Jack M

Correct. Get some. I don't think they'd have me, my board's "only" 21cm wide. Plus I refuse to shave my armpits. No. Installation was a snap. Just use a hammer and a nail punch and pliers.

SUARMF, love it. NSR 185 sounds tempting... but I don't know if I can let go of my beloved Madd 180....?

Oh I see. So turning the top nut preloads the top spring, but also pulls the shaft up thereby reducing forward lean and compressing the bottom spring. Hmm. I would think that since the bottom spring is so much stiffer than the top spring anyway the top spring would preload more.

How is that possible? The upper block is stationary, so preloading the top spring does not preload the bottom spring. And the top spring doesn't resist backwards motion.

If you have or travel to powder frequently, or if you like shorter turns, get the AM. Otherwise, I vote for the Schtubby M-spec. 171cm, 14m sidecut, 21cm waist. The 21cm waist makes it great for all-mtn duty and big feet. Unless you're like size US13+, then you probably want to go wider.

As long as we're talking crazy.... Horizontally laminated wood cores. You heard it here first.

I would say that they ride according to their sidecut, but that they *can* be tightened up a bit more than their glass counterparts. In other words, if you know you want an X meter sidecut radius, just get that. You don't have to specify X + Y when buying metal. There is no "conversion factor". I had a 12m board, a 15m, and I have a 16m board, and my 14.2m metal board carves exactly the size I wanted and expected. But it is more versatile and I can tighten it up more when I want. I think this is a combination of the board being a little softer, and the Titanal performing better at higher edge angles...?

Sweet ride Mike. I dig the blue/white, haven't seen that one before.

OMG, we had to carry a Burton mini-driver when I was instructing. I turned thousands of screws on the hill mid-lesson, thanks to the mouth-breathing window-lickers in the rental shop. Idiots.

JD, what's that board? Looks dope. OK, what is SUARMF?

Nah, 16m is no big deal, I have that on my Madd 180. 23cm waist on a 188, now that's a lot of lumber. I tried a Donek 205 with 18.5m radius for a day. It was surprisingly usable, and crazy stable. I want one.

Ok, I'm going to ass-you-me that that skiing video is not you, Pow, and say close but no cigar. That guy needs a board, badly. I wonder if the outside ski is chattering because at those lean angles the skier weights the inside ski more? It's pretty cool though to see skiers "getting it". I wonder how many of them get to that point and start to look longingly at alpine snowboards. ps - I still think skiing without poles looks weird.

BLACK SNOW Apocolypse (Kidwell went here after Sims) G&S Funky (became F2) K2

The TD3s with medium e-rings, the T700s, and the BTS with blue springs are freakishly color coordinated. 2nd only to Bomber Industries of course. Yeah, they didn't have to replace the boots as they were a full year out of warranty, but they knew it was an issue with bogus plastic.

Burton Fire. Technically the first pair cracked after two seasons and they sent me another pair on warranty. I'd still be using them (with Thermoflex and orthotics of course) but the ride/walk/fwd-lean/flex doohickey on my rear boot finally broke last year.

Santa came early... stopping first of course to see the good elves of Silverthorne... I'm quite excited. I haven't had new boots in 10 years. T700s, TD3s, Fin-Tecs, BTS.... you may now refer to me as Bling Master Jack (BMJ) if you wish.

For the record, the yellow you see is the Gold Digger (TD2-Ti). I use purple (medium) e-rings. And The TD2s did no damage to my metal Coiler nor my metal topsheetless Prior. however the Coiler will soon be sporting TD3s.

Absolutely. And even shifted-sidecut asyms make sense if your technique and binding angles put your center of gravity in different places on toe/heelside. It's just that above about 45 degrees I don't think riding like that makes sense.

I can't imagine why it wouldn't. That's what sidecut is all about, right? you may consider me duly sucked.

On softboots I'd say facing your bindings is more important. In hardboots at binding angles of ~60 degrees, facing the nose vs. facing the bindings is a smaller difference. Sometimes I'm facing the nose, sometimes not. It hasn't been a problem. (pic) If you got a metal Coiler like mine, (Schtubby X2 or M-spec) you'll find it's a great medium-GS board. It's very easy to ride and very forgiving. Most boards have a sweet spot and/or reward really diving on the nose (or not) at initiation. This board's sweet spot is like.... the whole board. Just ride it. Seriously. It rarely protests, if ever. If you're talking about another board with a 13-14m sidecut, well, it will make a medium-GS size turn.

maybe you can get one of those old Nitros on ebay.

"(your shoe size as mondo * pi/2) + 2 inch" I generally don't like to mix English and Metric units, mondo being your foot length in centimeters. That formula would give me (28.5cm foot) a 44.75" stance if the end units are supposed to be English. Or if it's 44.75cm, that's 17.6", which is way too narrow for me.

fixed.

Sounds similar to what I used to do, "The Norm": http://www.bomberonline.com//articles/feel_the_carve.cfm http://www.bomberonline.com//articles/the_normII.cfm I'm going to be re-writing those soon. In truth, the ultimate goal is to have the student facing their binding angles or a little more, but not the nose of the board. However when I was teaching I found I had to tell people to overshoot the target in order for them to hit the target. Ya know?

I recommend toe lift on the front foot.