Sooperburd

You have nearly exactly my old setup. I loved my T6 156 with CO2 bindings. ...that is until I rode the Rossignol JDub 154 last year and was blown away. It's not as stiff as the T6. It has a decent balance between lively-ness and damp-ness. In addition, the Magnetraction lets the board be really short (and thusly very quick turning and responsive), while still holding its edge really well. On my JDub, I have been able to do about 270° worth of a 360° carve. I wasn't able to do that on my T6. ...and the Magnetraction has the other advantage that you don't have to be as much of a stickler about edge tuning to still hold an edge on the hardest of icy snow. I demo'd 15+ boards in my search for the ultimate freeride machine. The only board I liked nearly as much as the JDub was a Never Summer. The NS was even more damp than the JDub, but NS doesn't do Magnetraction. I'm 170 pounds, which means I'm at the high end of the weight range on the JDub 154, but the 158 just didn't feel right for me. The 154 is just the coolest riding board. I can't say enough good things about it.

You can keep the boards inside the house. Lower humidity and more constant temps will yield much less condensation. If that's not an option, I suppose you could rig up a de-humidifier box large enough to store your equipment in. I'd recommend using Damp Rid or a similar dessicant. It's cheap and available at any home improvement store. The enclosure doesn't need to be air tight to be fairly effective. Even a cardboard box large enough to fit your equipment and a bucket of the Damp Rid would probably work pretty well.

Good to know, thanks! Thanks, and you guys will probably sucker me into hardboots at some point. I'm not opposed to it, I just don't want to spend the money right now. Ok, this answers my question of how a hardboot setup feels on the icy, undercut backside of moguls. It's pretty much the same way the back side (I'm going to coin a term and call it the mogul butt) feels on softies. Yes, it's quite a valuable little skid. I think it's easy to get into the mindset that all skidding is bad, especially if you live for laid, linked turns. Skidding has its place on the hill.

I'll get video this weekend. There's a lot less skid and tail wag than you think. I agree. It's not as clean. It takes a ton of practice to make it clean. Yep. Haha, I've been around forums quite a while and this is the first time I've seen that. I guess my noob-ness knows no bounds...:o

I've been talking about riding them, like the video on page 1.

I've heard this a couple of times. Can you really tell the difference between a 170 and a 182 in its ability to help you right yourself if you get leaning too far forward or backward? In my experience, if you get anywhere near the back seat, there's no righting yourself. You've got bigger problems. Maybe I do need to try a longer board. I feel exactly the same way about this approach. Minus the pendulum action, that front foot is going pretty much straight down the hill. With a duck stance, it is definitely harder to get a high heel edge angle for scrubbing on the uphill side of the moguls. However, I haven't found this to be much of a detriment so far. Maybe when my speeds increase, I'll need a little more scrub power on the heel edge. Maybe I haven't noticed a detriment because I've been compensating with stronger toe side scrubbing. Certainly, high toe side angles can be achieved riding duck with minimal movement, and tons of power.

Another noob question: What do you mean by OP? At Mary Jane, there are pretty solid lines all over the place. Just ask the skiers, who routinely rip through them in a zipper 100-200 yards at a time. I still don't agree here. If you're going straight down the fall line, your linear speed is going to be greater than if you are traversing the fall line. That's just physics. There is a certain amount of friction associated with the board on the snow, even if you're doing zero scrubbing. Covering more ground on on a shallower slope means lower linear speed. This is why I say sighting a really long line is so important (much more important for snowboarders to do well than for skiers to do well) because you need to see the course changes long in advance to avoid the spastic upper body. I'm not saying it's easy, but I have seen some success using this technique to quiet my upper body at higher speeds on the zipper.

