jburk

If you’re looking for any more night riding on Hood, Meadows lighting is quite good, but limited terrain. It’s either the slow double Easy Rider or the detachable quad Mt Hood Express chair. Lapping North Canyon off MHX is a great way to get miles in, but can get stale after the 10th rep of the night. But with snow like this I’ll take as many laps as I can get!

For the UPZ model, Drupi told me to set the tension so there was 10.5 cm from washer to washer, the full length of the spring stack. If you don’t feel like measuring, that’s basically no preload, just adjust the nuts so the nuts take up any slack.

Thanks. I do know Bryan, I’ll give him a call.

My spouse is giving hard booting a try, she’s got 2 days in so far, and so far, so good. Carving more than skidding. She’s got an older set of mp 25 Raichle 123s and feels like she’s swimming in them a bit, but since it’s all so new she says it’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on. Her largest foot measures 24.5 Does anyone in the PDX or Vancouver, WA area have a set of 24s or 25s that we can try out for a day? Can pick up, and if they’re not for sale I can bring them right back to your place within a day or two. We can go the high-volume liner route in the Raichles if need be, but just putting it out and and see what comes up.

I believe the 299 shell is the mondo 27-27.5

It’s a good thing I don’t live in Tokyo anymore…

Do we want to try to line this up for a Monday or Tuesday evening? No night riding at MHM those days, so they’re open for me.

If you’re asking which is stiffer, then stepins. But if you mean by “stronger”, “which one will I break less often, if at all”, then stiffer doesn’t necessarily relate to longevity. I think the least likely binding to fail due to stress would be the one that has some flexibility designed in and implemented with the burliest materials. You might take a look at the SG bindings that upzboots.com is rep’ing in North America. Same basic design as the F2, but more heavy-duty and with some design improvements. Also check out Thirst Snowboards Facebook page, I think he has a set of the SGs on sale that he was showing at MCC. Still brand new, never been out of the box.

Booster strap, great replacement for the stock RC10 strap, well worth the $40 https://boosterstrap.com/

I have the F2 cants for the S/L bindings (the only difference between these and the M is the location of the hole in the cant), and when fitted against the SG heel lifts, the grooves were slightly different between the F2 and SG; the F2 cant didn’t fit flush against the SG piece below it, so it would rock. The SG groove is slightly narrower.

Tried this at MCC, has F2 shims and wanted to try canting the my SGs, the grooves are slightly different dimensions (depth and width) woujd have deformed the grooves if I had tightened them up. No mix and match.

SG bindings are sold as S/L in sizes similar to the F2s, one SKU that can be converted from S to L or vice versus in 2 min or less. The toe and heel blocks have threads / integrated t-nuts to be both S or L, flip the binding over, loosen the two 4mm bolts, use the other set of threads in the block. 1000 times easier than swapping sizes on the S/L F2s.

Because no one looks for them there, and they’re really good at hiding.

@JSchindler: I’ll be away in the wilds of Montucky all next week, but will probably be up at Meadows the Sunday of Pres’ Day Could likely mount that plate working out of the back of my truck in the lot early on Sunday morning, or just meet up during the week if you make it into PDX.

Ok. We showed up, the surface was mostly that gray frozen granular with a few spots covered by 1/2” of new. Everyone but Sean (@Treebeard) thought we were going to die. Nope, we had a blast. It was much more manageable than we thought it was going to be, Sean set the gates really well with the spacing on the closer end of the range for GS, think they were around 18m. Thank you @Treebeard for making this happen. Looking forward to more sessions this year.

Had my boots done by Greg Coulter last week, can’t say enough good things about him and his work. It’s one on one, unlike my previous experiences getting work done in a shop where even when I arrived at opening time on a Monday or Tuesday morning, I still spent a lot of time waiting mid-process while the tech would drop working with me to deal with some issue one of the sales people would walk in with. He spends as long as it takes, while still charging per mod or punch, so a longer session doesn’t drive the price up. He spent over 1-1/2 hours doing four punches for me. He asked if I had any specific issues (I mentioned proximal 5th metatarsal), but he also spent 10 or 15 minutes checking everything over before starting, and found my custom footbeds were slightly too cupped, which was also compressing my forefoot. He reshaped them as part of the service, no extra charge. Rode the next day, all the issues I had with boot fit were gone. So if you walked in and just said wearing them makes you go “Ow”, he can work with that. He also has evening appointments on Tues through Thurs, which makes it very convenient. The only downside to the whole deal was I felt guilty when he wrote up the invoice; he doesn’t charge enough. Not a hard problem to deal with, but next time I’m going to ask him what his favorite beer is and take some over to pad the payment. I’m picking up one of my boards from him this week, can insist I overpay him then

I’d be into it. Can donate the beer. This being Portland, beer choice is critical; any preferences?

If you’re in Canada, then they are close to 50% more. But in the US, it’s much less. One set of Race titanium + a second lift kit + shipping from Donek comes to $325 USD. I’ve bought two sets over the last couple of seasons, same price each time. SG includes the second lift kit, $345 USD, free shipping. I’d call that close.

My last non-Thirst was a latest-gen Donek FC, built with a relaxed version of the Secret construction. It was a very good ride, but preferred to have the nose loaded to initiate, then ease off in the latter part of the turn. Super smooth, just the right amount of damp for fast free riding, but it was just a different enough ride from the Superconductor that it was weird switching between the two. Perhaps if my technique was more solid or ingrained I would have been able to accommodate the different styles.

@Keenan is indeed in the area. Won’t have my smaller SF (the black one) on Sunday, gave it to a tuner. He did my Superconductor at the same time he helped me out with my boots, and it rode so nicely last night I dropped the SF off with him on my way back from the hill. So I’ll be riding the Superconductor, with the extra 13cm length might be better suited anyway.

sign me up! Last time I was even close to a GS course was ‘92 or ‘93 but it’s always fun. Expecting to be the slowest is kind of liberating.

After seeing what you (@Dw3). did to that poor unsuspecting Kessler and how he removed all evidence of the crime , I went and checked out his site, then made an appt for this Tuesday to get my boots punched. After speaking with him and then seeing your post, I’m sure he’ll be able to get me sorted out as well as he did for you. https://www.bootsandmore.ski/

It’s the snowboard equivalent of 25 year old single malt scotch. Colour me highly impressed.

Drive fast. Take chances.

Nice score on the board! Is that a 168? Nothing like starting out right.