Interesting to read about how Contras work. I have had my own Contra for about 3 months now and finally I've been able to do some backside EC type flatland carves:
The board is 174 long and rather wide (24.7cm) with 16m sidecut. I wanted to be able to do long EC carves with relaxed binding angles. I'm using 45/52 angles atm. I have only hardbooted for an year so still learning but so far I'm thrilled with this board. However, I do agree that it really doesn't like to "slarve" and I've had problems couple of times where I wanted to exit the carve but the board didn't.
I haven't altered the factory tune which Bruce says is 89 side an 0 base. I have maintained the edges with diamond files and there I use the 89 guide for the side and 0.5 for base so I assume I'm slowly working the base angle towards 0.5 but no idea how much wear there has been. I guess I could try the marker trick the next time.
Anyways I'm so damn happy with the board that I'd really like to ride a 30cm+ wide softboot Contra some day. Meanwhile I'll practice more EC type riding and hopefully I can ride EC on steeps later this season.
I had problems with moving my weight forward earlier (the nose would "understeer") but mounting the bindings with setback fixed that. Before doing that I tried to mount the bindings forward a bit but that made the nose "understeer" worse. Now I'm thinking about increasing the setback a bit still but it's hard to figure out the correct "settings" when I know my technique isn't there yet so it's hard to say whether some problem is because of the settings or just lack of skill.
I've been thinking if I should detune the tail a bit but considering I've only had problems couple of times, I'm unsure if that's really needed.
