Xargo

I've only ridden hardboots for two seasons basically so not that much experience but from what I've seen and heard, usually hardbooters ride firm conditions and go home or switch to softboots if it's softer. Also not all hardbooters (and even fewer softbooters) go for crazy extreme edge angles, especially if it's soft. If the idea is to ride on soft conditions and you also want to go for extreme edge angles at the same time, you need zero overhang or even underhang. That's a very specific application though. Doesn't really matter if it's softboots or hardboots imo. Fuego test ftw: https://www.extremecarving.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7172

Length of the day is finally over 12h here in Finland some 50km from the arctic circle and it's getting brighter every day. So finally enough light for some high framerate footage:

Here are two screenshots from that vid showing the bootout (the board sinks even more later but the boots get covered by the spray so I thought this illustrates the problem better):

I agree with James about this bootout thing. I have some bootout problems still with 300mm waist and 21f -21r angles. Size 9 boot. It has to do with extreme edge angles combined with extending legs. If I extend my legs a lot, I still boot out so I have to maintain a bit of bend. Soft snow is another thing which can result in bootout. Here's an example (44s) where I hit a snowmobile track where the lugs have softened the snow and board sinks there, causing my board to sink so much that it's a clear bootout. Extreme edge angles also makes the board more prone to sinking since there isn't much base contact vertically. The camera angle makes it easy to see that there's enough clearance just before I hit the soft spot. In that case I managed to engage the board to the firm groomer again so I could recover. If the slope was that soft overall, I would have needed a wider board, steeper binding angles, reduced binding+boot footprint or less extreme edge angles/bent legs. I'm pretty sure James has similar issues. I have couple of millimeters underhang both sides with my setup. I wish the board was even wider but the titanal sheet is the limiting factor at 31cm width. I think Ryan needs the massive width because he rides soft snow. I mostly ride firm/icy groomers so excluding those nemesis snowmobile tracks, I'm fine with this setup.

That sounds very interesting. At the moment I don't need a new board but that sounds like it could be worthy Contra replacement if I break my current board for example and if Contras are no longer available at that point. I tried to check the Donek site but couldn't even find that model. Patience I guess...

Couldn't make it to the live stream (5am for me) but watched the recording now and a lot of good discussion there. It's always interesting to hear with what kind of gear people got started with and if they took any classes or such. I think those early sessions really affect your riding style even if you later purposely learn a new style.

Inspecting some cord at Pyhä ski resort this morning. This was probably the best in bounds snowboarding session I've ever had. Groom was close to perfect, hardly anyone else there and plenty of sunshine: The photo is from the end of the first steep section of Piste Palander (FIS spec black diamond).

Can't complain: -32°C morning and no weekend traffic meant the resort was almost empty today and the chairlift leading to this area was closed due to the temp so I got my favorite black slope basically all to myself. This area was nice and warm at -25°C too. Time for a trip to another ski resort next week.

Finland, but close enough. It's been windy lately so slopes are pretty firm. Some might call them icy but my opinion is that it ain't ice if it's white. Have a lookie here how it was last week at Levi: 1:50 for a surface firmness demonstration, followed by my first try of the steepest slope they had there. Could only ride it twice before I had to check out so didn't get a clean run. Anyways, the snow quality is usually pretty good in northern Finland but the resorts don't have much elevation. My favorite black slope at Ruka for example is only about 125m vertical. The good thing is that the rotation time is only around 7min for that slope. Perfect for a quick morning workout before a day at the office. Ruka season will last until 5.5. They could close even later so they can pretty much guarantee that date. Here's some info about their snowhow: https://www.ruka.fi/en/skiresort/slopes/snowhow

This might work for heel lift: https://www.bestboards.gr/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=130 Deeluxe used to sell those directly but it looks like they have closed their direct shop. There's also new Pro version but I can't find it from any European retailers. Donek sells it: https://www.donek.com/product/deeluxe-heel-harness-pro/ I would just e-mail Deeluxe and ask where to buy that. I have two normal versions myself. Calf bite sounds like it might be a technique problem. Try to lift your toes instead of pushing against the highback. Also the heel lift might be partly a technique issue. Try to stand on your toes instead of leaning towards the tongue of the boot. J-bars can also work depending on your ankle shape but personally I haven't had much help from those. That heel harness has worked much better for me.

