Wolf

Ohio lags behind the east in both latitude and altitude, but they did make a lot of snow when they could. At least the fog hides how small the hill is.

icebiker - If you need more pocket space to store Cat Trax or Yaktrax, I use a small pouch strapped to the front of my front foot boot. I can keep wet things or things I don't want to risk falling on in there (stubby screwdriver, multi-tool, Cat trax, etc.). And the little bit of extra bulk down low by the boot isn't really noticeable.

I'm enjoying a new-to-me Donek Metal FC 163 with 7.5-9.5 meter side cut (bought it here in March from Snowburn). It lets me maximize my turns on a small hill and it's really easy to ride for an old guy. Speed is not a priority here.

In case you didn't check, Bomber shows them in stock. bomberonline.com

Barry's red tape is prettier than my gray stuff, but I'm claiming to have a better "boot maintenance fixture". That's my waxing and spray painting cardboard underneath.

Here are a couple of pictures of the duct tape method. The boots have last years tape and I think that tape has two days on it. That's at least 100 lift rides and several walks to and from the car. That tape is in rough shape and due to be replaced. The binding has old tape on the toe block. It's been used for a day. It fails when the hollow above the mounting screws eventually punches through. The tape on the heel is new. This isn't pretty, but it's helped me a lot.

No powder here but I get buildup when the temperature rises from below freezing up thru freezing. My buddy and I keep little ice scrapers in out jackets for those days. I found that regular gray duct tape stuck to the toe pads and the top of the red "ice breaker" on the Bomber step-in receiver on the bindings, and the heal and toe pads on my boots stops a lot of the ice build up. The tape doesn't last forever, but it will usually last all day and we take a lift ride every four minutes here.

I'm the buyer of the one set of BTS, plus some free parts offered in another listing. Jim was rally great to deal with and the things I got look great. Thanks Jim!

I noticed that your ebay add says "Bomber is no longer in business". But it did come back to life after being shut down for a while. TD3's are currently out of stock but he does have lots of parts. You might actually get a higher final bid if people know they can still get parts. https://www.bomberonline.com/

Ohio has always been in a marginal latitude for snow sports and it does seem to be getting worse. Our little ski areas struggle to open for the lucrative Christmas vacation week and the number of good snowmaking days in January and February also seem to be declining. The little place I go to added a cooling tower for their well water to air-cool the water before being pumped up the hill. They say it improves the snowmaking yield, especially when it's barely cold enough to make snow.

My little place in Ohio went up to $340 for a pass this year with the best club discount code applied. So, that's what I got. All the other Ohio ski areas are part of Epic pass, so last year some people who also travel to bigger resorts bought an Epic pass figuring they'd use it all season in Ohio and be set for their big trips too. But those other Ohio ski areas all had massive staffing issues and chose not to open many weekdays. There were a lot of Ohio folks who were really angry because that's when they had planned to use those Epic passes.

rsb is a local buddy of mine. He's a good guy.

This is not as impressive as everyone else's trips, but we occupied the space vacated by Jack by spending a couple of months in mid-coast Maine. Lot's of kayaking and hiking, and it was sure a lot cooler here than Ohio. Here's a picture taken today.

I'm convinced that it's true, as is this news item linked at the bottom of the article. I wonder where they sell those two-story Cadillac Escalade limos? Single-Day Lift Ticket on Vail Mountain Hits $1,566

I'm not looking for any praise for this, but just for fun I donated a whopping $5.98 so that I could say I put the donation total "above" $2000. Now, if anyone wants to put the total above $3000, that would really be praise-worthy!

I have a pair as well, shipping from Ohio. I'll message you.

As Mr.E said, good boots are a must. UPZ and Deeluxe are the brands you'd most likely find used. Others will disagree, but I think Raichles are fine too (Raichle became Deeluxe and the molds are still the same). That's what I use, but you do take the risk that older plastic might get brittle and be prone to breakage. F2 bindings available from donek.com, and Bomber TD3 bindings from bomberonline.com are good choices. At 200 lbs, I think a free carve (not race) board around 170 cm is a good all around carver. The newer ones have fairly small sidecut radii so they can make small radius turns, but the length gives you some stability for wider turns too. The Donek FC (free carve) Metal and the Coiler Nirvana would both be good choices to look for used. With your largish feet, I'd suggest around 20cm width. FWIW, my favorite goto board on short runs in Ohio is my Donek FC 167, 18.5cm wide with size 26 boots.

New alpine snowboard equipment is pricy, like $1500-$2000 or so for a titanal construction board, boots and bindings. Are you looking for new or used? Also, do you want a board suited for fairly tight turns, suitable for smaller, crowded hills, or do you have the room for big turns?

My Stratos are probably not ideal, so if anyone else has some less stiff head or Blax boots, BlueB would probably appreciate hearing from you.

Are Stratos and Stratos Pro the same thing? I have set of 26 Stratos, 4-buckle, translucent brown shells with orange tongues.

Sorry, no photos. It cracked and then broke near the mounting point of one of the straps. It was an older boot. The plastic felt flexible but it had probably still gotten brittle with age.

It's worth checking your boots too. I discovered a cracked cuff that was causing that "something doesn't feel quite right" feeling.

Most of the Speeds were narrow like the Factory primes, but that's the wide one. My friend had one of those and liked it. It was easy to make tight turns compared with other boards of similar length and that vintage. He actually kind of regretted selling it. I don't think it's too much board for your friend. But he's heavy and I'd wonder more whether it's stiff enough - i.e., maybe it's too little board versus too much board.

In case anyone asks, those are long plates that should be good up around Mondo 31 boots. The plate is longer than the short model (duh!), but also thicker making it a little stiffer than the short model.

That's what I do and it works well for me. I've read opinions that the difference in stiffness between standard and step-in will affect your riding. But perhaps starting right off with hybrid bindings means my riding style has adjusted automatically, i.e., at my skill level I can't detect any drawback to the hybrid setup. I took around 150 lift rides on my short hill during the past two days, and yes, step-ins are really nice. That's 300 times my old body didn't have to bend down so far!