Gabe T

The Apex system does seem better given that the boot seems more integrated for fit with the strap in shell. Didn’t watch all of them but the speakers in their videos speak of not losing performance which is hard to believe. I would think their target market would be more suited to the intermediate skier. The riding in the vids were pretty decent though. I assume you could snowboard in the boots but didn’t see this mentioned as a selling point. Would be an interesting concept to design something similar for hardboots though. Similar idea to this softer Deeluxe hybrid boot noted in another post but with more versatility of switching into soft boot bindings. Or better yet, a design that has the versatility to allow for direct mounting to a board as well. In effect it could become a stiff softboot binding.

Our hill has traditionally hosted our Provincial Alpine snowboard championships and that is where I would see a large number of younger riders participate in the sport. I wonder how many of them actually continue to ride once they are done with their racing programs. In all my years of riding, I'm not sure I can recall meeting any carvers that had a racing background when they were younger.

Looks like a hand held pole cam with the pole removed in post processing.

Nice on both of these! We should have a GIF off challenge with folks trying to replicate these moves.

Nice! Given the rider to terrain ratio, are you able to find fresh lines on every run? About how many runs can you get in there?

Yeah, when I watch all those great Japanese soft boot carving vids, I also noticed that many are riding pretty high forward angles, particularly on the front. I am always curious about the setup and equipment they are using. For those that are riding very close to an alpine style, I also wonder what the allure is for them. (For those that carve like they are riding hardboots, I can only assume they also hardboot or have at least tried it) From a pure carving point of view, it still seems like there is still a pretty wide gap between softboot and hardboot performance through the spectrum of carving conditions one might encounter. (e.g.steeps, ice, chop) Yes, you can make it look as good as if you're riding hardboot gear, but it would seem that the effort to accomplish the same turns under the same given conditions is quite a bit more challenging in softies. Then again, my boots/bindings are about 10 years old so I don't know what the gap is between that and more recent equipment innovations, softboot boards included. Maybe the gap is not as big as I'm inclined to believe. I imagine part of the allure might be the versatility of being able to throw down some tricks and spins with a softboot setup. Totally get that. Some are pretty impressive and original. But the 178 seems kind of extreme. Looks more like a wide alpine board. Probably not too buttery! Incidentally, I was recently playing around with an old Burton T6 softboot board that I picked up cheap/used and hadn't ridden in a while. It’s a pretty stiff freeride board but narrow of course. I think it is 24cm at the waist. Tried some neutral angles on it at first; not much fun for me as it didn’t take much to boot out. As an experiment, I cranked it up to some ridiculous angles in the 50s to test the limits and surprisingly had some moderate success. First run felt pretty weird; almost felt unrideable. It was hard to even slide the board with control. Some extra weirdness on the rear heelside; needed to make riding adjustments in later runs to get the needed edge pressure. Toesides actually felt reasonably ok. That was just a fun experiment so I definitely wouldn’t recommend going so extreme on the angles. This past weekend, I made one adjustment and dialed down the back to around 36 degrees with extra forward lean and left the front at 54. It felt much better and was feeling like I was getting in some pretty decent alpine style turns. Prior to this, the highest angles I tried on a wider (26cm) board was around 36/24.

He may well be pushing the limits of how much he can shape his turns on his toe side to control speed at that pitch. Heel sides will naturally be more powerful as the body naturally angulates that way; no need to twist at the waist to get power to the edge like on a toe side. The rotation of the board before he engages the heel side looks like a technique he’s using to control speed and to get him going across the hill more. Don’t think that kind of pivoting would be possible on toe side given the forces he’s dealing with. I think I would be maxing out what I could do on both sides of my turns to make it out alive! Never mind symmetry in my turns, I just want my body parts to be symmetrical when I get to the bottom! Your comment about throwing from heel to toe and vice versa was interesting; I'm sort of the opposite. When I pop a board (with a bit of air) during transitions at speed, it feels much more natural and confident to do on a toe to heel side turn. This is particularly true when transitioning directly into a high edge angle. If I do pop into a toe side, it will generally be at lower speed or I will tend to land flatter at first; if I try to land it in an angulated position it is more likely to stress out my lower back.

Yeah, would probably need a few inspection/sliding runs to get up the nerve. Part of the challenge seems to been getting sufficient initial contact after transitioning. The gaps in contact in between turns look pretty big at times due to speed and gravity. The steepest turns almost resemble those that would be made by big mountain riders in powder. There’s only so much you can do to control speed and fuller turns do not look possible. And who knows about the consistency of the snow; just another thing to worry about!

It's been a while since I've seen you ride. Have any recent video to share? You should just start your own Vlog! Thanks for the tip and insight. I was actually playing around with that idea this past week after a fellow carver mentioned that easing off on the nose pressure helped. Felt it working but can still be a bit of a balancing act to know how far you can tip it based on the conditions. Sometimes when I feel like I’m about to sink in too much, I will up unweight within the carve to allow me to continue the turn. I will do this early before I get too high on edge, otherwise it will be too late. Probably could have minimized the stalling in the first place by easing off pressure on the front of the board like you said.

Was this while you were standing with an athletic stance? It was hard to tell from the pictures how much your knees were bent. Kind of looked a bit straight from that angle. How does it feel with your liners in? Do you feel any strain in your quads?

This may not necessarily be infallible but it would make sense that this setup would create the least amount of stress to parts; shorter bolt and a higher number of threads used. Extreme carvers out there might be able to share their experience as they would ride this setup as well. Not really a viable solution for most of us though.

