jburk

I'll also take 2 blue rings, and 1 of the 6-degree cants.

I'll take the Burton centre disks, send me your Paypal info...

Read the "Gilmour bias" thread, but need some clarification on the above comment As far as I can see, "Gilmour bias" involves biasing the front foot for heel overhang, while biasing the rear for toe overhang. Is that correct, or have I missed the point completely? If that's correct, then is "reverse bias" the opposite, toe overhang on the front and heel overhang in the rear? @neanderthal: are you using gilmour bias or reverse bias? As far as I can see, gilmour bias would be my only option, since I can't get toe overhang on the front foot.

I recently moved to UPZ RC-10's with TD3 step-ins. Love the fit on those boots (so I think Deeluxes wouldn't fit me as well), and step-in bindings are so much nicer that dealing with toe bails. The problem is that I'm a size mp26, and even at my current angles of 50/47 I can't get the toe of the front boot to the edge of the board (while the heel overhangs the heel side edge), and that's on a board with an 18.5cm waist. Rear boot is fine due to location of the binding relative to the sidecut. I was wondering about the feasibility of a different/alternate set of Fintec heel pieces on the TD3's with the ears offset forward as an "aftermarket purchase" but I guess it's already been mooted then rejected due to tooling economics. Bummer, but understandable. I'd gladly pay $50 or more for a UPZ-compatible set of Fintec heel pieces, wonder how many other people out there are in the same bind? Flipping the toe piece around won't solve my issue. The problem isn't the spacing between the heel and toe, it's the overall positioning of the boot between the edge. Haven't tried the non-stepin / toe bail version in the TD3's, does this issue exist with the toe bail version as well, or does the heel block on the toe bail version have more adjustment towards the toe? Would switching to the toe bail TD3's allow me to center a mp26 UPZ between the edges?

Can the heel block be moved farther forward than the step-in heel piece, so that the boot can be shifted more towards the toe edge? On the front foot I'm at the end of the forward adjustment range for the step-in heel and still fairly biased towards the heel edge.

It occurred to me that I may have hijacked this thread. If anyone feels that way, PM me and I'll move my questions over to a new one.

I recently moved to UPZ RC-10's with TD3 step-ins. Love the fit on those boots (so I think Deeluxes wouldn't fit me as well), and step-in bindings are so much nicer that dealing with toe bails, but I'm size mp26, and even at my current angles of 50/47 I can't get the toes of the UPZ's to the edge of the board (while the heels overhang the heel side edge), and that's with an 18.5 waist. I was wondering about the feasibility of a different/alternate set of Fintec heel pieces on the TD3's with the ears offset forward as an "aftermarket purchase" but I guess it's already been mooted then rejected. Bummer. Haven't tried the non-stepin / toe bail version in the TD3's, does this issue exist with the toe bail version as well? Would switching to the toe bail TD3 allow me to center a mp26 UPZ between the edges?

I do / did love the early/mid-90's asyms, but I was beginning to wonder how the newer boards rode. A few years ago I found a pair of early-80's Kastle RX SL's in a friend's basement, skis that I had about a 150-day love affair when they were new. For nostalgia's sake I gave them a quick tune and wax then rode them for a morning (they still rode pretty well for their age), and then switched to a pair of modern shaped skis for the afternoon. Apples and oranges didn't even begin to describe the difference; those Kastle's were great back in the day but the newer skis made them feel like dead planks. I was curious if board tech had progressed in the same way in the last 20 years or so. Granted, I didn't even make it halfway to the current era, now riding an '03 F2, but it's still a leap from the '93 boards I'm familiar with. I'm enjoying how it's making me reevaluate my riding habits; progression and skills acquisition are always a motivator for me. Every day I spend on this new (to me) board is a learning experience.

