Steve Prokopiw

Garrett's a kickass carver!

What a great concept! I wish they had this in our area.

With her permission,here's my great friend and student,Max doing a great job cruising one of our favorite runs at Silver Mountain.I'm extra proud,considering what she went through after being seriously injured in a hit and run carving collision a couple of years ago.What I like most about this run,besides watching Max ride in the sunshine, is how the mellow intensity at the start is subtly ramped up throughout the run.Gettin' back on the horse:-) <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0YrU2k_n8yw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here are Mark and I riding two boards he built.We were both slackers this past Saturday,and didn't get on the hill before it turned to mush.The relatively stiff179 Mark is riding is hands down the best slush board I've ridden.The 188, more flexible and built for me,was a blast this weekend on Silver 'Slush' Saturday, but I would love to have tried it in firm snow.I think it's a gonna be a winner:-) <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GOOo2kI26Bs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Agreed with facebook though I do use it;I like the double life I lead by posting the minutae of hardbooting here on bomber,without doing it much on facebook.I use facebook to brag about my kids and my friends and act generally more positive than I am in real life.That said, I usually do post carve videos on fb too...

It was fantastic yesterday!

With at least four or five formerly injured,it will be like an INWES support group of alpine injured riders,hehe.I rode yesterday with Max,who had her own serious injury awhile back,and is riding better than ever.

Vimeo requires a 'pro' account for me to show off my good friend's boards(ie shamelss promotion) so I'll be sticking with youtube for a little while hehe.I deleted the last post to replace the video with the musical version.I encourage people to post their own gopro stuff in this thread if you so choose.Thanks for sharing,pokkis:-) <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ig-2G4sb7MU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

KickAss!

Wish I had gotten to the Fish this season,but it was hard to leave the snow we had.Hope I get to ride with your crew next year.

I had that kind of day on Sunday;riding with a great carving buddy and having my six year old absolutely ripping with us on his skis.However,for the last 25 years,one my favorite stock answers to "Is that fun?" has been, "It was either this or piano lessons." After a couple of seconds of perplexed looks I follow quickly with the information you so nicely provide.

Back in '88 during my one Michigan winter,I was driving a bunch of us in a Chevy van back to Zeeland from Crystal and hit a deer at 55mph on the dark and Narrow road.In a rare moment of quick thinking I kept the van ,with it's destroyed front end and leaking radiator rolling into a nearby driveway.We looked and looked for the deer but never found it.The very nice and helpful homeowner fed us while we waited for someone to come get us and said that the same scenario had occured several times that season.He seemed to be calm and used to it.

Bruce's time was smokin!The top ten open times aren't printed,but assuming it was on the same course as the open class,his time looks like he would have been well into the top ten.Cool! p.s. I've never met Steph but her achievement is most certainly worthy of congrats.Way to go!

It turns out I've bitten off a bit more than I could chew by thinking I could move all the Umustcarve videos to Vimeo very quickly.I am going to leave the youtube channel intact for awhile as I build the Vimeo channels(kids race team will have their own channel ets) for our different pursuits,as it looks like people are actually watching the existing youtube videos and it will take some time to re-edit new music etc.New videos will be uploaded to Vimeo however.Vimeo has a fantastic libray of undiscovered music,and as a music lover I am excited to use it.

I do enjoy watching much of the pole mount footage I have seen,especially for follow cam use.For filming myself however,the drawback of having to hold a pole in my hand, which influences my form,has driven my development of a mount for the board that helps isolate the camera from vibration and shock (as seen in some of my videos).With a knowledgable friend's help, I will be working in the coming weeks on a version that minimizes the weight of my design by using carbon fiber.The weight should be reduced by about 70% over the heaviest aluminum/steel version I have used in the videos currently in the 'warning,more gopro' thread,and allow for a return to the longer length I originally peaked at to put more of the board in the shot,and the whole rider even when filming in wide screen modes(r2,3&5 on the gopro).Hopefully this isn't considered too much of a threadjack,if so I will gladly remove my comments.

Maybe not in Noirs's plans,but for anyone else thinking of somewhere not quite metro but with all the ammenities,CDA has everything I've ever read as a desirable trait in these threads.Although I wouldn't call the lake pristine(more of a real estate ad line than fact),it is pretty and there are many other lakes in the area as well.Schweitzer is on a par with any small to midsize Colorado resort(except for the fog,the best in the NW when sunny),and the smaller areas are generally conveniently located,especially my redneck home mountain,Silver Mountain Resort.The job market in Spokane/CDA is reasonably vibrant depending on skillset and real estate is extremely reasonable.If I had it to do over I would probably have moved there instead of the Silver Valley,except for the fact that our backyard has one the world's best paved bike paths running through it(72 mile Trail Of The Coeur d'Alenes) and our little town of Osburn has a 'Rockwellian' feel and atmosphere that have made it worth the stupidly slow internet speeds and the commute to CDA.

As stated in the NICE Chronicles thread,I am moving all the Umustcarve videos to Vimeo as I am over all the bs with youtube/google.I'm not sure ,but it seems the solution will be to delete this and the NICE threads and start over.Hopefully a good thing all around:-)

Link to board pics :-) http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2974751134180.2125178.1423870752&type=1

The tune in the video is by DJ Morphiziz and is called,appropriately enough,'Brr'. Mark is indeed ramping up to produce boards for the public.The 175cm(20.3 waist) carbon fiber X7 I tested which is a bit of a working prototype that I have really enjoyed riding,has a very solid build.I was scared to ride it at first as it is very stiff,but had to eat my words.It is very snappy but it's shape rides more forgivingly than my second hand 182 Coiler(one of my favorite all time boards).He can, of course vary the flex per rider requirements.I can't post the high res photos I took of it directly so I wll link to them as soon as I upload them. Mark does have a website thirstsnowboards.com,but does not yet have pics of his soon to come production boards.Personally I hope he succeeds as I like his enthusiasm and unique approach to certain design aspects.His success in his 'real' job as owner/op of a successful automotive shop suggests that he will.The board I have been testing seems to reflect that.I will be giving him feed back on his new 8X in a week or so.Based on my experience with the X7 I'm excited to ride the X8.

In this vid Mark Miller and I are testing out each other's designs.I had a blast in spring crud on the X7,and Mark got to check himself out from a view he had never seen before.A very well made,energetic, carbon board showing that the Thirst brand has real potential.Pics of the board to follow in the next post. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/6O0pUtYX3iQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Fun video.Some nice moves by the riders!

The boys have Silver Cup Sat and Sun.Since I won't be there,it will probably be the nicest ,sunny, no fog day ever at Schweitzer :-(

Great follow cam stuff.Didn't have time to watch the whole thing at once(my thinly veiled critique),but I will watch it all after riding today.I'll be following the kids' race team today with new inspiration to gain proficiency with the follow cam.

I hope you didn't take what I wrote as an implication that you had any complicity in the terrible incident you were involved in.The hit and run and the pain it caused you is something no one should have to suffer for enjoying their hobby.The toughness with which you handled it was inspirational and Bryan is right about the community. My apologies to the op for making invalid points and drawing the thread away from it's original point.My intent was not to make excuses but came out as such anyway.The videos for NICE do show some clips photos that illustrate some of the risk carvers take while in groups,however fun loving it may seem at the time.For my part, I did my best not to follow too closely with the follow cam.Not the greatest footage but no injuries either.This thread does make me think twice about who I will take closeup video or photos of,considering the risks of property damage and physical injury taken by both of us.

Some great shots!