Jack M

Your use case (riding powder in hardboots) is not one that Bomber was trying to address with the design of the Trench Digger. I took a look at the Phantoms. Nice looking, but those two tiny hold-down points are not going to cut it for carving. But you were probably not suggesting to just take the Phantom as-is and use it for carving. I think you were suggesting a simple, lightweight, flat design with minimal moving parts. We've already been there with bindings like the Burton Race Plate. Bomber also had a binding like that called the Toaster. The original Trench Digger was similarly minimalistic but added a cant disc. The TD2 and 3 came into existence because of the shortcomings of simple bindings - no adjustability other than shims (talk about a kluge), and no suspension. That said, I've felt for many years that Bomber should have offered custom machined bindings for a premium that would be separate toe and heel blocks machined to your desired cant/lift angles. Elastomer suspension could be added or not. Of course you'd have to get a custom board or isolation plate with inserts placed accordingly, but that wouldn't be a big deal at this level. I think this would be the lightest, lowest, simplest (aside from the initial configuration) solution. Obviously they wouldn't get rich selling these, but it would work great on an isolation plate or a bare board.

Love my Nirvana Energy 174/20/12-14. Although "KFC" has a different connotation in the US.

TD3s supply all the movement you're talking about. You're right that the boots could be made shorter with side or bottom attachment points though.

Gonna be tough carving with all that overhang, eh Emdee?

Sickest cross-rocket ever!

Eric, do you want the ball?

Sad news. One of my early inspirations to get into alpine snowboarding. "You carve you carve you carve you carve, and you cannot slide, even if it's icy!" Words that challenge me to this day. Watching Ch!ll as a 14 year old, he was a carving god. RIP, J.

Turkey feather ash looks like a baseball bat. I saw one at the factory that looks even better than this image. The dark one is walnut. I went with curly maple for my new wide ST 166.

ECES name has not been retired, but the organization has been entrusted to Bomber.

Never heard of the ECSS. Are you organizing it?

For decades in the ski and alpine snowboarding industries, the quest was to reduce or eliminate the "dead spot" under the boot/binding - where the boot/binding prevents the ski/board from flexing. The Apex plate reached that holy grail by eliminating the dead spot altogether, and the results speak for themselves. I tried the Gecko only briefly, but as far as I can tell the Gecko expands the dead spot! What am I missing??

http://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/materialise-and-tailored-fits-create-digital-supply-chain-for-custom-fit-ski-boots-1002298390

It's very stiff and very straight. I have a 180 and I will only be using it for beer league racing. Linking toe-heel-toe-heel freecarves on it with no skidding has you going way too fast in no time, and you have to dig yourself out of each turn. It makes my Coiler NSR 185 feel like a freecarver. I'm not familiar with Squaw's groomers, but if you have a ton of trail width and you like to go very fast then it could be worth a try.

I remember seeing it in Transworld back in the day. Good times.

Ba ha ha! Sugarloaf/CVA's very own Mark Fawcett...

It is necessary to know exactly what your whole stance is so that you can duplicate it on other boards. This should be obvious? This is not rocket science with Bombers because everything is marked.

Yeah. Fin is an engineer. (Like, with a 4 year degree) He wouldn't tolerate an error like that.

I've never heard that. If it did it certainly wouldn't be "a few degrees". More like 0.5 at most. But I suspect 0.0.

I don't think so. I had to go from a 3 degree toe lift on the front foot to a 6 degree toe lift when I switched from Deeluxe to UPZ, because my front leg was burning out. Someone else measured and found that even with a 6 degree toe lift under the boot, the net combination still results in a forward slope.

UPZ boots cured my heel lift issues, YMMV.

Oh yeah. That crash was gnarly. Eeessh. At 40:06 in the youtube.

Forgive me if I'm wrong but you are relatively new to hardboot carving, yes? In that case I'd say forget about plates until you have mastered carving on at least steeper blue square trails. One step at a time.

Bomber offers a nice way to try Deeluxes in your living room risk free. 425s are narrower than 700s. I don't know if UPZ offers a similar trial program, but if not they'd be easy to sell as they are popular for racing. I switched from Deeluxe to UPZ this year and the UPZ are a better fit for me, although I upgraded them with Intuition liners and stiffer tongues.