Deuxdiesel

For me at nearly 60 and with limited time to ride these days, a great soft boot carver is my choice. If the snow conditions aren't just right, I can no longer ride my hard boot set-ups very well. 25-30 years ago it wasn't a problem. The lines I make on the groom now with a BXFR are the same as the old days, and if the trails get icy, sloppy or lumpy I can manage to ride without beating myself up. There is a wow factor to seeing a great hard boot rider tear it up, but I'm happy with the sensations I get nowadays.

I have a couple of 157 and 161 Elan alpine boards if you are interested. Cheap and awesome boards.

The knee tuck and lock seems like a sign that you are struggling to gain leverage over your board- once you do that, most of the input comes from the hips on up. What kind of lean do you have on your highbacks? Are they rotated at all? Your angles and stance width are very similar to what I am running currently, but it would take a ton of effort to get my knees that close. Maybe a bit more information on your set-up?

Nice, but it's no SwingBo

I was able to spend an entire weekend widgeting bindings on my Coiler BXFR (163x27), and found some pretty interesting things. On my alpine/hardboot set ups, anything more than a 3 or 6 degree difference between the front foot (usually 48-51 degrees) causes lots of heel-side slipping and push out. On "softies" (Ride A-10's with Ride Deadbolt boots) at 33/30F and 27/24R, there was a whole lotta forward hip projection and back leg stinkyness going on to keep the heel side carving smooth and strong even with the highbacks rotated as much as possible. I've tried using Bomber power plates, DIY cants and older Burton wedges to eliminate some of the funkiness, to no avail- I'm back to flat bindings with the built in canted beds. For fun and to alleviate some of my old-man back issues, I dropped the back foot down to 21 and was amazed at the transformation. Full-on railed heel carving as always with no weird sensations or ugly awkwardness- it was total joy and Zen. I'm a tip it and rip it rider, so finesse is not part of my lexicon, but I am curious as to how others have experienced this. What is your experience with this?

FedEx has been the best rates for me lately. $50-60 for a board in a box.

Outstanding! Gear selection for those videos?

The 59 year-old me says choice number one is technically correct.

Every soft boot board I have ever ridden since the first Mystery Air can carve. Some better than others. The X factor for me has always been the boots and bindings. I ruined my one and only trip to Telluride by swapping bindings just before the trip. Same boots, same board, weak bindings. Mastery of the board comes from your connection to the board, and if it's sloppy (or conversely, too rigid) it's difficult get control of the input and output.

Ok! PM with an address and I can figure out shipping.

Hot water in a turkey roasting bag works really well.

That's the bump! The board was made in 1995, and they continued to make a few after I left. I left because I didn't want the personal liability from potential injuries due to the poor quality of materials and manufacturing. -The cores we used weren't even "second" quality. They were inconsistent and had large voids, poor adhesion between stringers and the insert holes (besides being misaligned) looked like the were drilled with a wood spade, so the inserts didn't have much to bond with. -The carbon prepreg used was totally the wrong material. It was meant for low elongation (less than 3-4% IIRC) aeronautical use, had to be stored in a freezer (which it wasn't) and had single direction fibers, so it was terrible at preventing pull-out of screws or inserts. I tried to get them to use a bit of titanal in the lay-up, but Dave want "pure" carbon. Even the manufacturer told us not to use it. -The "topsheet" was nothing more than Korad (sp?) that was eventually supposed to be sublimated with a carbon fiber weave to ironically give the appearance of the woven 3K carbon fiber we should have used in the first place. It offered nothing structurally. Again, I would pay for it to have it as opposed to sitting in some museum. Ride it if you must, but caveat emptor.

BTW, is there a tiny little raised bump on the topsheet at the nose of the board? It would be where the topsheet radius rounds over to meet the base. somewhere in transport from the CNC shop to the factory, something fell in the mold and made a small dent, which of course made a raised bump on all the boards. I think we sanded out a few, but that destroyed the paper-thin topsheet material.

Provenance- probably the last known brochure. This women Dave hired named Jennifer created all the copy. I was hoping for a little more edgy and fun, but he was uber-conservative.

I designed, built and tested those while working at Goode in Waterford MI. We had the molds made locally, but at $10,000 for the cavity mold itself, the 165 that I really wanted to make never came to fruition. There were so many cost-cutting efforts made on that board's manufacturing (against my wishes but to satisfy Dave's ego) that very few survived testing. I was in the co-pilot's seat on two occasions where we almost had a mid-air incident, so it's not surprising that he passed in this manner. I could go on and on about the experience working there, but it would serve no purpose. If you ever decide to sell the board, let me know.

I don't ride with earbuds (too dangerous for me) but I do listen to the sound of the snow. That is my favorite song.

Beautiful. I keep lobbying The Government for another one.

I would buy a Donek tomorrow if they still offered that greyhound graphic, because there is nothing more beautiful than a greyhound...

I would go with toe and heel lift, remove the inward cant as Jack suggested. Just a guess, but it seems like you might have a narrow-ish stance that has your knees locked up, which makes it hard to react to board movements. At 5'10" with a 32 inseam, my stance is never less than 20", and always have rear heel and front toe lifts- it gives much more command over the board and allows me greater vertical range of motion. A slight detune of the nose edges might reduce some of the hookiness you are experiencing.

I haven't been on hard boots this year, but have always ridden with a lot of rear lean and as much upright on the front as possible. Occasionally I will add toe lift the the front foot to bring my patellas back near the same plane, depending on stance width. I guess I thought most people did this and the idea of riding with front forward lean seems really odd.

Nitro has the Pantera model in wide sizes. The only reason I sold mine is that I had a Coiler built for me. The Pantera is an amazing AM carver, and $200-$300 less than most of the other boards mentioned here. The new shape for 22/23 is really sharpe as well. I would love to try the Stranda and the Nobile, but the dollar is pretty weak against the euro now. For that money, you can get a Coiler or Donek.

I hear this frequently, but I still pull out my RT168 and Elan 161 for a spin once a year, and they still tear it up. The biggest change in the 15+ years since they were made is me.

I am looking for a early Rossi alpine board. I had a "test" 163 given to me by a local rep back in the early 90's that made my PJ seem like a toy. Some later versions had VAS plates on them- bonus dollars if one of those is available. These preceded the Throttle boards, if that helps. Wall art condition is fine.

Price drop.

I have 2 Coiler BXFR boards and my wife has one as well. The great thing about a Coiler is that Bruce can adjust the flex, length and width to your needs, so if you are outside the typical body or foot size, it won't be an issue. Another bonus is the USD to CAD exchange rate is very favorable for us right now.