Jack M

Edge angle, edge inclination, I think we're talking about the same thing. It's just how high you tilt your board up relative to the snow.

Go ahead and experiment, but I don't think the toe lift is your problem. I don't believe ski boots can relax their forward lean as much as snowboard boots, so I think you'll need the toe lift in there for your mobility and comfort. Make sure you start each heelside with a solid move forward, to set the nose in the carve. Really dive into it and be comitted. Look where you want to go. Drive forward with your rear hand. Is there an echo in here??

I would forget about the back boot cuff thing, I don't think it's working for you. Your shoulders appear to be in-line with the board - you want your chest facing more forward. You're not comitting to the heelside carve. Try driving your rear hand forward and down over the nose at the beginning of your heelside carve and continue driving it forward for the duration of the carve. It should feel almost like you're pulling the carve around with your back hand. You want to be able to see your back hand out in front of you throughout the carve in your peripheral vision. Bend your knees, and weight your front foot more at the beginning of the carve. Other tricks are to grab the front of your front boot cuff with your back hand, or to touch your back elbow to the top of your front knee. Also, <i>look</i> where you want the carve to go - <b>NOT</b> just downhill. I also think you're going too fast, as evidenced by the near downhill-edge-catch in one of the movies. Those hurt. Bad. You have almost no edge angle on heelside, and consequently you make a broad turn which allows too much speed to build. Then you have to deal with it on toeside. Comitting to the carve, cranking up the edge angle, and making a rounder, shorter radius carves on both sides will control your speed. -Jack

get a reverse cut drill bit. drill into the screw head, and eventually the torque of the drill will overcome the torque of the screw, and presto. or there are devices for this called "EZ Out" I believe, but google found nothing.

I give you this assignment: mount the camera on your board's tail and have Patrice or Jacques follow you closely. I think that would be pretty damn cool.

Haven't had time to read through the whole thing, but I'm loving what I'm seeing so far. I've turned all the pages a couple times and read one of the articles. Air to snow ratio in the photography seems to be about 50/50, and content to ads ratio is way over half - bravo - maybe I'll do another "analysis". But bottom line is that it got me excited about a snowboarding magazine in a way that hasn't happened since Snowboard Life, or since TWS was 95 pages long. If it takes $12.50 (or $10 if you subscribe) to get a snowboarding magazine like this, I'll pay it. It would also serve a secondary purpose of giving a big kiss-off to TWS and their ilk - you know they're looking to see this mag fail. But I do hope the demand is there to lower the price next year. Had to sneak this $40 subscription under the radar. -Jack

Okay, what is the electro-ambient music in Stoked? (this one: http://www.okao.com/films/2003/wmv/stoked1.wmv) Who is it, what album? I like, I like.

I think that many people (including myself) can develop or lapse into a weaker toeside carve than heelside, once heelside carves have been mastered. This is because on toeside there is a natural tendency to want to bend over at the waist towards the snow off to the side of the board, and also to reach down for the snow with our hand(s). It is because our head thinks it is safer when it is closer to the snow, so it tries to get there first, before a properly balanced position can be assumed. This is a less balanced position because that usually means your butt is up in the air - high c.o.g. Many times, you can end up bent over at the waist more than what your edge angle would dictate. I can't think of any other sport where bending over at the waist is the preferred, more balanced stance. <i>(okay, keep it clean here folks)</i> The fix, I believe, is to drop your hips into the carve first. This stacks your upper body on top of your c.o.g., and your c.o.g. is in line with the edge angle of the board. Here is a nice toeside by Ken B. His hand is down just as a feeler, but notice that otherwise his right hip is down and his upper body is more upright. -Jack

downhill edge: carving or catching?? http://www.ruhtra.com/~ruhtra/photo/03110a/m110a30c.jpg

Laugh it up, fuzzball. This one's my fav: http://www.ruhtra.com/~ruhtra/photo/03110d/m110d31c.jpg who is that, Rob?

They seem to alternate, actually. Often when they are fully laid out, their shoulders are perpendicular to the board, or even beyond perpendicular. You can especially see this in the final scene of Opus 3: Stoked, where Jacques comes to a stop laid out on heelside. Great comedy, btw! Also in many of the still pictures on the site they are squared up to the board. It is. If you have the hero snow, go for it, it's tons of fun. But it's simply a fact of physics that getting closer to the board like Curt will give you more balance on icier conditions. Opus 3: Stoked is easily one of the coolest, smoothest carving videos ever, and certainly the best I've seen in recent memory. I just watched it, and now I am jonesing hard. I love that music, and the carving and scenery is breathtaking. Patrice and Jacques get a standing-O from me where I sit! However I think what you're referring to is parts of the video where they tilt the camera. The terrain isn't crazy steep. -Jack

that sounds like you're doing the cross-under just fine. When you're making edge changes happen with your knees and ankles, that's basically cross-under. Now apply that to larger gs-style carves, and you'll have cross-through. -Jack