The fact that nearly nobody can do the zipper line quickly and smoothly says to me it's much more difficult than the almost-zipper line. I suppose if we're splitting hairs, the techniques aren't that different between the two lines. However, the difference in skill required between the two is immense. The difference is that the zipper line requires you to pendulum the board right and left of your COG to a very high degree. Also, the zipper is much straighter down the hill than a traversing route. That means it's faster than the traversing route, and the turns come a lot faster. ...and that means you have to be looking really far ahead, and your body needs to almost be on autopilot, so your brain can figure out the path. ...and I think it's the lack of training wheels that makes it look funny, not a difference in pivot speed. Snowboarders can apply much more torque to their system than skiers, especially when using low binding angles. In addition, a snowboard doesn't have a significantly higher moment of inertia (swing weight, sorry for the engineering term) than a pair of skis. You'd be surprised how quickly you can turn a short board (I ride an all mountain 154 in the bumps and I don't ever feel limited by pivot speed).

Rob, If your goal is the zipper line, this is indeed very complicated. If your goal is something less than the zipper line, I completely agree with you, it's not very complicated.

Haha, excellent question. I've searched all over the internet, and BOL is the only place that treats the discipline of mogul snowboarding as anything like a science. Everywhere else I've been, I only get the response of "dude, snowboarders don't ride moguls, what's wrong with you?" I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone with my "not like a snowboarder emulating a skier" comment. I can see how many of you have become hyper-sensitive to comments like that (from the idiots in the lift line, etc.). I'm thoroughly intrigued by what you guys can do on hardboot alpine setups. I imagine that someday I'll get my own alpine setup, but that's at least a year away. I also think that this thread has very little place being in the Carving Community sub-forum. IMO it should be in the Off-Topic sub-forum, but I'm just a noob here and I don't know the rules. I'd be perfectly happy posting this stuff in the Off-Topic sub-forum and not offending any hardbooters. From what I've read in my few weeks of lurking, it's waaaay to easy to offend some of you.

I can see how dampening would be sweet. However, I assume you're on hardboots. Are you skidding down the back sides of the moguls at all with that setup (or are you speed checking on the uphill face)? Skipping down the backside of moguls in hard boots doesn't sound like fun. You said "rockered nose and tail". Is that a reverse camber board??? Finally, have you ever ridden something really short (sub 160) in the bumps? Really long story: I tuned up an old beater Gnu Carbon High Beam 160 this week as my rock board. (Yes, yes, yes, I tuned up a rock board ) and I'm going to try it on the bumps this weekend. It's much floppier than my JDub. If the mogul skiers are riding something similar to park skis, the Gnu might give a similar feel. ...and then again, it might be a horrible trainwreck in the bumps.

This goes against most things I've read (...and my common sense, too) about riding bumps, but my stance is duck ±15°. This makes it pretty impossible for me to square my shoulders to the fall line. So, I keep my shoulders at 45° or so to the fall line and turn my head the rest of the way so I can see the terrain to both sides of me. You'd think that this would increase my chances of catching the "death edge", but that hasn't been the case with me. The last time I caught my heel edge on a mogul was at least two years ago. Why don't I just change my stance to make it easier? I guess I should try it. I do like riding switch, and there's just something I like about going down the hill sideways and not squaring my shoulders. I suppose it's an image thing. I want to be able to ride bumps like a skier, but not look like a skier. Maybe I should rephrase that... I want to beat skiers through the mogul fields, while looking like a knuckle dragger, not like a snowboarder emulating a skier. ;) I'll even ride smaller mogul fields switch sometimes if the snow's soft and I don't mind being sore the next day (I tend to go over the handlebars and hug moguls a lot when riding them switch). I suppose that riding moguls switch is my Holy Grail of difficult things to do while snowboarding.

LOL... Nope, not quite a master. After putting that search in google, I clicked on one link, just to see if it got me a post from the Greenleaf I know on there. That link was to a forum post on the Post's webpage, and the first sentence read something like "Hi, I'm Greenleaf, I live in Arapahoe County, and I'm an alcoholic." I might have embellished a tad.:)

Just google "greenleaf denver post". 14,700 hits. It looks like your counterpart lives in Arapahoe County.

