JohnE

I hope they don't buy Loveland. I like that all of the EPIC pass holders drive right by Loveland on their way to Summit County.

Use a hair dryer. Heat up the stomp pad. It should then pull off.

Pete - great to get to know you & ride with you. ABQ isn't that far away. Make a point of getting up to Loveland in seasons ahead. One of the last posts you made said something about your thyroid. Have you gotten help and/or resolution with that? Take care.

I guess that if I can sharpen the edge and keep it straight, it should work OK.

What is the best wax scraper? I use an old 12" x 3" x 1/4" lexan scraper that I got decades ago. I works OK but not well. It no longer has a sharp edge on it. What works best?

I wonder how many buy chairs like this with the intent of making a patio swing (or similar). Then they find out how much work it is to make a frame and then they just wind up in the side yard gathering spiderwebs.

I wasn't interested - just curious. If they had to set up a drawing, they should have done an auction.

I believe that Loveland is tearing out Lift #1 getting ready to install a new detachable lift. I don't see anything on their website. I would think that people would have some interest in the old chairs but I haven't heard anything about their availability. Anyone have any insight?

I voted Yes because I like how auctions work. The market decides what an item is worth. I've sold a bunch of stuff on eBay and I have been surprised both ways about what an item will sell for. If a item sells outside of an auction, isn't more likely that either the buyer or seller is getting a bad deal? Setting up an auction on this site seems like a lot of work to create & manage. Why not just permit links to eBay. If at least two buyers from this site bid on an item, everyone gets a fair deal.

Soo - how was the snow & riding Thur, Fri, Sat & Sunday? How crowded was closing day?

Lucky dog! I thought about you all day while sitting at my desk. Thought about going today but couldn't. Great way to end the season!

As they say around here: EPIC = Every Person In Colorado.

Never ridden an Incline. Love my Flux. 158 cm x 26cm waist x 8.5m - 10m SCR. I find that it carves great and is also good off-piste (tracked up newer snow). Have not ridden it in true powder but seems like a great all-around board.

Friday was very good. Beautiful blue sky day. Very few snow-sliders. Only a few scratchy places until about 10AM then nice & soft. Rode Ptarmigan about 4 runs (saw a real Ptarmigan under the lift), then over to Lift 8 for about 6 runs & then over to Lift 9. Snow was pretty good until about 12:30 or so & then got pretty slushy. Took what was likely our last run of the season on Richards about 1:30. There were puddles in the lift line. Great day but snow was disappearing fast. Maybe some new snow this week (?). If not, it was a good season. It finished much better than it started. Great to see that Kevin was back at it before the end of the season. Hope that Pete gets things worked out so he can get back at it next season.

Jack - thanks for the suggestions. 1) My boots are a performance fit. My local bootfitter (Larry) said that I needed a smallish boot because I have a "low volume" (narrow) foot. He and I both made many modifications to my shells & liners in an effort to avoid heel lift without jamming my toes. I re-molded my liners many times. They would feel OK for a while but I was always trading off heel lift for jammed toes. 2) I was riding TD3s with 3 degree front foot toe lift and 3 degree rear foot heel lift. This helped but I still didn't feel stable or natural. 3) I did get a lot of mileage in and under perfect (for me) conditions, I could link a bunch of great feeling carves but when conditions fell below my ideal, my technique fell apart. Foot discomfort was part of the problem but not the only problem. Bottom line - carving in soft boots has allowed me to re-discover my joy of snowboarding and carving. About the only place I ride is in Colorado. We rarely have east-coast conditions and often what I think are ideal conditions I hear others complaining that it is too soft.

Thanks Alan - but at this point I've gone pretty far over to the dark (soft) side.

On some boots (Heads) the sole length is molded into the boot shell (in mm). I think my Head MP27s are 295mm (?). It would be nice if there were a chart showing Manufacturer/Mondo/sole length. I'm not aware of one.

Thanks Colozeus. We had a great time riding with you. You did great on the off-piste in hard boots and a narrow carving board. A bit more about my boots: My hard boots were Head Stratos Pros. In order to get a good fit without heel lift, I had to size down a bit to a mondo 27. My toes were always jammed. The boots weren't painful but definitely not comfortable. I thought that was just part of the price of snowboarding. My new soft boots are Flow Talons. When I first got them, I thought they were too big. However, after a bit of tweaking and riding, I think they fit pretty well. They are the most comfortable snow-sliding footwear (ski boots, soft snowboard boots, hard snowboard boots) I have ever worn. My toes have plenty of wiggle room but the heel hold-down is great. They are pretty hard to get into and really hard to get out of but really comfy when I'm riding. With my hard boots, my big toe toenails were so bruised by the end of a season, it would take until the beginning of the next season before my nails would out-grow the damage from the previous season (and I kept my nails trimmed almost to the quick).

