gman2010

Yeah I've thought about it, but generally if I have free time during the off season I am busy riding mountain bikes

I got a grown-up job and I am stuck in Oklahoma till March for training. There are no mountains and the longest it has stayed below freezing this year so far has been 2 consecutive days. I'll be lucky if I get to ride more than a day or two this season. Taos Ski Valley is almost a reasonable drive for a long weekend (like 10 hours), unfortunately every long weekend we have had we have also had a big exam right afterward, so it isn't worth the risk of possibly missing work due to car trouble or acts of nature.

Man I miss riding so much, even if it has been crappy, crappy snowboarding is much better than no snowboarding.

ok, im gonna try to be up first thing, but i also need a drink so we'll see if i can get up, either way i should be up in the morning some time, and I work at 2

teach, are you gonna be around?

Sunday is 3/21 if you come up on 3/22 prepare for disappointment.

Opening wednesday so I am going to miss out

Ice is where all the slush has been pushed off and there is nothing but old base left. I am told we have enough snow stockpiled that even with the amount of rain we are getting this weekend we will still be able to cover any bare spots for the week. Mornings have been pretty good up until about 11, despite the temperatures. Blue Mtn will be closed at 5 pm today and not reopen until Sunday morning. PS: I'll be thinking about you all when I am in Tahoe 3/30-4/2 :D

it's raining :(

gonna be leaving in about 15 minutes and riding open to 11 ish glenn, thanks I have already been in contact with jp

PS: jp1 don't get your hopes up on the steps, they ripped them out yesterday.

last friday it WAS all sugary and it sucked, but last thursday was beautiful and so were monday and tuesday this week Razors edge was still good at 11 today when I left, but everything else was a little too soft.

what happened to everyone? the snow has been great last two days for the first 3 hours. Get off your lazy butts and come out before it is too late! I'll be up tomorrow bright and early

Sadly I have to confirm, 3/21 is the scheduled closing date, with the possibility that we open again the following weekend 3/26-28

I voted no, and since I skimmed this thread and didn't see this explanation given I thought I would share: Having two forums would only hurt the sharing of ideas and techniques. Softbooters would read one forum, and Hardbooters the other, the segregation would ultimately lead to a more constricted flow of ideas. By forcing both together in a single forum, everyone is exposed to more information and more ideas.

am i the only one not at ECES or something?

yes, one and one makes a 90 degree angle on the edge, just canted one degree toward the center of the board on the side and one degree toward the top sheet on the base. Very durable and the standard for most tuning applications. The kids on the race team get 3 degree side bevel but they are in every week for a new tune. I tune my board with 2 degree side bevel (or 88, depending on how you look at it). As far as wax goes, I have no idea what the composition of the base is on my ancient Rossignol, but I suspect it is an extruded base that doesn't need or take much wax, low maintenance, but not as fast. My soft set up has a sintered base and I wax it quite often. It gets hot waxed before every snow storm, which is just about every time I ride it since I only ride it when we have pow. On both my boards I use Swix LF 7 fluorinated wax. It has a temp rating from 18-28 degrees which is good 90% of the time here at blue. It is also priced on the low end for fluorinated wax, I think we sell it for $15 for 60 grams. I may switch to a warmer temp wax as the season goes on. I don't bother with the powder wax (cocaine of the ski industry), or mixing waxes. As for my method, I wax my board by coating the iron with wax by rubbing a block on it, then rubbing the coated iron on to the board. I repeat until the entire board has been coated (Be sure to keep the iron moving or you will scorch your base). After the board is coated and wax sufficiently ironed in, I allow the wax to cool, but not all the way to room temperature (this makes scraping easier). I then scrape the board with a plastic blade to remove the excess wax, and then use the buffer on our machine waxer to buff out the rest. I suppose if I didn't have the buffer at my disposal I would use a nylon brush. You can't buff your board too much. You can, however waste wax by using too much.

Lot's of things can cause the stickiness. It could be the wrong wax or not enough wax, the natural snow we have been getting lately is very sticky in its own right. Was it your first run? Another possibility is that your board was warm, causing the snow to thaw and freeze causing it to stick to your base. Base structure affects not just speed but handling of your board. This is what stone grinding is for. Like an ice skate, when skis and snowboards are up on edge, they cause the snow to melt and for a thin layer of water that the edge rides on, reducing friction and generating speed (different situation from when you got off the lift). Base structure is used to channel that water in an efficient manner, rather than have it just being pushed away under your board randomly. At blue we use a structure that runs parallel with the running length of the board. We use the same base structure on all our tunes, ski and snowboard, race and recreational. Our head tuner has 30 years of experience tuning and race coaching and he has tried all the structures our machine is capable of creating and we use the program that works best. The side bevel is easy to change from higher to lower angles, the base angle is a little more difficult to go to a lower angle because it requires grinding the base down. Most equipment comes pre-tuned to 1 degree and there is no need to ever change that, for general tunes, unless requested otherwise, we do a 1 degree base, 1 degree side. For race tunes we do 1 degree base, 3 degree side. PS: We should probably be having this discussion on another thread where more people will read it and a) offer their advice and b) possibly learn something themselves

I run 2 degree side bevel, 1 degree base. The sharper your edges, the more often they need to be sharpened. 2 degrees seems to have reasonable durability. JP1 runs 3 degree side bevel, but he sharpens his board every time he goes out. I sharpen mine every 3-5 days on the mountain

don't count on blue even being open on 3/26

conditions were great yesterday, but I don't expect that this rain is gonna help, they are calling for snow now on thursday

And ski racers don't?

what a surprise there... anyway sorry i didn't make it up today, really tired for some reason

Yeah sorry you came in at a time when it was a little busy or I would have brought it down. It is an old Rossignol R167. Definitely worth the $15+14.95 SH that I paid for it. Time to move on though.

I'm there 2 to close, usually take break around 7:15 or 7:30. It was nice this morning and pretty empty.