Carvin' Marvin

@Odd Job They feel completely different than intutions in a good way. With intuitions I felt like I was reliant on the shell being clamped down to keep my feet locked in. With the zipfits the liner does all that work and the shell doesn't need to be clamped with enough pressure to turn your feet to diamonds. You're close enough to Carbondale you should go pay them a visit. I'm going to Loveland tomorrow for a more carve oriented session to really put them through their paces. Yesterday was a powder day but I was usually plagued by heel lift on pow days but NONE yesterday.

My intec heels are getting pretty long in the tooth. Pins seem to have a little more play but they function fine. Is there any sort of agreed upon lifespan for these things? I wouldn't want an unplanned disassembly.

@pow4ever He pondered the boots, pondered the feet, and decided the Gara is likely the answer. It worked so we went with it. After seeing the UPZs he does not believe the GFT would work well in those. Unsure about the mountainslope boots. They would probably be good for a very low volume situation or something. My feet are pretty much middle of the road for the 27.5 UPZ shells. We used the high volume Garas and I don't think I would want any less liner in my boot. I probably shouldn't be so quick to judge the cold toes. The temps dropped hard when the weather came in and it was pretty windy. They highly recommended the heated bootbag as well, but with a new Thirst on the way I've blown about 400% of this years winter equipment budget so I'll make due with putting them in the passenger floorboard of the car for now.

I joined the club yesterday. Here is my experience. I drove out to the Zipfit Shedquarters in Carbondale for a personal fitting to take the guesswork out. Chris and Jeff were both super helpful and genuinely interested in the mechanics and intricacies of hardbooting. The whole ordeal maybe took 20 mins and was super easy. Chris had been doing some thinking on it and believes that the Gara liner is best for booting. We threw a pair in my UPZ (Chris was happy to see a pair in person), they fit, cooked the whole set up a little and then buckled up the boots. I have an easy foot/ difficult foot situation. Right foot and ankle are considerably higher volume than the left due to past injury. My easy foot instantly felt at home in the liner. My difficult foot had some expected pressure points over the instep that have always been an issue. Chris offered to remove some cork but he also thought if I just rode for a day it should sort itself out. Went out at Vail today, 11" fresh snow, crowded, extremely variable conditions, Thirst 8RW, intecs. After just one of Vail's famous cattracks I could tell where the cork had reallocated itself off of the instep pressure point from the rear boot being flexed. At first I had the boots buckled too tight. Eventually I barely had my boots buckled and my heels were just locked into the boot no problem. Couldn't even lift them if I tried. The cuffs feel VERY nice with instant energy transmission. I felt super connected to the board even when hopping around off camber moguls and chunder. I am very excited for a good carving day in them. The bad: My toes got pretty cold. They have merino wool and thinsulate but the toe area lacks the thick cork that keeps the rest of the foot warm. I was also wearing near non-existent compression socks on a cold day so take it how you will. They are expensive. Couldn't recommend them more especially if you have difficult or sensitive feet. After riding Wednesday I could barely walk and after riding harder today I feel great still. I expected a lot from $400+ liners and I have to say they are better than I thought they were going to be. Believe the hype. Chris showed me a pair of his liners with 500 days on them and they hold up very well.

How bad is the damage? I got a few knickers I'm not happy about on my Thirst yesterday at Vail. Before it was easier to predict where they'd pop up but now it looks like little pebbles are being brought up to the surface by the groomers. Things will hopefully be much better after this storm.

Board porn? Tit medium? SEXY HARDWARE? Oh my!

The couple runs at Vail are getting a little stale so see you folks this coming Sunday! Can't wait.

Yeah, all six of them! CO is definitely in a "better than nothing" pattern right now. Can you ride? Yes. Is it great? Strongly open to interpretation. Edit: 6 runs in the whole state is obviously and lowball exaggeration. I'm sure there's at least 7 open by now.

