AcousticBoarder

I have a Swix adjustable base bevel guide. Realistically, I don't change the angle so I could have done fixed. This one seems to stay accurate which is good, I am often nervous of plastic guides and them changing. I use the Side of beast guide for the sides. I use DMT diamond files as well. They work great and don't take off too much, I am able to get a nice polish with them. I have a gummy too if there's a little rust. I don't usually detune, but if I did I would use it for that too. I have a set of vices like these, but I think they are swix or something. Work great when traveling or whatever. This year I got a Tools4Boards stand I found on Amazon for half price, and acquired some free vices for it. Works great, the vices are on a track and I made 2 plywood work surfaces too for it; all folds up and fits in my gear closet. Both sets of vices are rubbery on top and even with the wax wizard, the boards don't move.

I was aiming to attend this year but things were not working out in my favor to go with work and personal life. I would be all over a session in the west, Tahoe again or even better June/Mammoth. Whatever the case, I again plan on attending next year, I definitely need the clinics as I cannot find a local hardboot instructor!

Bump

I always look for others, and often even see someone like half the time from the lift or their mark in the snow, but only manage to meet up to say hi or ride for just a run or two for one reason or another about 1/3 of those times. Rarely have I been able to spend a couple hours with them. That usually requires a session or good coordination.

Or you are at June Mountain

Wow, your mountain is a black hole! Atleast at 11:00pm

I think I am understanding a little better what you mean here after reviewing the video more and Pat's comment about counter rotation. I thought I had gotten rid of it except when intentionally skidding to stop but aperantly not. As for reasoning why, I am not sure... Not that it is a good reason, but that's the way I have always done it? I definitely started out with less than ideal gear (boots that didn't fit well, old board(s), and td1s) which could have contributed early on and committed to muscle memory. I guess now is trying to figure out what exactly to do to effectively unlearn it. I have a feeling some of the other items will almost fall in place.

Here is the quick vid from yesterday (or I guess the day before now...) Unfortunately when we started filming it started warming up so it became more difficult at times since the snow was slow at the bottom of the first shot and the second shot.

I have some Mondo 24 boots for sale, should be about a size 6-6.5.

I went out yesterday with the front foot bias adjusted, so now both are adjusted toeside by 1 notch in the toe/heel blocks. One foot riding such as off the chair definitely felt a bit weird. It was not as easy to turn without shifting my rear foot as well. I took some warm up runs and started to get used to the difference, though it was still noticeable throughout the day. I did not realize that this small change would feel that different! I cannot say it felt better or worse, just different... Maybe I could say that initiating a heel side with bad habits became harder? I would say it could have been an off day, but upon riding our perfect pitch blue run (Gunsmoke at June Mtn) I was able to care more of it, linked, with (I think/hope!) better technique than I ever have before. I soon realized the foot pain I was getting the previous day was out of initiating toeside turns with my front foot toes, by pressuring the toes and ball of my foot and in turn lifting my heel, so I quickly stopped that. Paying attention to weighting, I could definitely tell that my previous go to has been front foot weighted for heel side and back foot weighted on toe side, so I worked on trying to even out the pressure. As I focused on weighting and initiating with my ankles rather than upper body movements, I started to play with initiation by means of heel to toe pressure on the boots vs side to side pressure. I had to stop for the day before I could come to some conclusions on this, but I could definitely tell a difference between them. I have some small snippets of video that I will post as I can get them uploaded and edited together/ take out the part I was sitting and waiting before I realized my cameraman was already filming

Also keep in mind that your canting may need to change as you adjust your binding angle. Not doing so can lead to that knee pain you speak of...

I honestly couldn't make it past the first paragraph.... Kinda skimmed the rest lol.

Skiing today in June, back out on the board tomorrow!

Thanks for the input! I don't take it as a scold, and do agree that I probably should have changed the bias first... I just couldn't resist trying the new toys So heel side, perhaps back off slightly on the twisting to face the nose of the board? I will aim for somewhere between binding angle and the nose then. It also sounds like posture overall is better then on toe side, so try and mimic that posture for heel side, bringing some focus to transferring some of my weight back from where it is. If the extra twist did indeed put more pressure on my front foot, I could see why I was getting pain there I previously did not have. I should be back out Thursday and plan on moving that bias for that run. Since I am riding with some Gilmour bias, should I reverse the bias of both bindings, or only focus on the front for now? Also will keep my attention to weighting to see if that is indeed causing the foot pain.. Thanks!!!