I have done this as well. Front foot on a standard Race Titanium. The bail was from the heel block. 3 in a week is kind of ridiculous though. Luckily I came out of the binding at fairly low speed near the end of my run. I’m not exactly sure when it actually broke. It’s possible that it happened earlier in the run but there was still enough pressure to hold my boot in place.

One hack that I’ve heard of but have never tried myself is to put a dab of glue from a glue gun to secure the position of the wheel that adjusts the height. Presumably it can be chipped off fairly cleanly should it ever need to be readjusted. I was riding on the chair with a fellow carver the other week when I noticed something peculiar on his topsheet. He had drawn an arc shaped arrow with a sharpie next to his binding. When I asked about it, apparently it was to remind him what direction to turn the wheel in order to tighten it! Sounded like one of those frequent pain in the ass tasks.

I don’t believe the disc covers are even ‘new’. F2 also had that cover design in their earlier models where you needed a Phillips head to install/remove.

Not sure I noticed too much camera trickery. That looked like a seriously steep pitch! Often times the steepness of a pitch doesn't translate well on video so I can't imagine what it would look like standing at the top of that run in real life. I'm not even sure you'd be able to see any part of the run from the top until you started over the edge. Even on wider shots, you could sense the speed he was carrying down the run.

When carving, my objective is to increase the edge angle as much as speed and snow conditions will allow. This gets me low to the snow, maximize deflection of the board and gets me turning as tight as the board will allow. Rhythmical turns with efficient movements while letting the board do the work is when I'm most relaxed. (I saw similar comments on a ski video about carving and thought it perfectly summed up carving for me) For me, this usually means that very firm/fast snow works the best. Even (smooth) icy conditions can work so long as I have a board I can trust to do the job. When snow gets too soft/slow, maxing out edge angles in a relaxed manner becomes more challenging. Heel sides are particularly tough as the board tends to dig deeper, losing speed and throwing off rhythm. I could just ease up on the edge angles, but that takes away some of the fun for me. I recently watched a video of a skier commenting on some technical ski competitions in Japan he had participated for the past few years. https://youtu.be/Sns79kl28iE One thing he pointed out was because the conditions in Japan are typically soft due to the volume of snow they get, his Japanese competitors were real masters in dealing with adjustments to edge pressure under those conditions. I assume snowboarders in their respective competitions over there would have to deal with the same thing. So carving in soft snow, although not my favourite can be a skill in itself! It was interesting to hear his comments about people's criticisms about their style and how people who doubted whether those skiers could perform under different conditions; reminiscent of comments we've seen in the past in our own community. Btw, there was an alpine snowboarder that commented on his video and he replied that it looked like fun and that he would like to try it some day. : ) I'll admit there are probably many times where I could relax more when riding: particularly my upper body/shoulders. More recently I've been a bit more conscious of this and will remind myself to loosen up my shoulders and arms. I will sometimes visualize riders I've seen from videos while I'm boarding or skiing to help me get into that frame of mind. When I think of "hard charging turns", I don't necessarily equate it with relaxed riding. I equate it to quick transitions, pushing hard on the board, manufacturing pop; this may not be the most efficient way of riding but it's a lot of fun. More often than not, this tends to be the way I ride and is likely a product of having to ride on a small hill. Balls out for a minute ... 4 minutes on the chair to 'Relax'. : ) Thanks for the post David! Lots of chuckles from your comments. : )

The ease of installation (e.g. swapping on boards) and sizing adjustments is one things that I do like about it. Although some of the adjustment settings have also been known to loosen on me over time. They periodically need to be tightened up. Not sure how old this design is but I think I have heard that its lineage is that of a rental binding.

One of my complaints of the F2s are the t-nuts and their tendency to bend, crack or break. Depending on your cant lift setup, the screws that it comes with may leave quite a few threads unthreaded into the t-nut. This may cause additional stress to the t-nuts. I’d be curious how often high level racers change these out. Wouldn’t be surprised if this is one part that might get modded.

Wasn’t quite sure I understood the part about the setup and how it attributed to breakage. You would think at that price point they would be a bit more durable. It’s curious that the SB shell was traditionally used for softer and or entry level line of boots. Now with harder plastic in an old mold, they’ve suddenly catapulted to the top of the stiffness/performance spectrum. I realized that the comments about difficulties sourcing parts may have been related to buckles. Not sure about those; I only know that the straps were available at YYZ.

My friend got a pair for this season. So far, she’s broken 2 wire straps. One from the top and one from the bottom. YYZCANUCK has replacement parts.

I have an old Burton cant but I can't seem to find the screws for the metal wedge piece that secures to the board. I did see a link to a European site that sells Ibex parts in another thread. Any other options? The cant screws are shorter than the old standard Burton binding disk screws. The cone shape on the head looks like it's at a slightly different angle as well. Thinking about possibly cutting the binding screws shorter to fit the cant as I have extras of those.

What year did this board come out? Don’t recall this model.

I don’t recall them ever having any rubber padding. It will leave a mark on the top sheet. I think the seller is listing the centre disks that set the binding angles and not any parts related to canting.

I don’t recall using any lubricants on the bindings but it could be possible that some substance got on them to cause that reaction. Some of the goo got on to the other bumpers but it looks like it could be cleaned up and they seem normal in terms of firmness.

I was just digging through a box with some old TD1 bindings. When I looked at a plastic baggie where some purple bumpers were stored, I noticed a dark gooey substance. Looked like part of one of the bumpers started to disintegrate into some primordial looking goo! It looked like it ate right through the bag as the mess got stuck to an instruction sheet. WTF is going on here?