As I have explained in another post - I have been trying to carve in hard boots and narrow boards for quite some time and I never really got past intermediate. I decided to try soft boot carving. I demo'd a Donek Flux and loved it well enough to order one. I've ridden it about 4 days now and I really like it. I have relatively little experience to compare it to but it really works for me. Specs: Donek Flux 158cm. 26cm waist. SCR = 8.5 - 10m. Flex was tuned to my weight (160 lbs). I'm riding it with Flow Talon boots (size 10) and Flow NX2 GT bindings. My angles are about 30 degrees front and about 12 degrees rear. I find that this board carves great in fairly soft conditions. I haven't really tried it in firmer conditions. The board also behaves well in soft, untracked snow (haven't really tried it in true powder). I find that I can carve some nice arcs on a groomer and then let it go into "off-piste" cut-up snow conditions and it rides great. Though I may not call this board a "quiver killer", I have never found myself wondering if I would be happier on some other board. For me, Sean Martin really hit it out of the park with this board.

Johan - great riding with you. I'm guessing that between what Gregory & I showed you Saturday (Lifts #8 & 9) and where you likely rode Sunday, you got a pretty good tour of our little ski area. Hope to see you again next year.

Here's my story. I'm not trying to tell anyone else how or what they should ride. This is just how it worked out for me. I began my snow-sliding life as a skier. I skied from about age 12 to my mid-30s. I got bored with this and started softboot snowboarding. I gradually skied less and snowboarded more. I loved snowboarding in soft snow but not so much on hard snow. I saw some riders at my local hill (Loveland in Colorado) who were on hardboots. They looked like they were having a blast on snow that was at least 2 weeks old. I got some hardboots and a carving board and worked and worked at hardbooting. I road softies in new snow and hardboots on old snow. I took many clinics and took pointers from whomever would help (lots of folks). I worked and worked but never got above an intermediate level. In hero conditions, I could pull it off pretty well. When conditions got firmer or steeper, I would skid. Also, the hardboot stance usually made me feel like my lower legs were cast in concrete at an unnatural and unstable stance. This season I watched some of Ryan Knapton's videos and decided to give softboot carving a shot. Sean Martin loaned me a Saber and a Flux to try out. I got some new Flow Talon boots and Flow NX bindings. On these boards, I was able to ride much shallower angles (less than 30 degrees) because of their width. I immediately felt more at ease and more natural. The lower angles felt much more stable to me. I LOVED the Flux and ordered one. I've concluded that driving my knees side-to-side never felt natural to me. Driving my knees forward for a toeside and pushing my butt back on a heelside feels much more natural to me. My Flux carves great on groomed snow and rides great in soft snow & powder. I never find myself thinking "I should be riding my ??? board". I realize that I will never be able to carve well on steep hard slopes. I really admire and envy those hardbooters who can. But I will never be one of them. And I'm OK with that. I'm having a blast on my new setup and in the end, isn't that what it is all about?

I'm acronym challenged - FAS?

Pretty good day yesterday (but not as good as weeks prior). Firm groom. Anything not groomed was frozen lumpy stuff. WINDY. Even by Loveland standards. Lifts 8 & 9 never opened. Ptarmigan was on slow & go most of the day and shut down for a couple of hours. I checked with a guy at the desk at the end of the day and he said gusts were recorded at 70mph. Any snow not packed down wound up in Bakerville. While waiting for my breakfast to be cooked it occurred to me that my folks first brought me to Loveland to ski 50 years ago. I mentioned this to a regular and he commented "Wow - you must have seen a lot of changes". I thought a bit and said "Compared to other places - not so much".

I'll bet that they will sell off the old Lift #1 chairs. They seem to go pretty fast from other areas. There should be 80 - 90 of them. Regular Lift #1 guys should know exactly how many.

Loveland just got about 20" over the weekend. The snow conditions were pretty great prior to the snowfall. It's supposed to be pretty warm this week and we might get into the thaw/freeze cycle. But as of today, I'd say conditions might be about the best of the season. I'm planning on going this Thursday. I will have first hand account on Friday.