I'm fairly certain that the longer the board, though, the farther out you need to be visually scanning your line. Actually, that's a really good tip that I haven't seen on here (or maybe it's there and I missed it). The importance of looking ahead and sighting in your line at least 3 bumps ahead. It's not so simple, though: When you first start riding moguls, understanding the line isn't too important, because you're just taking them 1 bump at a time. You'll completely commit your board and center of gravity (COG) to every turn. Essentially your COG will be centered over the board all of the time. As you get better at riding bumps, you need to start looking farther and farther down the hill. Pretty soon (or not so soon in my case, It's taken me years to get this), you'll start letting the board pendulum (yes, it's now a verb) to the left and right of your COG with each bump. If you aren't looking a few moguls ahead, you won't have the confidence to let the board pendulum out away from you, knowing it will come back very soon. This was where I stagnated for a year or two. I didn't realize how important it was to be looking really far ahead. I believe it's more important for snowboarders to see the line than for skiers to see the line. Skiers have two independent feet and training wheels, so they can adjust their COG very quickly. On a single plank, without training wheels, you can't easily make major changes to your board/COG relationship. Once you get to a certain level at moguls, seeing the line becomes more and more important. I'd say about 60% of my (somewhat limited) brain power is devoted to the line, 39% is devoted to body control, and 1% is looking for squirrels. Sorry if I'm not using all the proper terms. I was never a mogul skier, but I've learned almost everything I know about riding bumps from watching skiers. If I'm way off here and not giving good advice, please feel free to correct me. Oh, and I was (mostly) kidding about the squirrels.

Wow. I can't even imagine what something that long would feel like in the bumps. I've always wanted to try a longer board in the moguls, though. I can see how a longer board might smooth things out a bit. What length (and stiffness) makes a good mogul ski?

...and Greenleaf, are you the same Greenleaf of the RMN and DP forums?

Thanks, Ink! Oh, and for my first awesome noob question: what does LCI stand for? :o

My wife and I have a passion for riding the moguls. We both ride fairly short Rossignol all mountain boards with magnetraction (she has a Diva 144 and I have a JDub 154) with relatively stiff softboot setups. The maneuverability of a shorter board, with the edge grip of magnetraction helps us to enjoy the bumps, regardless of how fast and/or icy they are. It's been my goal for a number of years to get really good at moguls and I've gotten quite a few pointers from this thread and RCrobar's old thread. I never put too much thought into where I was scrubbing speed on the bumps, but my eyes were opened by this thread. Last weekend, I started scrubbing on the uphill faces and tops of the bumps, instead of the downhill (icy) sides. Wow! What a difference! At first, I thought it was going to change my entire line through the bumps, but after a few runs, I discovered that my line was really the same as it has always been, it's just where I choose to skid that changed. I could either skid down the back, icy face, or skid on the nice, soft face. Tough choice... In addition, while at the top of the mogul, sliding sideways on an edge, you make the appropriate direction change to get you pointed at the next mogul below. The two motions of skid and direction change happen so smoothly, you don't really think about it. Of course, the skidding to scrub speed is in addition to soaking up speed via contraction/extension over the tops of the bumps. This is what so many good mogul skiers seem to understand so well. Is there even a name for this voodoo speed scrub technique that somehow converts excess kinetic energy back into potential energy? It's the exact inverse of what pipe riders do when they push off of the slope of the pipe into the flat and gain speed because of it. At any rate, the contraction/extension is enough to keep speed in check when the slope is shallow, but the skid really comes into play on steeper slopes.

Yeah, this is my first post on BOL. ;) I've been lurking against my will and now I'd like to see some real laid, linked turns. Oh, and my wife is down, too. Big Mario - pass Thor - no pass Seraph - no pass Michael Pukas - no pass Angie - no pass Ernie00 - no ride Dave Winters - no pass Ink - pass ice - pass Biggerwrangler - Pass Balboajeff-Pass Kimo - 4-pak BlueBird - no pass Greenleaf - pass D.T. - pass Shelly - pass T.Stoughton - pass Kate - maybe, pass Brandon - no pass Frank - no pass Surf Rat -no pass pc denver - pass arneburner - pass Jim Callen- No pass aactis - pass KarverKai - pass Steve Prokopiw - no pass Sooperburd - no pass Sooperburd's Wife - no pass