Slow Eddie

Anybody ride here, once or often? The mountain is near Queensbury/Glens Falls, and the local shop is The Inside Edge (The Reliable Racing folks). My fiance's little bro is getting into riding this year, and while I have an E deck for mellow cruising and teaching, I'm wondering if it's worth it to bring a bigger stick along. Thanks, Eddie

It'll be playing at the Flynn in Burlington, and Sugarbush usually kicks in a free ticket to moviegoers, but it's only goods in the early season (like before Christmas week) - good excuse to pull out the rock board. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I've seen any carving coverage in a WM filck, so I have to revert to my tele persona and dream of powder and pins for the week after the movie shows.

Yellow FP, orange jacket, it was even taken at Sugarbush, my home hill. But it's all me, baby.

Congrats on the bike; I'm gald you took the time to get the fit right. Don't be afraid to reassess and fine-tune the fit, either; as you put on more miles, you might find that you need slight changes in your position to improve comfort and efficiency. I mentioned the shop I'm wrenching in this summer in another post about tri's in New England, but since the business is dedicated to bike fitting, be it road or tri, it's worth plugging again here. Fit Werx is a small shop in the Mad River Valley (Waitsfield, VT; think Sugarbush North) that specializes in bike fitting. Having worked in the bike industry for a number of years I felt I had a pretty good handle on how my bike fit, but after going through a fitting session at the shop (be prepared to spend half a day), the sutble adjustments to my position have definitely made an improvement in the comfort and efficiency of my riding. In the interests of full disclosure, let me say again that I am the mechanic at this shop during the summer months; but we do regularly get clients who come from throughout New England, and from cities with very reputable LBS's, because of the services that we offer. As a long-time alpiner, I can appreciate the effects seemingly miniscule changes in position can have on performance. I never thought that principle could carry over to cycling as well. Anyway, check us out! And tell Sarah and Ian that Eddie sent you. www.fitwerx.com

I'm spending this summer wrenching at a bike shop in the Mad River Valley. They do an awful lot of tri business and an e-mail or a phone call should get you all the info you need. Ask for Sarak or Ian; tell 'em Eddie sent ya. www.fitwerx.com

The Burton Fusion is another example of a now-discontinued BX deck

Fischer makes a bag called the "Economy Ski Bag" - basically a flat cordura envelope with a 3/4 zipper along one edge. Big enough (barely) to fit a 210. $30 at your local REI or X-C ski shop.

Wolfgang - thanks for the clarification. We're on the same page now. Jack - I see what you mean about measuring between where the uncambered deck touches the floor, but when the deck is weighted and tipped onto its edge, wouldn't the widest points of the board define the endpoints of the running length/chord length anyway? Eddie

I was, in fact, using the entire chord length for d, rather than one-half the chord length. But having made the corrections, now I'm getting an r value of 8.275 m - about half of what you got. Must be something else wrong on my end - the 16.5 m you got sounds about right for the feel of this board. Good thing I'm not an engineer. And in response to Jack's comments, perhaps I will try the paper-under-the-base method and redo my measurements. Thanks to both for the input. Eddie

Hi All, I was trying to figure out the sidecut radius of one of the boards I own. Here are what I thought to be the pertinent dimensions: Nose Width (defined as widest point forward of center) = 233 mm Waist Width (defined as narrowest point of board) = 188 mm Tail Width (defined as widest point aft of center) = 229 mm Distance between widest points of nose and tail, at edge = 1685 mm. Making the assumption that the radius is constant, and the taper from front to back is a product of "rotating" the sidecut towards the rear of the board, rather than using two different sidecuts, the average "wide" width of the board was considered to be 231 mm, yielding a difference in width of 43 mm ("sidecut depth", in Burton lingo). Those familiar with geometry can see where I am going with this one. The straight-line distance can be regarded as a chord of a circle with a radius of r. The sidecut depth can be regarded as the sagitta of said chord. According to the formula for determining the radius of a circle from these two pieces of information, which I found here... http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55037.html ...the radius of the circle that matches those dimesnsions is 33035 mm, or 33 meters! Now, even for a custom-built 185 cm board, isn't that a little excessive? Perhaps there is a problem with my math. Does the equation seem to be a valid method to derive the number I'm looking for? I triple-checked my measurements, so I hope there's no error there. Does anyone out there have a more reliable way of determining sidecut radius? Thanks, Eddie Plantilla