Jack M

If you still have a softboot board, frankly I would just use that for the powder, moguls, and anything not groomed. If you don't, definitely try to get yourself some toe lift on your front foot. As for technique, get low with your knees and hips, not your hands or head. Keep your eyes level to the horizon. Try to minimize counter-rotation (board turning one way, upper body turning the other), and ride on both feet. When you're ready to start carving the groom, there's some reading in the links below. Good luck!

We could probably market to these guys...

TK - awesome!! I might have to delete your R-rated pic though!

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/sports/lindsey-vonn-hospitalized-after-crash-in-super-g.html?_r=0

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Without seeing your technique, I would like to just offer this piece of advice which I think works with any technique: Look where you want the carve to go, right when you change edges. Whenever I get lazy and allow myself to just look down the hill is when my heelsides fall apart. Really turn your head around as you are changing edges, and pick something across the trail to aim for. A little pile of snow, a patch of cord, or just a general area, and fix on it throughout the carve. You'll probably surprise yourself with how much this helps, and how accurately your board will travel to that spot. Another tip is to keep both hands in your peripheral vision. Good luck!

Future organ donor: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/pS-Y3CiXFuA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Actually I don't worry about it too much. Snowboarding is not going back to 0, of course. It is receiving a deserved reality check. And Alpine? Well... right now is the best time to be a hardbooter, ever. The boards, boots, and bindings are the best they have ever been, and they seem to be getting incrementally better. If that wasn't the case, I'd worry. But I'm having the most fun on a carving board I've ever had. Life is good. When Fin, Sean, Bruce, Chris retire, it will probably be time for me to hang it up too. If nobody fills their shoes, it probably won't affect me. It would be a sad thing, but that's about it.

True, but that business model failed and won't be coming back. I think the only way for a store to carry alpine gear is if it is located at or on a mountain with a demo program and instruction. And said mountain needs to be centrally located. Ahem, STRATTON.

They are a lot like the practice of human sacrifice. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Maybe we just need to be honest and wonder if Alpine Snowboarding just doesn't look that appealing? That to the vast majority of people it just doesn't look as cool as we feel while carving? If it did, don't you think we'd have already enjoyed explosive growth like, say, Kiteboarding? Kiteboarding is expensive, dangerous, difficult, time consuming, commitment requiring, and yet plenty of windsurfers, surfers and sailors are lining up to try it, as well as people who don't do those things. Why doesn't alpine snowboarding attract people like Kideboarding does? Is alpine just a victim of mass media and marketing? Or is the answer in the mirror? Burton gets a bad rap around here, but you know what? They tried very hard to make alpine look cool for a long time. It didn't take. I don't see us attracting people who don't already come to ski resorts. I just don't. That would seem about like marketing sailing to bowlers. Sure sailing is fun, but it's a high effort lifestyle, and an expensive one, just like snowboarding. One does not simply dabble in sailing. And non-skiers/boarders who are involved in other winter sports probably don't want to take time/money away from those other activities. Snowmobiling is fun, but I'm just not going to do that. Sure, we turn heads on the chairlift above, but how many of those people really think it's cool, how many think it's just a freak show, how many resent us for showing off and/or taking up the whole trail, and how many actually think it looks dorky? Of the people who think it looks cool, how many say "I could never do that", or "I bet it takes a long time to get that good", or "I'm not switching (back) to hardboots", or "I don't want to be a beginner again" and never try? In my experience it seems like our potential market is about 1% of people on chairlifts, but even that is apparently too generous, because practically nobody is getting into the sport. Maybe I'm just discouraged, maybe I'm just in a remote location, but I don't see any growth where I ride. Furthermore I don't see any kids coming up behind us 30-somethings. So this is a pretty negative post, but it's just frustrating seeing this topic come up over and over, year after year, when nobody other than Dingbat, Joerg, Fin, and Michelle really intends to do anything about it. I give a lot of credit to the few instructors here and there, and session organizers, but sessions seem to be more about gathering the flock and partying than they are about recruiting. I think we need to get better about that at sessions, myself included. I am continually pestered by people asking if I am riding a !@#$% Teleboard. Why? Because the Teleboard guys used to hold demos with big banners that said "TRY TELEBOARDING HERE". They haven't done that in years, but that has clearly stuck in a lot of people's heads. I think that is a model we need to pursue, for one thing.

That's all fine, but you didn't answer the question. Can you carve your downhill edge?

Hmm, ok, now make it plastic, and in China, and sell it for $39.

Wow, thanks for the news. Sending good thoughts.

I don't think my electric skirt will be charged in time.

