception that there isn't much to carve at the horse. This isn't really the case, it's just that there is a lot of mountain, and only 1 real lift. This means that you have to link up the carving zones and that there is not likely to be much chairlift viewing (ha ha) Seriously, there is lots of good carving here, it's only that there isn't all that much in the blue zone. Lots of hard green stuff, and a significant number of challenging black stuff that is often groomed. It really depends on the snow. If it snows it takes a couple of days for the groomed stuff to get good. The first day they are busy just getting the cat roads flattened down, and the green runs opened up. The second day is usually a lot better (at least as far as groomers are concerned). But hey! if it's snowing its a hell of a fun mountain! If it hasn't snowed in a while then KH has pretty damn good grooming, but the real positive is the snow quality and almost complete lack of crowds. The hill faces north. Snow stays good for a long time, and is only rarely icy. If you have a trail map. Decent snow (read powder)? Here's the run : Gondola to the top. Click in and ride one of the CPR chutes to the bottom of crystal bowl and ride super cruisy blue runs to the bottom of the stairway chair. Up Stairway. Climb to the top of White Wall. Ride the first chute to the through Feuz Bowl. Come out of Feuz and traverse high to get the mini alaska zone above the cat road/pioneer chair area. Go to the top of the pioneer chair and ride the "pioneer knob" under the chair and continue right on down on pioneer or kicking horse or porcupine. You have just ridden about 4800 vertical feet of legit fun powder in about 45 minutes. Fresh snow all groomed out? Gondola to the top, mount up and ride down crystal bowl cruising the mellow blue runs on the west side of the bowl and get onto the stairway chair. They often groom one of the two runs down from the top of the ridge into crystal bowl. Both are solid and steep. this time cruise the mellow bottom of the bowl past the chair, and continue to upper Euphoria. Euphoria is almost always groomed, at least the top. Lower Euphoria groomed? Ride that! Steep as hell and challenging off camber fall lines. At the cat road, there are usually about 3 options that are fun: Wiley, Buffalo Jump, or Porcupine. Ride to the next cat road crossing, and hang a right over to the top of the Catamount chair. This is a beginner area, but has solid hard green runs. Wolverine is great fun. With a nice cruisy finish to the bottom of the gondola. Hey! another solid 4800 or so vertical, about 70 percent carving. There are lots of options. Kicking horse is usually pretty quiet so there are almost always some sort of mid january deals on accomodation/lift passes. If the resort isn't doing a good sales job, there are lots of hotels and some pretty nice hostels in town. I don't have as swank a place as rice, but can offer up my more pedestrian digs as some sort of place to hang out one evening for libations. Just my (too long) five cents, Had a great time at last years event at Nakiska, Would see you folks there again happily. But give KH a some moments of thought. Later, Carl