My reasoning is that you first got people's attention by showing your riding but that doesn't get you subscribers. If you take a look at my duck stance carving vid I released a month ago, that's got 28k views atm. but I only have 155 subscribers and I started from around 80 (I'm not really interested in growing my channel though). The interesting thing I just noticed when I looked at some stats is that most of those are pretty recent which is pretty logical since now the season is on. So release timing is important too. But the main point is that you don't get subscribers by showing your riding even if you get views. But you will get their attention and when you then show them instructional video how to ride like that, you get to where you are now. Lot's of views and healthy amount of subs too. So yeah, I do agree with you that instructional videos get you subs but people won't believe you unless you show them the end results and that's where the riding comes in. You did do that and it works. Looks like your examples also use that approach. @shmsnow shows impressive thumbnails. You don't even have to watch the vid and you already get a lot of attention from just the thumbnails. @Justaride-Snowboard-Channel also has well designed thumbnails. Those get you a lot of views from Youtube algorithms. Both show what kind of riding you can achieve even without having to look at any of their vids. But it's the @skng example I'd like to point out the most. His thumbnails look really professional and if you hover the mouse over them, you will see the riding in many of his vids. That's what I meant in the first place. Take a look at "How to Ski Parallel - Intermediate Ski Lesson #3.1" with 1.5M views for example. The thumbnail already shows clearly what the video is about and if you hover over it, you'll see a cleanly executed intermediate turn. So you know straight away what to expect if you watch the video. The riding isn't anything special in that example but it clearly shows what the video is about. Also one reason why I suggested to show more riding was that I thought it's easy to make that kind of vids. Of course if you have to book a videographer, that gets harder but grabbing a selfie stick is easy. Maybe I thought that too much from my own perspective since I film like 70% of my riding anyways, so I thought the riding footage is already there. I don't think showing the same style of riding over and over again is much of a problem. Just take a look at Ryan Knapton. I watch all his vids even though he pretty much rides the same style in every vid. Then there's the point about video quality. Selfie stick solves the resolution issue of the 360-cams. I totally agree that it's hard to get high quality video from far away but with selfie stick or helmet mount, the camera is close to you at all times which results in good image quality. Of course the perspective has its limitations but the ease of video capture and the high image quality is worth the tradeoff imo. It's a pity we don't ride the same resorts since I have all the gear and know-how to capture high quality video but I have no-one to film and there's no-one to film me with all my fancy gear. I work for this institute, so that might give an idea what kind of gear I have access to: https://memo.aalto.fi/

Moar duckfoot bending. This time from Levi:

Couldn't agree more. Equipment only becomes critical once you reach the level of expertise where equipment becomes the limiting factor and that is long way from casual slarving skills which probably is the main target audience.

More riding. The Part I explains how you ride and got you the audience so now I think it would be a good idea to show more riding and briefly explain what you did in that footage. Like for example when you ride rollers and switch to down-unweighted for those. Show and explain that kind of cases. Why do you do it and a brief explanation why it works. Give small tips and if people want to have more complete info, you can then point them to Part I. I don't know if you like to ride pow but if you do, first carve some groomers and then go off-piste for couple of turns and then come back to groomers (within the same run I mean). I'm sure that would impress a lot of people and these ~300mm boards can easily float.

Nidecker Kaon-CX comes to mind. I have the L-size for my 27MP and the boot hardly fits to the heelcup. It's so tight fit with sharp edges (where highback touches the boot) that my boots got damaged. I had to modify the bindings to make the boot fit better. L-size is supposed to fit 26-29.5. The baseplate seems more true to size. That got me thinking maybe the M-size could work for you. It should fit 22.5-26.6 range. Beware of that sharp highback heelcup edge though and maybe round it a bit if you get that binding. https://www.nidecker.com/en/bindings/55-kaon-cx.html#size-chart