TimW

Would definitely be too much board for me! I had a Kessler 185 which felt ok-ish when it was soft so it would flex, but on hard snow I just needed too much speed to my liking. But 25m scr, respect!

After my post I did the neoprene upgrade, see pic. Piece cut from an old wetsuit and glued to the shell to make sure it stays in place. Tested them today and works perfectly. Before that I used the piece of 2mm rubber to the left, just clamped between the shell and the tongue(so where the neoprene is now)

I solved the snow issue on my Deeluxe with a piece of 2mm thick rubber put between the shell and the tonque. Sometimes a little bit gets in, but 90% solved. I think a softer rubber (neoprene) would do a 100%.

Just that pic almost makes me want to try it again(but then on an alpine board).

Not to me. With the front sliding, drag on the nose (e.g. digging a trench, hitting a bump) when the board is bent will increase the bending moment in the center section, increasing board deflection. With the slider at the back that effect is not present. Cannot see a benefit of the slider at the front to be honest. With a board with a stiff middle section the effect will be minimal. For this board it would be bigger. The sliding and non sliding hinges are completely interchageable, so I can just try.

And with plate. The plate has 'rocker' because I ride with both bindings flat and I do not want to adjust it for the board not bending, so I pre-bent the plate. Hinges in front, slider at the back.

Agree with Corran and Dan on their assessment of monoskiing . Only in powder it was OK, on piste it never felt right. But monoskiing seems to get a bit more attention. Somebody even bought our Rossi 80's monoski two months ago! Also still have a Swingbo, but I guess the only way to make that hot again is to set it on fire....

Finished new board, really happy with the result (apart from the cosmetic flaw on the topsheet at one of the inserts) 182, 170cm effective edge, 20.5 cm width, 15m radius. Titanal / biax carbon laminate, maple core. Now I just have to finish the plate with hardware to be able to ride it.

Agree with BlueB and others, most important thing is initiation, get rid of that skid. The other thing I noticed is you ride with quite a lot of speed, does not make it easier. Guess the inclination of the run and the snow conditions also make you need that skid to control your speed. I'd suggest to work on the initiation on a mellow slope to get the confidence to tip it on the edge, and once you get to the pencil lines slowly go to steeper slopes. Getting low, bending the knees, etc. , while definitely helping control, is not critical to me. You can also carve hard more upright. For now I would focus my mind on the initiation and not on getting low, one thing at a time.

I would guess a bit of DIY?

For unused inserts it would be good to put in a bolt, with ring(s) if necessary, so it clamps down the the topsheet. That constrains the top sheet and will give a better stress state. Still a weak spot, but not as much.

I have Deeluxe Lemans and always ride with both unlocked, with the knob turned on the back boot so it cannot go fully upright. Works fine for me, also carving hard on steep runs. The locked position does not work for me at all. May try BTS someday, but don't feel the need. FYI, I'm 80kg, 191cm (180lbs, 6'3)

Cool, my first snowboard! (well, 2nd, first was a horrible homemade board) It was a cheap low quality board, I bought it used from a rental shop. It seemed to be one uniform type of plastic when drilling holes in it for mounting bindings. But actually the ride was quite OK, it had a nice sidecut, which a lot of boards did not have yet. 1987 I think 1988.

I guess this one: That Kessler looks like riding damage to me. I had a few boards fail behind the rear binding, so it can be a higly loaded area(i guess depending on your riding style)

Link for this years event: https://www.sgsnowboards.com/red-bull-edge-japan-2020-sign-up-for-this-carving-event-with-sigi/

Scaling from the insert spacing I get something like 150-155 length, 18-19cm waist, and a tiny 40 cm (!) stance width.

Cool! Any more info on it?

I have never posted much on how I design my boards (because as a wiseguy amateur builder I do not want to end up in discussions with people who make a living out it, and because I am still not fully decided yet if I ever want to go professional myself), but I will give in to the temptation (a bit). I design my boards to have a specified pressure distribution along the edge. Below my starting point for a board with a plate, based on a 700mm pivot distance (similar to apex, bit shorter than allflex I think). Blue the edge pressure, orange is the interface points pressure(to match). This pressure distribution is for a certain turn radius and with that I calculate the required core stiffness and thickness to achieve that . The result is below. You see that with this approach you end up with a very thin core in the center (~4.5 mm, vs 8 mm at the thickest section). This is for a 1740mm effective edge, which was about the shortest I felt I could get something usable with with this approach. (With shorter eff. edge it quickly goes to zero thickness in the center) In the end I changed my approach to a less uniform pressure distribution, also to get a bit progressive stiffness character (percieved, not actual), but it gives some insight into what a plate does. With a conventional core thickness the thickest part is between the pivot points. Since the bending moment is highest at the pivot points and can only be lower in between, this means that the edge will actually have no pressure at all in the center of the board, but be up in the air. (on a flat hard surface).

Yes fully agree. And since allflex is now making this plate with springs I think they agree too Still this will give two stages in the boards behavior, with springs activated beyond a given (6mm?) flex. Something continuous feels better to me. However I think there is also a lot to be gained in the stiffness distribution of the board itself, especially for boards with plates. Having the stiffest section in the middle, between the pivot points, where bending moment is low, does not make sense to me at all.

Theoretically a progressive board stiffness does make sense, and the plate locking up does provide that in a very rudimentary way. On your small radius 168 it will lock up much earlier than on a GS board, probably too early for freecarving. The allflex aluminum construction with the milling on the bottom will be prone to fatigue failure if it flexes significantly, that probably explains breaking plates.

Hilarious! And most likely still a waste of money at $199

@Emdee406, That is a bit less accidental than I assumed .

Yes there is some connection, they also organize the 'Red Bull Edge' snowboard carving event. https://www.sgsnowboards.com/register-now-for-red-bull-edge-2019/

The speedster equipe is not metal, only glass laminate with wood deck. Still a good choice I'd say.