So I switched the angles back to 45/40 on Sunday night and rode Monday; what a difference. No issues with toeside initiation at all, had a really solid day on the new board, was able to get a good feel for it by the end of the morning. Really liking how the nose almost feels "flared" on it, helps it hook up and decamber early in the turn. On Tuesday I took @Beckmann AG's advice on the rear canting and removed the cant blocks from the rear binding, going with 0 degrees cant in the rear. This worked out well and seemed to allow me to get off my heleside over to toeside much quicker. Which leads me to this: On the 20 year old asym boards, I always had the sensation that the turns "flowed" into one another, used to visualize the central part of the yin/yang symbol; the transition from toe to heel or vice versa was quite gradual, even on the F2 Beamer 162. It's like I was never done with one turn until halfway through the next pointing down the fall line. On the new(er) F2 Silber 168, I'm finding it works best when I try to make the transition as quickly as possible, you're either heelside or toeside, and spend as little time as possible in the in-between state. Trying to be completely out of the turn by the time I'm crossing the fall line, much much earlier than my old style of riding. Part of the reason for the 5-year gap I'm realizing now was that I was getting stale after 15 years on the same two boards; lots of other things seemed more interesting that boarding. New board likes a different enough riding style that I'm stoked on improving my skills again. Even after just the two good days the new board's beginning to disappear underneath me, just look where I want to go and I'm there. (Haven't ridden any really challenging terrain on it yet, but that will come with time). Planning on riding the 45/40 for another few days, then creep the angles forward by 3 degrees, ride those until I don't really notice the new angles again plus another few days, then increase the angles again. Small steps with time between changes. Boot out shouldn't be too bad, I'm on the smaller side at mp26.

Thanks for the tips on the heelside, very much appreciated. Do you have any similar pointers for toeside? F2 Vario Proflex, same era as my '93 F2 Beamer, pretty much the same design as current F2 bindings, using the lift and cants that came with. 15mm lift in the front toe and rear heel (measured at side of the lift closest to the edge) front foot canted outwards, rear foot canted inwards. I used to ride the front food canted inwards, but after reading @Beckmann AG's binding setup guide, I tried canting the front foot outwards a few weeks ago and while it's counter-intuitive, I was pretty much convinced from the first moment on the snow that it was the right way to go. I also initially thought his recommendation of an outward cant on the rear foot was a misprint, but I'm willing to give that a shot as well. But one thing at a time, simultaneous changes got me into this miss in the first place: Add in the difference in sidecut radii between the Beamer and the '03 Silber, and what could possibly go wrong? Oh, right. Everything :-)

Survey says: go back to my original angles (45/40). Thanks everyone for all the help I'll do this and live with the overhang. I figure by the time I'm getting the board far enough over for it to be an issue, I'll have enough time on it that I can start to increase the angles by a few degrees at a time, working my way back up to where there's little or no overhang in the high 50's.

Some quick background: I've been riding hardboots on a couple of asym boards since '93, starting up again this year after a 5-year break. All of my hardboot riding has been on asym's. Up until today, I would characterize myself as a "strong intermediate", comfortable "riding the downhill edge" and carving on steeps. My AM/powder board is a Burton Asym Air 64, and I have an F2 Beamer Race 162 for the hardpack days. Ride both at 45/40, usually setback between 1.5 and 20 mm. Stance on the Burton is 18-1/4 (~46.25cm), the F2 is 17-3/4 (45cm). I'm 5'8", 180, 32" inseam. Today I committed the cardinal sin of changing several things at once, triggered by the purchase of a new (to me) used board, an F2 Silberpfeil 168, looks to be a 2003 model. I know that's a pretty old board to be purchasing used, but at $100 I figured it would let me try out a narrow (18.5) symmetric and see how I felt about it, and it did arrive in very good condition with what looks like all the camber it had when it left the factory - props to @mobman1 for selling a serviceable board for a reasonable price, and shipping it well-packed and very quickly. The new board's got about 15cm extra of contact length compared to the F2, so I set up the front binding centered on the 4x2 insert pack, rear binding mounted to give an 18.5" stance (1/4" more than the F2), angles at 57/55. Boots are set with even bias toe to heel, checked with the Fuego method. Front binding location felt far enough forward, board was easy enough to ride off the lift, didn't tend to wash out, yet didn't feel like trying to turn an oil tanker (at least when turning toe->heel). So: longer board, steeper angles, symmetric compared to asym. Anyways, to get down to it, I sucked. Not "crash into the trees" or "sideslip all the way down the greens", and my wife said "what, you look solid", but every bad toeside habit I had from my first year of hardbooting 20 years ago came back with a vengeance. Could barely carve C-turns, mostly ended up with shallow S-turns. Toe side to downhill edge to heel side was still pretty smooth, but heel->d/h edge->toe was pretty sketchy a lot of the time (railed it a few times), and once I got tired I started to revert to bad 1st-year habits of heel->swing->toe. Try as I might to get more weight/effort into the nose of the board when initiating a toeside, I couldn't seem to get it to hook up and really start to carve around until approaching the fall line (to borrow from @corey_dyck's Intermediate Carving Clinic SES 2013, it was like 10/50/40, rather than 60/30/10) I know this is to be expected when making several radical changes at the same time, so I'm looking for input on where to start before I start changing everything at once (angles, stance, setback), although mostly I think it's just my technique learned from the asym's. I've also inquired at the ski school whether any of their SB instructors have any experience riding hardboots so that I could pick up a lesson, but not holding my breath on that one. Where to start? What would be the differences in technique between asym and sym (bearing in mind my main issue seemed to be initiating heel->toe)

