jburk

Jeez, that's all I need. A board that would constantly and subliminally say "Sorry, I can't do that Dave".

Sold all my ski tuning tools decades ago and just getting back into doing my own edge work, so I'm slowly acquiring tools as needed. Like @st_lupo, I also use a swix fixed guide, hard to go wrong with something as simple as this, and you never have to wonder if you've reset an adjustable tool back to exactly the same angle as the last time you took a pass on a board. And I like the Diaface diamond stones for maintenance, have a 200 and 400 grit as well. Haven't had to do my base edges yet, but I'd probably go with the Beast base tool as recommended by @Keenan, same philosophy of fixed-angle tools never leading you astray.

This makes me wonder if the Kessler bindings differ in any significant way from the F2 Race titaniums, or if they’re just rebranded F2s. The image shows a pozidrive head in the toe piece. http://www.kessler-swiss.com/en-US/products/snowboard/snowboardBindings

I wouldn't hesitate to buy something off the website of an established and well-known European vendor like SG; if we didn't have the awesome custom options in NA offered by Donek, Coiler, Thirst, etc., (and I had the budget, maybe next year...), I'd certainly be looking at buying a FullCarve 163 from them. But €350 for the bindings (~$430 US), + shipping? Ouch. As much as I dislike pozidriv and wish the h/w on the F2s was 4mm hex, that's a hard argument to win (for me). They do seem nice though. And I curse every time I have to move the toe/heel blocks all the way to expose the bolt heads on the F2s.

I see your profile says you’re in New Mexico. Where do you buy these in North America, do you get them from European sites and pay shipping and duty?

With the UPZ internal boot ramp in the heel it works out to not as much lift as it looks. Do you wear Deeluxe or HSPs? Going with this setup (extra flat stack) in front and rear toe has been the missing piece for me in getting dialed in. Up until now this season for the first 13 days I was wiped by 9000 feet of vertical. I’ve got two days on this new setup, first day was 11.5k and still had gas in the tank, today was 18.5k, rode until the lifts closed and could have kept going.

The small ramp opposite the larger one (they’re meant to be installed as a pair on the same foot) helps keep the two surfaces ~roughly~ coplanar. It’s rarely perfect, but in practice seems close enough for government work. Any potential misalignment should have less effect as the toe and heel pieces move farther apart I’m guessing your shoe size is on the larger end of the scale I’m a mp26 in UPZ, so a short sole length; I’ve had the toe and heel pieces quite close together and not noticed an issue, but maybe I’m just not very observant. Resulting lift angles on the F2s vary as the spacing between heel and toe changes, so it’s hard to say “my toe lift is 4.2*” without an external measuring device. Without going custom, you get what’s offered by the combination of the size of the large ramp, the spacing between toe and heel, plus or minus the optional flat stack. Most people seem to find a working solution, this may be because I think small variances in lift angles are better tolerated than small variances in cant due to ankle joint anatomy, lift angles that are close enough are good enough. My 2 cents, following my advice may cause death, paralysis, or a tax audit by the IRS. I wish I could cant my front foot outward, but the 4* is too much, I get foot pain. No cant seems to be working for me, but I’d give someone else’s left arm for a set of 1* or 1.5 wedges.

Last week I had the privilege to do a run with Mike Tinkler at Mt Hood Meadows. It was the the first time in 20+ years I had ridden a chairlift with another hardbooter, since '95 I think.

I've recently been through a learning cycle with the F2s, so I can address a couple of your questions relating to F2 Race and Intec bindings, but since I'm about 60 pounds lighter than you I can't speak to flex comparisons. First thing about the F2s are that the stock canting options are limited: the cant shims are 4*. If that works for you then you're golden, if not, you're into custom territory. I used to run 1* outward cant on my front foot on TD3 step-ins, but have found I can run no cant once I switched to F2 Race. It may be that the flex provided by the heel and toe bails on the Race accommodates the difference. You'll need a pozidrive #3 bit to work with the F2s (on amazon if you can't find one locally), if you use a phillips you'll destroy the bolt heads in short order. What's in the box: for both the Race Titanium and Intec Titanium (don't know about either Titanflex models), you'll get a single lift kit that includes a large and small ramp and 3 bolts (two 37mm, and one 27mm), and a 4-pack of cant shims. The large and small ramps are for heel/toe on the same foot, and the 4-pack will provide enough shims for 4* canting of both feet. If you're like me and want to have both toe lift in the front and heel lift in the back, you'll need to order a second lift kit when you buy the bindings, or ensure that the set you by used has two lift kits - make sure it's not just 2 ramps (1 lg and 1 small). The 37mm bolts are to mount the large ramp under the toe or heel piece. The 27mm third bolt in the lift kit is a mystery until you go to combine a cant wedge with a small ramp. The stock bolts are 22m long. When you stack a cant wedge on top of the small ramp, the 22m bolt on the the taller side of the cant wedge should be replaced by the 27mm provided in the kit to provide enough thread engagement. One thing that you can do to customize the lift is to stack opposing cant wedges so that they cancel each other out but still make a small flat stack. I wear UPZ boots and use both heel and toe lift, and I found that the extra boot ramp in these boots made the lift angles not quite right, too much in the rear heel and not enough in the front toe. I was able to stack two cant wedges under the large ramp to give more lift in the front toe using the 37mm bolts - still enough thread. I was also able to stack the remaining two cant wedges under the small ramp at the rear toe to reduce the heel lift on the rear foot. To do this I had to replace both the 22mm bolts on the rear toe with the two 27mm bolts that I had from the one lift kit that came in the box, and the second lift kit that I had ordered when I bought the bindings from Donek. If I also wanted to cant either foot with the stock 4* wedges, then I'd be into custom territory, but that would most likely be finding 30mm and 40mm truss head bolts (the bolt heads need to fit under the sliding part of the toe/heel pieces), and I'm guessing that I probably wouldn't need to grind them. Here you can see the large and small ramps under the front toe and heel, and the flat stack of 2 wedges under the front toe to increase the toe lift, and at the rear foot, the cant wedges stacked under the toe to reduce the heel lift.