Stiff board. Check this review by Jack. He refers to the flex as perfect for him and he is a multi-decade expert ripper with some racing experience. It will take more time and effort to grow into that board. I am the same height and I ride 52-54cm so you aren't that far off. Those angles look good. You shouldn't have a problem with boot-out at first. Slowly dial your angles up as you are able to tip the board over further if you are having a problem with boot-out.

Once you get the basics down you will need to find others better than you to ride with to take your skills to the next level. Find someone that is knowledgeable, not too nice, and able to actually coach. @inkaholic shamed me into the rider I am today. Without him I'd be refining my own bad habits rather than pursuing "proper" form. Once the foundation is solid then you can develop "style." Without a coach you are pretty much relying on your "feel" of the turn and the line left in your snow. Its pretty hard to judge body positioning and motion without another set of eyes or video on you. Also that setup is stupid stiff to learn on. Sure you can learn to drive in an open-wheel racer, but its a hell of a lot easier in a clapped out Civic. Look for a set of the soft UPZ tongues (red?) for those RCR boots. If you have the gray tongues in then you will just be fighting them all day. The stiffness of your gear is surely adding to your speed woes. Good luck, make mistakes, fall, do science, maybe fall less next time.

I finally broke down and cut the end off of my #2 Philips stubby and TIG welded a #3 Pozi onto the end of it. Like you I didn't want something with interchangeable tips or anything. It looks like KCTool sells a Wera #3 stubby but that doesn't come with the street cred of pulling out a wonky booger welded screwdriver.

This is the conversation I had with my wife a few weeks ago: Me: I want to order another Thirst from Mark this season. Her: *looks at closet full of snowboards* Ok then. Me: Cool, I ordered it last week. It's going to look like a banana. Her: Sweet. And that's why I will nurture our relationship until I die.

That was three invigorating minutes of.............the same turn over and over again. Great instructional material for people trying to emulate that one turn though.

We were able to get our hands on one of the early Jimmy Lewis prototype foils about 15-20 years ago when you still had to use clicker bindings and snowboard boots like softboot's picture. It belonged to one of the Maui big wave guys. It had a V shaped bottom and a composite foil. Living in NC we didn't have much opportunity to actually try to ride swell with it though so we mainly just tooled around with it behind the boat. We did manage some pretty big jumps and such behind the boat though. Was a good time.

Haha mine is magically transforming into a Superconductor! Stimulating the economy I care about.

Genuinely curious as to why the metal? Pressure from the community that thinks they can spec a better board? My 8rw already grips better than any of my metal boards and the noise it makes is awesome.

Boo hoo. At least you get to ride this year which is more than some people here can say. Be grateful for what you have.

I believe he is referring to the videos posted over in the "softboot carving worth wathisdpfsaoidnf" thread. Helmets definitely in the minority. They don't really do much other than cruise greens though so I don't blame them.

Hot take: My wife strongly prefers that I wear one. If it wasn't for her I would wear one probably half the time depending on how risky I am feeling that morning. Oddly enough she doesn't care if ride around town on my motorcycle without one. Risk is fun. Live and let die. It is all playing the odds and mitigation game anyways. I could wear a helmet to bed every night and still get turned into a vegetable by someone texting and driving. There are a million other optional risky behaviors that we could get all bent out of shape over that stress our resources as a society (smoking, speeding, IV drug use, extreme sports, choosing to go outside, etc) That said I've definitely noticed a decrease in helmet use on the slopes amongst the stereotypical mid-west vacationing crowd. Apparently helmets and camo don't go together well. I only know two locals that do real stupid crap without a helmet.

Very nice!

That's one way to get those racer kids to mooooooooove out of the way. Alright i'll leave.

Very nice, good job!

Yes! Both directions. Heel side definitely carries more naturally for me. At first I shifted my weight too far back at first which resulted in a violent bucking similar to a boat traveling over rough seas, but now I can get it pretty smooth. Thanks for the post.

Where I keep my hotdogs is none of your business, thank you very much.

Been working on my variable conditions carving, steeps carving, and all mountain hardbooting with pretty good success. Even had a few plateau busting days. Felt nice.