Eastsiiiide

Okay I now realize my previous photo sucked. So here is another attempt, shown as currently configured, on a section of cliffside trail I've been building. (I just liked the other pic cuz it had snow.)

Oh ignore that, it's a janky saddle pad that was falling apart and slipped backward. Cheap garbage strikes again. edit: PS It looks like a monkey bike because it's a small. I'm on the cusp of small/med so I put a longer stem on (not pictured) to give a skosh more room. If it were my only bike I'd probably want a medium frame as a better all-rounder. But I have a lot of fun on the small with 27.5s and a buncha travel.

Kenevo on 27.5 x 3.0s. (pictured with the stock 2.8s) Mods are fatter tires, slightly narrower handlebar, slightly longer stem, ergon cork grips, stiffer spring on the rear shock. I ran DIY pool noodle inserts for a while and liked em but haven't felt the need lately. Very fun bike.

Werd.

F*#!k it I'm going barefoot from now on.

I've been testing out the Deeluxe 700's with thermo liners. Initially I used them with an intuition scarpa wrap I had molded to a UPZ boot, and that felt pretty good (better than the UPZs), so I went ahead and tried the Deeluxe thermo liner next: at first I heat-formed just the toe area and rode em like that. At that point I was really happy! I could see how the heel could lift but felt that it was basically a good reminder to adjust technique, but was not egregious. The toe box remained super tight and painful, which isn't surprising for my feet, buy hey, the rest was the most comfortable boot ever. Ever! I was anticipating writing a review to the effect of: "c'mon the 700's are actually great boots and to me the heel lift flaw is more of a feature that helps me carve better, stop complaining about these boots they are awesome"... --Then-- I did a full thermo mold (home version) in hopes of improving the terrible toe box torture chamber and customizing the fit generally, and now not only are the toes are still destructively tight (like, can't go boarding two days in a row, ouching around in pain destructive), but the heel hold has gone from a 6.5/7 to a 1 or a zero out of ten. I even got some foot cramps I didn't have before, followed by a liner that once it warms up is too loose even with the buckles maxed out. ...Thinking a lot about OddJob's advice to forget Deeluxe liners altogether and go Intuition. But jeez Louise, which ones exactly are going to be ideal for *my* feet? And for how much money per experiment?? holy hell. I actually like the idea of a boot that provides a blank slate and leaves it up to you to fill it in with footbeds and liners, but it might be a useful data point to others that it was only once I heat molded that the 700 became terrible. Of course my hero BeckmannAG is anti-thermo, and I've been *warming* up to the idea that he may be on to something. Particularly for hot-blooded types like me, I suspect that as my feet reach their inevitable crescendo of sultry-ness, the thermo liners falter, submit and collapse into a hot pap of uselessness. That's certainly what it feels like. Also experimenting with UPZs. Wish I had more Intuitions or zipfits to try.

Stuff like this makes me want to change species. Dolphin, maybe.

I guess you're intending to stay on the East Siiide. Mammoth/June Mtn are still going strong and just got a bit of new snow.

Agreed and I will. I'm thinking Thirst for the next addition. SF or XC.

This one's kinda fun because I was able to intersect the track with my board's shadow. I like to carve under the lift so I can analyze my tracks on the way up.

Spotted at Mammoth yesterday. And noted it has a 3D printed toe wedge. It was a pretty nice day BTW. It did get overly soft towards the end though. I caught the last chair and while trying to push the envelope laying it over as far as I could, in the slush, I finally did the nose-into-the-snow failure mode for the first time, ha. I think folks call that 'folding the nose'? Remind me not to do that again.

Hard to search this one to learn more about it, as the only distinguishing feature is the number "6". Okay there's also a serial number, but I'm guessing that's not useful for search function. Is it an interesting board? Worth adding to the quiver for cheap? I'd like to have a rock board/spare for friends who want to try hardbooting. Thanks!!

First time I've taken a picture of a track. First day back after injury, feeling it out. Finally able to put some more runs on the Alpine 168 I got from user Polaris, it's a wonderful black razor blade of death. In the background, the bottom of the Western US High School Championships slalom course. Awesome to see so many young slalom boarders. Most of them are softbooting, but there were also fair number of hardbooters. Behind that you can see one of the peaks in the terrain park/big air/slopestyle course. It's pretty cool to be riding up the chair and watching world competitors practicing their routines.

There's almost no information about the Deeluxe online, their website only has a non-clickable picture of the binding, that's it. The F2 Race Ti is constructed with a magical titanal baseplate, ooh la la. I'm guessing the Deeluxe is too then? There was a problem with the F2 binding I ordered from Blue Tomato, and they're offering to replace it. They have the Deeluxe Connector, but not the F2 Race Ti. So that's part of the reason for my question. Thanks for the answers. Update: I emailed Deeluxe and got a brief response saying the baseplates are the same.

They look like rebranded F2s. I'm wondering if the bail blocks and shims and such are all interchangeable. Like could I swap the rear heel block between them if I want to switch between intec and normal heel.

2010 Zero electric dirt bike. With the plastic removed. It's a work in progress. I upgraded the battery, but haven't made a custom BMS yet, so I don't know what the practical range is (this is everyone's question). Maybe I'll get around to finishing it this year.

