MikeC

I will generally agree with this should an accident take place however I do think it's important to acknowledge and remember that our style of riding uses a metric ton of hill space. We must hold a balance between ensuring we get our fix while also making sure we don't overly disrupt or ruin the hill experience for other trail users. I try to look uphill at every transition. Hard to do depending on your riding style but it beats getting hit by some city boy and having him cry to patrol about the "assault" you just committed on him.

If you look at an edge under a microscope you will see what looks like your fingers intertwined to form an X. The upper part being your fingers and the lower part being your hands. Every step up you take causes the distance between your finger tips to get closer and closer together. This is the jagged steel strands at the edge becoming smaller and smaller. The process can go on forever, but the idea is to get the strands refined as much as possible to reduce the friction the jagged edges have on the snow. That is what will allow it to cut AND last longer. Same goes for woodworking tools. If you've done it extensively you know the difference between a slick sharpened with a 1000 grit stone and one sharpened with a 6,000 grit stone. Night and day.

Thoroughly enjoy perfect courd like the rest of us, but it's the crappy, gnarly conditions that make us better riders.

I wish he had done a glue up of a board with titanal in it. Then maybe he would have seen lower peaks of magnitude.

Then it was annealed. And no an anodizing coating would definitely not withstand the cold rolling process. The issue with cold rolling is the creation of work hardening. The more a material is worked cold the more stress induced into the grain structure, and the stiffer/harder it becomes. If a piece is overworked the structure becomes so stressed that it as a very good chance of cracking on it's own. If you could find someone to cold roll it, then reanneal it, I'm sure it would work. Figuring out the correct process for that would be daunting and I bet AMAG would be the last to give guidance. https://www.amag.at/fileadmin/user_upload/amag/Downloads/AluReport/EN/AR-2009-3-EN-AR_3_09_EN_Sports.pdf

Would effect crystal structure. http://www.capitalsteel.net/news/blog/hot-and-cold-rolling-explained

I will leave adhesion specifics for Bruce to answer (if and when) but one issue I see with piercing the titanal many times is how the subsequent layers and glue will shear against each other. Outside of the material moment, boards are stiff because of the resistance to shear that the glue provides between the surfaces. If anyone has ever bent a stack of material stacked loosely, then glued them all together and repeated, the changes are very obvious. I wonder how the glue (epoxy, whatever it is) will react to shear stress when it is not a smooth surface, but rather two surfaces connected by many small columns (the holes in the titanal) it seems this would introduce areas of stress in the cured glue structure and maybe reduce the life of adhesion. I find this thread very interesting.

You will find that a plate is on most every GS board in the world cup circuit along with F2s. It is interesting to see the spread in plate use for slalom though. Everything from Gecko plates to Allflex and the Vist system. I would say cost is no issue considering the cost of keeping a fleet of 4-8 boards waxed and ready to race all season. Weight was a big seller for me.

Yes, there are definitely exceptions. If ones children are capable of running a trail without needing assistance then there's not much impedance. If one needs to be coached every 200 feet or stood back up after a small fall, the impedance increases and sort of takes away from the whole reason one is on hardboots.

Describes myself and the guys I ride with exactly. I also don't see an easy way for married folks with kids to get into hardbooting. How's Dad gonna teach Jimmy and Sally to ski if he needs to rip turns all day? It's not as conducive as just jumping into a set of skis and going out with the fam.

I don't know. Fastenal has M6-1x25mm stainless socket caps @ .0125lb/ea. making a set of 8 weigh .1lb or 1.6oz. By hanging the boot over the board so far, you are inducing additional flex in the system. Sure it's not physical leverage, but it might as well be. You are increasing the work the binding, inserts, bolts, and latitudinal strength of the board must do to transmit the same force to the edge vs. having the footprint of the binding reach out and do it itself. Yet another disconnect between rider and snow. Could everyone feel it if they rode them side by side? Don't know, but I do know that I could tell the difference.

Bomber TD3 per website 4.5lb F2 Ti per website 3.41lb. Difference is over 16 oz. Lest we forget the comparison of boot foot print that is directly transmitted to the board via the binding. The majority of ones footbed is directly linked to the board via F2, whereas on a Bomber (almost half?) of your foot is suspended. This reduces the leverage you have over the board. I have no say (or care) in the outcome of this, just pointing out the obvious differences.

I think it's important to point out that we are talking about F2 vs. Sidewinders according to the OP. I raced one year using SWs with the blue pads and red E-rings. Stiffest combo possible. The flex feels similar to that of the F2s (standing still). I still have doubts about the durability of plastic in the F2s, but until they break the weight savings makes it worth carrying the doubt around with me. I much prefer the F2s. I feel that the SW offers a disconnect when on a hard edge. This is great for the carving enthusiast, as it covers up some of the harsh realities that come with bad conditions. However, if you aren't a leisurely carver and each run is a race run minus the gates, I think it's important to know exactly what is going on beneath your feet. That's how you learn to deal with certain unexpected snow conditions that you couldn't see the turn before. The edge feedback on F2s is very immediate, whereas on Bombers you are waiting for the pads and rings to compress before you can feel what's going on. Just my $.02.

Well, you can race with Bombers and freecarve with F2s. But look at what racers use overwhelmingly, and what freecarvers use overwhelmingly.

The weight alone is a reason to run F2s. Seen a pair of SWs break. That being said I ran a pair for a season and liked them. Just on to F2s because they are so light. You are comparing a race binding to a carving/freeriding binding.

Looks like I'll be there this Saturday.

Gnarly snow today. Snowed, rained, groomed, rained, froze. Bulletproof, groomer ridges everywhere. Lots of dragged snow and pits from the tillers. Took 4 runs. Still wearing these pants much to the disappointment of mr john deere. As you can see, there was great lighting.

Have to bail. Work takes precedence... Likely Sunday I will be up, hopefully the vacation crowd will be packing and leaving. I didn't catch his last name. Board was a 152 or 158, red or green with that flame pattern they make.

Will be there this Friday hopefully by asscracko' dawn. Coiler 180. Tight white snowpants. Anyone on here named Eric? Met a guy with a Donek this past Friday at the end of the day.

Love my POC. Due for a new one pretty soon.

Wow, that last one!!

Did not receive anything, just so you know. Thanks Mike

At last I can contribute. 180NSR. 14/17. Break in tomorrow.

You will have a hard time finding a program that doesn't include some sort of freestyle/park incorporated into it. There just isn't enough heads around to sustain a program that only focuses on alpine/BX. Holderness always seemed to have their erm.. "stuff" together when it came to coaching and course setting. I don't know if they have a weekend program though. Gould Academy runs a weekend program (I did 6 years of it until I hit the max age), but again it is not alpine or even race-specific due to the numbers behind it. Expect random gate training (or none at all). CVA seems to have put together a good support program for BX, but none of their kids raced SL/GS seriously during my time with Gould. As with any private institution team, unless your kid is enrolled full time $40k a year, expect to be put second when it comes to training and scheduling. As Beck said, find a spot that can get him consistant (and plentiful) opportunities to race gates or a BX course. If you can find a spot like this, your chances of finding other adults and kids interested in the same thing increase, and you might not even need to place him in a strict structured program. Good luck on your search!

Have a friend looking for a set of UPZs in M29-29.5. Thanks