Nice. Looks like a good time was had by all.

nm, think I've found one on the FB Alpine Snowboard Trader group. Nice bunch over there, multiple offers to ship me one for free.

Find myself in need of one of these, anyone have a set that they've pulled off their UPZ boots when they converted to step-ins? Just need the heel piece, and could live with just one.

this just seems to be self-justifying logic for being an a**hole: "if I hit you, you shouldn't have been on the slope in the first place, and it's OK that I hit you". That's both breathtaking and frightening...

I was poking around on the Donek site (checking stock on a different item) and noticed that they show having FinTec heels in stock. They're listed in a non-obvious spot: https://www.donek.com/product/bomber-td3/ Give it a try, I was able to add a pair to the cart, the site normally doesn't let you do that with out of stock items.

Unsure whether this is a good idea; you'd be continually flexing the mounting bolts that hold the toe and heel pieces, there's no built-in pivot on the F2s between the boot and bottom plate.

Liftie at Meadows last night: "did you make that yourself?" Riding a new Donek Freecarve with F2 Intec bindings, looks the farthest from a home-made setup that I can think of. Unless I had a full machine shop at my disposal.

7+ years. That’s quite the necro-thread.

Sale pending.

The liners are stamped 6-1/2, but they came from a mp26 boot.

These are the liners from my 2016/17 RC10s, mp26. I switched over to Intuitions pretty quickly so these have between 10 and 15 days on them, still look new. I have the full pad kit for them as well. $35 + shipping, continental US and Paypal preferred.

BTS, DGSS, similar systems all have a travel limit, can only flex so far. Walk mode limit of travel is when your shin touches your toes after the shell plastic explodes. Oww…

Why? Risk of injury?

Thanks. I’m going to give that a shot next time I’m out. Today I went through 9 diff combos of front & rear lean, but always with both locked. Then just unlocked them both to test the “walk mode is what was working” hypothesis. Then my legs turned to mush, no more valid testing to be done that day. Only second time this season I’ve been able to get to ride two days in a row.

That may be. The surface was pretty soft and choppy with Cascade cement underneath the last two days as well, previously that would have been no-fun riding. A hold-over from my skiing days is to drive everything from the bottom of my feet and ankles, and let everything above that sort itself out. I’ve had days while re-learning how to ride where it felt like I was driving the board with the boot cuffs and knees, and not providing any input with anything below that. At that point I stop, go into the lodge for a bit (anything to break the cycle), then ride for a few minutes with the boots really loose to move back down the skeletal chain (get back into using the feet/ankles).

Yesterday I had one of my best days riding since I started back up again last season after almost a 10-year hiatus. When I started back up I switched from early 90’s gear to a modern board and boots, now on this year’s Donek Freecarve 167 (secret construction, not metal) and UPZ RC10s, so it was pretty much like starting over. Yesterday I rode faster, smoother, with cleaner carves for longer and more vertical with significantly less fatigue than any day since I’ve started back. I hadn’t changed anything in my setup, so I couldn’t attribute it to anything I had tweaked/adjusted. Then at the end of the day I discovered I had been riding in walk mode all day. I had forgotten to lock my boots. I thought that perhaps I had previously been locking my boots at angles that weren’t proper (for some reason), and that by riding in walk mode I allowed myself to ride at more complementary lean angles. So today I tried to find out what those lean angles might be. Since UPZs have several fixed lean angles in locked mode, there should have been some combination of front and rear lean angles that would at least approximate yesterday’s faster/smoother/easier. No such luck. Then I switched to riding in walk mode again, and it started firing on all cylinders again. I realize that UPZs in lock mode aren’t completely locked due to the springs. One conclusion I might be able to draw from this would be that I’m not compressing the springs at all, and that the combo of boots and liners (Intuition Pro Tongue) are actually way too stiff for me. I’m 165 lbs and a moderately energetic rider. But I don’t think this is the case, I’ve popped buckles on the upper cuff out of the clasps during hard riding (had a buckle/clasp alignment issue that Dan Yoja at UPZ helped resolve). Another possible conclusion could be that my riding style left over from 15 years of riding ancient Raichle boots and old asym boards means I tend to use more travel than the stock UPZ spring mechanism allows. In which case a set of DGSS springs would do the trick. Or, it may be that my technique is still so bad that riding in walk mode damps out all the crap input that riding in locked mode passes through to the board. Does anyone else ride in walk mode? Does anyone other than proponents of EC style use the additional travel afforded by the DGSS setup?