Thanks SunSurfer, much, much appreciated. I ask about the Stratos because I have found two pairs for sale, and they have some features I like. The UPZ's are narrow directly beneath the ankle bone, on the medial side of the sole just ahead of the heel, which I think is a difficult place for punching or grinding the shell (?). Additionally the heel-over-heel offers no advantage that I can see for my short feet (unless I get a super narrow custom board I guess?), but creates a lot of ramp I don't want. The inside of the boot is not flat underfoot either, confirmed by filling the base of the boot with water. So I'd be wanting to get them flatter underfoot, but with my high-volume feet there is less room to add material under the sole of the foot, so that might leave removal of shell material underfoot as the only alternative (grinding the plastic vanes that make up the 'footbed' of the shell), which I have to say is daunting. If they had a removable bootboard this would be a non-issue. They do come with a spring system, which seems like value added, and indeed may be, but I get the impression that most people end up doing spring mods anyway, which may include replacing the spring system entirely (true?). I will say they're a beautifully crafted boot that I would love to use, but right now it is feeling like an uphill battle to make them fit and function the way I want, and it's annoying to battle a design I don't even want (heel-over-heel) with lifts and lean and possibly canting just to deal with that 'feature'. By contrast I can take an old pair of ski boots and make them fit beautifully and carve decently with just a bit of toe and heel shim in the bindings. So if snowboard boots were shaped like plain old alpine ski boots instead of weird high-heel shoes with a mid-tarsal inflection I'd be all set, ha. The Deeluxe 700s are also an impressively constructed boot. They feel like they have a wider, flatter fit, and they have less ramp. They're sitting here new with tags and thermo liners, but as far as I can glean from the forums, they're clearly not for everyone, particularly for freecarve vs racing. So for a noob to modern equipment, that seems like an iffy starting point for my first pair of snowboard-specific hardboots. I could spend a lot of time making them fit and putting springs on them and then end up asking "why did I put so much effort into these asymmetric racing boots, just to do all-mountain recreational freecarving at a busy resort with highly varied snow conditions/terrain?". So I was looking at the old Head boots and thinking: low internal ramp, removable heel for intec, wide fit... But on the other hand aren't they an earlier version of Deeluxe 325 or something? So perhaps best bet is to go with Deeluxe, but not the 700s? And yeah, I looked at Mountain Slope .951 and Korean S5's, they look fantastic, like super fantastic, but jeez, I'm all excited to try my shiny new step-in bindings and not have to fasten a toe bail while sliding on ice or during traverses anymore! Thanks for reading, any input appreciated!

Thanks Bob. Do you still use Head? I now have both UPZ (RC12) and Deeluxe (700) in my possession and have issues with both of them.

Same thing happened to me on those bindings. The bolts they provided are too short, and too soft. And given that there's just a smidge of clearance between the T-nuts and the topsheet of the board, there's very little room for the bolts to be too long either. When I use these bindings I check that they are torqued down hard before each use. I got them as a cheap interim solution and extra binding to have around; if I planned to keep using them I'd be looking for a selection of hardened bolts to replace the included junk ones. And looking for a better selection of shims. Does one have to make shims/cants, or are they available somewhere? So it's been a year, did you get them working well, or ditch em?

Welcome fellow 90's Mistraller! Here's mine: https://forums.alpinesnowboarder.com/topic/52734-my-vintage-board-rulez/ I too have been getting up to speed after decades on old equipment and it's great. On my old Mistral there was very little that I could change about the set up. And now I know that set up is everything. Well okay not everything, but until you've got it right, it is everything. Right now I am a fanboy of Beckmann. He speaks engineer and that works for me: https://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/hardboot-binding-configuration After doing a rough pass through only some of the steps in his iterative process I was carving on a razor blade, without fatigue, and my feet more comfortable than they've ever been on snow. You've come to the right place, there are lots of instructive links around here on set up and form. I don't have an organized list, maybe someone else does? Here's one http://alpinesnowboarder.com/separate-the-knees/ There's good stuff on YouTube too, including vids by some of the folks here

The S5's tick so many boxes!! Removable boot board?? Hell YES!! Low heel height, bootboard, wide toebox, wide midfoot, heel hold, springs, multiple tongues/springs included... The only thing missing is a removable heel for step ins.

Hi, so you sold the power wrap but still have the SBC and Dreamliner?

snowboarder dudes behind me in lift line, admiring my new-to-me K168: "Dude, that thing is sick!" etc... etc... "Could you put snowboard bindings on that?"

Only after hiking up with my board on my back! There's a resort there?

And the other obvious question is have you set up the bindings right? This is likely to include some heel height increase on your back foot, and re-reading your original statement I'm guessing this is what you meant by 3D printing some wedges. I misunderstood until a few posts down that you are just starting out. So the answer is yes, if you haven't done so yet you need to address your binding setup before you can even determine how much of a heel slippage issue you have. Have you gone down this wonderful nerdhole, for example? https://beckmannag.com/hardboot-snowboarding/hardboot-binding-configuration