terekhov

the russian answer: :)

can suggest some of russian mountaineers trick on the way to nepal: just wear all of things on thyself ;) people boarding flights moscow-katmandy in all of down high altitude wear and ropes and plastic boots on them - and I mean world known athletes now, not youngster punks ;) so ticket price not depends on passenger weight, yeah? PS sorry, you really might not understand such a behaviour :)

as I wondered about this boot (sold on ebay.de some last week), it is from 01 or 02 season, dead end model, have been produced in very little quantity and terminated due to lack of interest. looks like last deeluxe' try to innovate in hardboot niche market. seems VERY pity to me, as I like an idea very much too - I like to go backcountry in hardboots.

be warned that original head liner in strati makes almost a half of overall boot stiffness. i've ride 3 month of last season in head stratos pro + intuition alpine liners (+ hard tongues), and boot had flex almost like sb324 - softer freeridier flex (i'm ~200lbs). so if you want your boot for racing or boilerplate carving - stay with original thermohurt head liners. for freeride/freecarve (as I like) application - go with any thermo - deeluxe or intuition.

it seems he'll gonna made 'em for japan market only

didn't you forget about breathing? often I found myself breathless for some time of challenging terrain, and resulting problem is like yours. my personal method to keep singing some song during the ride, sometime louder, sometime quiet, but insistently. it keeps my breathing and stamina OK.

i know about features of contour-fit head liners, but it is very tight (length-wise) out of the shell (my heads are 27.0), and head shells with my older thermoflexes (28.0) from raichle sb325 seems fine on my feet (without remold). so i think if i took thermoflexes off raichles and remold 'em into head stratos pro shells... can i meet any problem doing this? heel of the lower shell seems problematic because of deepening in it - possibility to torn off the liner some day... it seems that people here use head boots with original head liners only.

so, all you carvers use you head boots with original liners?

f2 eliminator ltd '02-'05 santa cruz tbx '01-'02 PS wide doneks is a whole another lower class and cannot be compared to these BXers.

I bought some used stratos (to test 'em over my sb325 on my wider foot), and think about replacing liners with some thermoflex'es? have someone use setups like that? what good/bad points in it? any hints? thank you!

it's OK if the plates is not bombers/cateks. my friend ride neversummer with plastic f2 binders for 2 years. BUT i broke donek wide 169 in the 3 days of driving it with catek olympics. though riding f2 eliminator ltd last season with f2 race titaniums without any problem. be careful not to overpower your NS

possibly good boot for non-agressive rider up to 70kg. not ANY deal for me, of 86kg - simply noodles, any softboot setup feels better.

possibly. i mean shell/lateral stiffness, not a stiffness that depend on springs. yes, indy has almost unneeded incredibly stiff spring. and furnace - too soft spring to my liking.

furnace is much stiffer boot than indy. have ridden both of them.

f2 eliminators has those distant powder inserts for years. hammer just borrow the idea.

broke donek wide 169 that way, on the 5th day of riding it at last season opening, on softest slope, using catek olympic's over it. seems that smaller catek disk over-levered the board, so front inserts went loose and delamination bubble started from the center of the binding... broke top lamar binding soft-carving 3 years ago - in the mid-carve. seen MUCH of broken hot boards broken by our racers (they all - blasts and fireballs - too picky for not clean landings).

yesterday, in action on the bumpy top of the hill:

considering new boots for this season, i have good deal on lemans boots, but cannot put hands on 'em. so please tell me a few words about their stiffnes, comparing to sb323 (very soft to my liking, i cannot ride this at all, including freeride) and sb325 (i ride sb325 race now, and doesn't like fit of af/indy/suzuka shell). can i take off with lemans, or i gonna to at least suzukas? aggressive style, 190lbs.

please note that Hot/Hammer's Grand Chavin factory closed two years ago by Rossignol, and now made at rossi' factories, shrinking their product line each year. PS didn't like the ride of hots, though.

Jeffrey, be aware that i broke my donek wide 169 on the fourth day of riding using catek olympic step-ins (i have no other bindings at hands that days) year ago (20-Nov-2003) - front inserts went loose. so Sean told me that - when not explicitly specified in warranty - this is not a warranty claim to break a board with metal platform plates. so I felt anxiety about catek freerides too now - there is too much leverage between catek's disk edge and board edge to my understanding of edging power to break. so first donek in siberian broken that way (hope to repair it in near days, actually, and ride it as a rockboard). PS speaking of wide boards and plates -- have ridden f2 eliminator ltd 167 with f2 race titaniums a lot last season (near 50 days) - what a miracle board! but f2 race has a metal base with bigger contact patch to board, and I think that if there was f2 races on donek that days - maybe all went fine.

i've put 29.0 intuition liners into my raichle sb325race 28.0 for this season (to fill some emptiness inside), hope i do well. as I know, Dave Morgan doing the same thing. but will go to 27.0 raichles sb shells when i find some. so i think you can try to put LARGER thermos inside. be especially careful placing hot inners in shells - my have tried to becoma crumpled lotta more compared to 28.0 thermos, so i have to remold them twice.

yep, 198. 165 contact length (measured by me) - total minus contact is low, as you can see. so - very low nose (that's fine in the powpow). rather soft (compared to donek wide 169) - i think this is the pure softcarver/powdownhill board, no hope to carve something not fresh or hard. but we have some to ride on it ;) puma (she-rider) is 175cm, me is 182cm. not so really tall, don't we? ;)

undertaker between proud owners (and www.carve.ru creators) at novosibirsk' airport, yesterday:

next proud owner will ride it in siberia :)

so sad... :( line was my lovely bx gal, since on santa cruz all-gold bx dream team. we always gonna extend the meaning of "ride in control" imperative :(