Oooook, tried some of the advice here and I think it has helped my upper body posture. Still trying to figure out some lower body mechanics though... @Beckmann AG.... HELP! I have attached a few photos from today using the on hill camera guy again. Unfortunately, he only got my first run. Today conditions were definitely different than last time.. Hard pack sierra cement, so hard and fast, but not icy. some top layer of softer snow. Still very carvable, but I am less confident in it and picked up speed quickly. Things I changed: -I focused on bringing my trailing shoulder more forward, by means of bringing my hand more forward and elbow to knee if I could for heel side. -I also tried focusing on keeping my inner hand more at waist level on toe side rather than reaching for the snow. -I tried doing the reach past the board thing, though it did not seem to click for me as I thought it might. I ended up leaving that out for the time being. -I made an effort as well to engage the heel edge with my rear foot just before the front, and automatically started to engage the toe edge with the front just before the back. Both with an effort to use my ankles rather than any upper body. -I also rode today for the first time with Geckos, all red bumpers. Bindings used all blue elastomers. -I did not end up changing binding bias today as I remembered as I got to the hill, and though I had tools, decided to minimize the number of things changed for today. First run: Stack height felt a little weird with the geckos for the first half or so of the run. About where the pics are taken is where I started getting used to that. The geckos were nice, though I probably could have gone without them today. They did help me pressure edges more, and the board felt like it preformed different too, what chop there was seemed like butter and my board a hot knife. With the conditions I think it made me go faster than I normally would have otherwise, and found myself needing to scrub speed. As I focused on the above, right away I could feel that I was able to get (at least on toe side) my knees closer to the ground. At one point, I definitely touched my rear kneed down to the snow. Overall though, something felt very off... By the time I got 4 runs in, I started developing pain under my lateral arch, front foot. I ended up stopping a couple times to try and adjust my boots tighter, but it did not seem to help much, I only started cutting off circulation over my high insteps. End of the run I finally decided to undo the bottom 3 buckles and ride out to the bottom, now focusing on only pressuring using the bottoms of my feet. Difficult to tell if this helped or not by that time. When I arrived to the bottom, my legs felt "nervous". Part of this may be due to lack of sleep (I arrived up here at 3:30 AM and hit the mountain by around 10:30 AM)

Tried them today for the first time. As others have noted, it took a few turns to get used to the stack height, but after a run it felt like the height wasn't even there. I used all red bumpers today with blue e-pads and e-rings on the SWs. It definitely made the board feel like a whole new board. Conditions today were sierra cement hard pack, and pretty fast, so I cannot say I was as confident as normal. Hoping I can get out this week when it is softer. I could feel the extra edge pressure they provide, and they also helped with what minimal choppiness there was today. I ended up having to stop though because of foot pain on my lateral arch, though I think that is a change in technique thing I am trying to figure out too.

Thanks for the info! Yeah, wishing Bruce a safe and speedy recovery! I would be looking earliest end of this season, but probably next season anyway. The snow is usually on the softer side here for sure, but depending on weather, we can have some hard pack days too, especially as the wetter snow freezes over. I also am thinking about something to push my riding a little more too. The Nirvana is awesome a lot of the time here, and has definitely helped me to nail down technique better, but a short turny board with some energy potential, that can still ride relaxed (both for how I ride and so that I am not overly nervous on crowded days), I think would be a fun next board with a good contrast to it. :)

Will be up tues-thurs this week. anyone around?

Love that flex profile picture! Have you by chance ridden a nirvana? How does it compare? I love mine but am also considering getting another board probably for next season for when it is crowded that is easier to ride.

Got the carves! Still interested in the frees for softboots if anyone is selling.

Oops, I had not pulled out my board and I was thinking of the bindings I sold... I actually have blue e-pads already. I would not mind buying a set of yellows to complement my blue ones :)

Good to know others are having success with the SW and geckos. I was unable to try anything today (didn't make it out because of work) but this next week I should be able to test. Think I am going to try all red first and go from there. I have a suspicion that I will end up favoring some combination of red and orange, dunno what that might be yet though! And update, I swore my epads were yellow, but that was just what was on the stepin bindings I sold... so I actually have blue epads

Looking for blue e-pads for the regular bail version of the SWs. A partial set would even be ok, I have 2 of the 8 sitting around already

I only have yellow I have Blue epads at the moment, I do have yellow and blue rings. Good to know though that you have not had problems. Since I am 175-180 and ride more relaxed, it may work with my yellow epads. I've only used these in my riding development, so I am not used to any other setups. I am not too concerned about the stack height. I was thinking flex of either, albeit minimally. I remember reading a review post that mentioned being able to get tighter turns with all orange bumpers. If true, it would stand to reason that the softer bumpers on the outside would allow more flex from the board. I have not ridden mine yet, so time will tell!

Hm, I am running SWs, so I will have to see how they do with them... Funny, when I received mine, they are set up the exact opposite, with red on the middle 3 and orange on the outsides! I also do not think I am as hard charging as you IIRC, but I would think that the bumpers setup with red to the outside would be more rigid overall than the middle, but I guess it would also affect the flex more