Do you ride with your knees stuck together? That can be a common problem. Here is an article that talks about that. Also, it is important to make sure that you are using the whole edge. As speed builds it is very easy to get defensive and stay in the back seat. Make sure that you really get forward and set the nose into the carve at the beginning of each turn. As the turn comes around, you can smoothly shift back to pressure the whole edge. Something that helps to get forward is to drive your back hand forward and down over the nose throughout the turn. You should be able to see both your hands in front of you. It is also important at higher speeds to make the edge change happen as quickly as possible. That maximizes the time the board is actually carving, which gives you the most control over your speed. Here is an article that talks about that. -Jack

That article should say "....if you are roughly average height and weight". What can I say, being 5'11" 170lbs, I am a born "size-ist". You'll probably think the board is too short pretty soon. Then again, you might really enjoy it. If you've never carved a turn in hardboots before, this board should carve well for you on the greens, which is where you need to go when learning to carve. -Jack

weird. a buddy of mine wants "PBRASAP"

Allee, short boards like 157s can be ridden beyond their carvable speed envelope. It takes a lot of G's to be able to lay out, and doing so on a short board can be more difficult for some people. -Jack

This is one of my all-time favorite snow-sport photographs. Sugarloaf patroller Chase McKendry, on teles:

It is quite possible and easy to be going "too fast" for your board's sidecut radius. The UP156 must have a very short radius, as I remember the FP157 was about 9.5m which is quite short. Short boards in general want to make quick turns. If you're trying to lay out at high speed and carry a big turn across the hill, it's just not going to happen. -Jack

Get a boardercross board like the F2 Eliminator, or last year's Volkl Cross. BX boards carve the best of any softboot board, and they can be used with hardboots or softboots. Your size 13 flippers won't fit on an all-mtn carver like the Axis in softboots, at realistic angles. As a beginner snowboarder, you should probably stay away from buying a race board (new or $30 used - sorry morror70), as they are very unforgiving. Unless you are already an expert skier, then the transition might not be bad. If you really can't find a BX board, just get a stiff (sounds like you're probably a big guy) freeride board with a medium-longish sidecut radius like 10-12 meters - nothing under 10m though. (medium-longish for freeride boards that is. GS race boards are around 15m) Also check out the Welcome Center here. -Jack

'95 was also the year Burton had a carver on the cover of its catalog. Actually there were two covers that year, one of a carver, one of your typical air shot. I don't know if it was just a dual cover year, or if they decided in late fall that they had picked the "wrong" picture for the cover. Actually now that I think about this a little more, I'll bet that many softbooters would consider twin-tip skis to be more hip than alpine snowboards.-Jack

RRRROOOWWWWRRRRRR!!!

I think this time you're going to have to show your face!!

Ahh Belgium - home of the best beer in the world - LEFFE!!! I don't think going from 172 to 176 will be a huge difference. Put the TD2's on the 176 and experiment with different settings until it all feels right. If you use toe lift on the front foot and heel lift on the back foot, you can comfortably use a wider stance. That will make the board feel shorter. If it still feels too long, try mounting the bindings on the center of the sidecut, or 2 centimeters forward of center. -Jack

Try it like this on the hill and see how it goes. Then at lunch time switch the cant plate to the front foot, sloping towards the tail. That is, if you can remember how to mount it! See which way works better for you.-Jack

It is obvious to me that TWS is directed at the 12-17 year old crowd (and college students of similar mentality) - people who have enough leisure time after school to read through 220+ pages of rubbish. I got a free subscription to Skiing mag by going to a Warren Miller movie and filling out a card. It's all of about 97 pages, and is a much much better read (although they still don't list ski radii in their reviews). Teens are way more concerned with what is "cool" and "extreme". Rails and pipe are cool and extreme, carving is a discipline, an art.But is TWS merely reacting to public demand, or are they pushing an agenda - <i>telling</i> teens what is cool and extreme? You could probably write a master's thesis on that Hmm, maybe. I think the new school of carving skis are closer brothers to alpine snowboards than anything else. I've seen several pictures in Skiing of people carving their skis - and if you put your hand over their feet and ignore the poles, they look <i>a lot</i> like us.As far as the old-guard hip wiggling swishy turn fall-line skiers (the people who <i>really</i> scrape all the snow off the hill!) are concerned, alpine snowboarders are no less despicable than their softbooter cousins, because they don't know how to deal with us on the trail, and we get in their way. So in that sense I agree we are more snowboarders than skiers. But not for long. -Jack