Maybe you already are, but typically the magic bullet is first being able to carve on your softboot gear. I mean carve, not just turn, and to be able to start a carve on your downhill edge. Can you draw a thin line in the snow with your board which starts with your board pointing across the hill, then carving all the way around until the board is pointing across the hill the other way? And can you link turns like this? People who can do this on softboots typically have a much easier time transitioning to hardboots.

Heard from a good source that Full Tilts are shorter toe-to-heel than Kryptons, and about the same as Deeluxe snowboard hardboots.

Good to know about the Full Tilts. I had been eying those. They should probably be my next boots (i.e., in about 4 years) so I can switch back and forth with my skis . I'll miss step-ins though. TT, nice pull.

ah, that is good to hear! should be a lot lighter, and with much less of a footprint.

The version of the Gizmo I tried at the ECES in 2010 mounted right to my standard 4x4 board, has that changed? I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of "comfort" the system provided, albeit at the expense of some snow feel and responsiveness, but at that time my biggest critique was the weight. The plates on Glenn's board look identical, have they been lightened somehow? Perhaps hollowed out with ribbing underneath?

He needs to disappear for a loooong time or forever, a la Pete Rose or Michael Richards (Kramer).

Now yer talkin'. Game on! For the record I was the only local on the podium last time! yeah I'd like to try ski boots but don't you have to add like 6 degrees to your binding angles? Anyway I got the new red T700s with red (stiff) BTS springs and life is good.

I think these are huge parts of it. Skiing is cool again, and snowboarding is now just an alternate way to slide down the hill. Everyone college aged or younger has no memory of a ski mountain without snowboards. The rebel factor and the new factor are gone. I am guilty of starting my kids on skis because it was easier. I also had this notion that it was a prerequisite. I have since taught my 10yo how to board, and I am teaching my 7yo now, but neither wants to switch yet. They have gotten to the point of feeling "cool" on their skis, they don't want to go backwards now. I don't know if they ever will, and I don't think I care. But I am glad they are good skiers, because now they know how to carve. Now that skis actually have sidecut, they work like ice skates. Carving comes naturally. Maybe someday they will want to carve like Dad. Hey, Tom Brady never played football until high school, there is time left. But furthermore, I think most snowboarders now actually look pretty foolish compared to skiers. An intermediate or even advanced snowboarder is simply not usually a pretty sight to behold anywhere outside a park or pipe. They slide around awkwardly, "scraping all the snow off the hill". There is usually no grace. "Turns" are no more than alternating toeside/heelside sideslips; there is no shape. I can't imagine many people watching and saying, yeah, I want to do THAT! Back when I started snowboarding, skiing was stagnant and difficult. My last pair of skis were 185, and I was 13. The only way to carve was to have downhill races against my friends, where we would go to the unpopular part of the mountain and schuss - only turning where the trail turned. Oh and jumping was very difficult on old long skis and anyway it was practically forbidden. Compared to skiing, snowboarding looked like fun and freedom. That contrast no longer exists. We snowboarders have given skiers sidecut, twin tips, rocker, and powder skis. Skiing is easier and more fun than ever. I'm not sure there is anything anymore that a snowboard can do that skis can't do almost as well, equally as well, or better. There's no longer a need to switch to snowboarding to do something you can't do on skis. Well, I guess we still have fakie riding better. Yay. Ultimately it is when conditions allow, we still carve circles around skiers. But now skiers can get that g-force and clean slice feeling too. Skis are superior on ice, at high speed, and if you have a low tolerance for falling down. I think skiers feel they carve "well enough" and what we do is now just a pretty spectacle, not necessarily the goal. Snowboards are better as long as you are moving downhill, but forget about it if you have to do any x-c to get around. And again, I think skiers feel that powder skis are "good enough". Agreed. Every mature snowboarder I know thinks rails are bulls--- and would never go near one. I just used Burton's board finder, and it came up with 2 reasonable choices (out of 39 men's models), the Custom X and the Vapor. However I will hand it to them that 14 men's models have full camber. Ironically it looks like they have no boards that are mostly cambered but with tip and tail rocker, like we use. A longtime snowboarder friend of mine actually switched back to skis last year. It's a shame because he was one of the few who I thought made softbooting look good. I asked him why and he said "I just don't want to be that 40 year old guy on a snowboard." I hear that. Indeed having kids puts a damper on going to the mountains. Only those for whom it's a lifestyle (and an affordable one) return. I think the first bubble has burst, but I don't think snowboarding will ever disappear. It will find its minimum around some core population of people who were just born to slide sideways. And then it will be counter-culture again...

This. No need for tb to own up, these have been the rules since 2003. We have always considered the atmosphere here to be like an après-ski bar. There will be adult conversations and things might get a little loud, but kids are allowed in. And there will not be any pin-up girls on the walls! :). Thanks.

Coiler Safari! (170/21/14)