Received my board today (the F2), thanks for the fast shipping! Was well packaged, arrived without a scratch. Paid on Saturday night, shipped on Monday, got it by Wednesday. Thank you!

Payment sent on the F2.

PM sent on the F2.

If they're a 26 and lonbordin doesn't want them, I'll take dibs. Edit: need to withdraw the offer of possible purchase, something's come up that takes precedence, need the funds elsewhere.

Thanks for the reply about the Incline, I'll pass on it, it's a bit too similar to one of my current boards.

What are the specs on the Incline?

Thanks all for the input. I was pretty stoked initially about replacing the liners, but considering that the plastic the shells are composed of is at least 22 years old, so I think they're pretty much done. I could start to sink money into these, only to have buckles start to part ways from the shell, etc, then I'm into new boots anyways and out the cost of the liners. I also remembered that the heel ridge on the rear boot which fits under the bail is a bit worn; I had a bad habit of resting my board on it for a while and the edge scraped away some of the exterior of the shell. If I don't pay attention when I clip in, it's possible to get a bad fit between the boot and bail, I've popped out of the rear while riding in the past (luckily never at warp speed), haven't done it in years, but is yet another reason to bin these. If the Deeluxe 325's are close to the same "fit type" as these, then that's probably the way I'll go. Thanks everyone, it's been very encouraging to find this community. I've been away from riding for about 3 years, and hadn't seen another alpine boarder in Oregon in a very long time, didn't even know if the discipline still had any other practitioners.

Thanks for the quick response. Yup, the Vibram soles were (are) awesome, but my hiking days are long past; it's all in-bounds now and the only hiking I do is from the parking lot. I'm not necessarily looking for the same boots (but newer), I'm really interested in trying out more modern gear. Looking forward to also riding a carving board built in the last few years, but the boots will need replacing first. Somehow my disposable income has shrank in the last couple of decades. Also dying to try step-ins, if I can afford to replace the burton/ibex bindings I'm riding right now on the antique Burton Asym Air. I have an F2 Beamer up in the rafters, but the bindings for that seem to be lost to the mists of time.

I've been riding these boots for longer than I care to admit; bought them new in the mid-90's and the liners are finally starting to fall apart. Nothing else has ever broken on them; the buckles, straps, and all shell components are still functional. Quite impressive actually, they've probably got 400+ days on them. I'm guessing this was a UK 7 given the size markings stamped inside the shell, and since I wear a size 7-1/2 or 8 US Men's shoe that seems to be about right, but realize that some manufacturer's boots fit larger or smaller, so I'm looking for the modern equivalent of my 20+ year-old Raichle hardshells... Measured my foot for mondo sizing as recommended on a few posts I've seen, 26.2cm which translates to a mondo 26. Confirms the guess about the stamped sizes being UK sizing. So I know my size in the modern age, but what about stiffness and fit? The Raichles came with grey and black tongues, found the grey too stiff, I only freeride all-mountain, no gates in the last 15 years. Even when I ran gates the black tongues were a better match. Still weigh the same, 180 lb . If these old beaters fit my feet for so long, would I be more of a candidate for Deeluxe or UPZ's?