Vahur

I love feeling when after 4 year carving break I buy new board, book trip to mountains and after first run realize that not only I can't carve but even sideslipping makes problems. I love chattering sound when heelside turn fails. And I lose edge. And fall on my back. Under lift line. With cheers above. I love when I can complete couple of nice turns and getting grip of it and then see flock of skiers bombing after me so I have to slam brakes and sideslip until they have passed, thus losing feel and rhytm. I love when I am getting nice run and then after turn I see group of students. Following each other. Across slope. Twice across. I love all this right now. NOT!

Nature pic from last day of summer: nature is still green, but there is yellow visible, meaning that winter is coming :)

Good point. Digged in archives and found similar discussion about 2.5 years ago in EC forum: http://www.extremecarving.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5564 So this style gets frowned upon in EC circles as well, not only in bomber forums :D

My maximum speed was 5 somersaults in 2 seconds :D

Not very good angle in this picture. This is bending at the waist: This is not bending at the waist: Have you seen Rejman's film or Patrice/Jaques riding videos? I guess not, otherwise you wouldn't have asked this question, Patrice and Jacques (and other good carvers with push-pull technique) keep their upper body quite erect, it's strong leg bending during entering into turn, which could make such impression.

OK, it was wild shot from me anyway, as I don't know spex. I had front leg tiredness problem on heelside turns (or keeping heelside edge on flat sections) when my binding angles were unnecessary high. Lowering them as much as possible helped but this doesn't seem to be the case here. But another thought if you try both boards on carpet: does the stance feel same? And is front binding centered (i.e. same distance from edges on heelside and toeside)? If heelside (or toeside) turn feels more tiresome on front leg then adjusting binding position might help?

What are central widths of the boards? It seems that Coiler Freecarve is quite narrow by today's standards (<19 cm) but I guess that VSR is much wider (21 cm? more?) If this is the case then I see no point in using same binding angles as it requires more effort to put board on edge and could be reason for leg burning. Set rear binding so that there is no overhang from binding and boot and set front binding angle some degrees more (I use +3 degrees).

Actually it turns only counterclockwise: Swoard is made in Switzerland and in there everything which turns clockwise goes into clocks.

Read recent thread about injury due to touching snow and remembered couple of images which I recently edited, hope you like them as much as I did:

In 2008 I visited Vancouver and Whistler and bought also olympic souvenir, olympic sign can be seen on top of label :)

Beautiful and well-edited video! Though if I'd go to heli/powder trip, then I'd probably go to place like Uzbekistan: thanks to continental climate powder is really fluffy and you get miles of free run (no need to dodge trees :D). Here is small vid from estonians trip in 2008:

Found in dpreview forum: http://www.rodlaird.com/Aspen.html Nice and high-resolution view of Aspen mountains, mainly Highland.

Weatherproof and sports means D300, which is sealed and has best AF-system from mentioned cameras. Quite good in low light (though D90 is tad better) as well, though you have to take care with settings and exposure otherwise noise could be visible even in ISO 200. I'm not sure that battery grip is needed with D300: it's 6fps without and 8fps with it (but then it needs another type of battery and charger), and adds considerable size and weight. Of course shooting with large lenses is little bit easier as well as in portrait orientation but still... I used D300 ca. 15 months and never missed battery grip (power kit set with grip + battery + charger cost here ca. 700 USD 8( , so this was also one reason not to buy it) .

For couch potato like me photographing is good excuse: "No, I'm not tired, my legs are OK and not burning after 2 runs. I just want to make couple (thousand) pictures!" :D But actually I wanted to commented last picture: damn, what a nice backyard view! I wish that I had such backyard!

Not odd, just normal. Erm, regular Seems like you are representative of minority here, as you noticed such discrimination, I didn't give this any thought before. But I promise that this discrimination will be eliminated next year and goofy riders representation will be at least 50%.

First week of March meant that traditional Oppdal Carving Camp (OCC) was held. This year in cojunction with Swedish HBU (HardBooters Unite) event. So in total 20+ carvers from Finland, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany and Estonia were meeting in this carving paradise during informal event. Highlights of this event were following: Great number of happy people: Free waffles and coffee from lift company as recognition to our skills. Takk! Destroying corduroy: Riding on 30 degree slope: Skilled riders using downhill edge effectively: Lonely rider: Skwalling: 2 super-Swedes: Driving F2 from backseat: Rest of images here: http://carving.grewu.org/ojankaivajat/2009/oppdal/index.htm

IMO The downhill edge pic is this: :D

Thanks to all who enjoyed my photos. But what I would have been without all those excellent riders?? For real heroes of ECS "Russian connection" team check this out: BTW, keep in mind that average drop in slopes on this video is 30 degrees!

I'm sure that none will complain if you continue to ride this way during ECS. :D Not that there is something wrong with SES in Aspen, I myself am thinking about hitting those slopes once again sometimes in future... Looks nice to me, but what do I know about technique :rolleyes: For race style heelside turn suggestions maybe this thread is of help: Backside turn.... As per last comment by philfell you should rise your leading hand to avoid hitting snow with it.

Crowds? Just love them...to be somewhere else than me: :p

I had D70 and while it was quite decent camera for its time I'd not buy this camera anymore as it's outdated for now. Some of issues: * limited dynamic range compared to modern cameras. This means that in contrasty situations (e.g. taking riding pictures of someone with dark clothing on well-lit high-altitude slopes) there is risk of overexposure on light areas and dark areas do not contains enough details. For sure, such situation is hard to handle for any camera but newer cameras are better in this regard. * Combined shutter: this means that minimum speed of mechanical shutter is 1/200 seconds (IIRC) and shorter shutter speeds are handled with electronic shutter. This is good if you want to use flash as main light source (you get sync speed 1/500) but if you shoot against the sun or other light source with fast shutter speeds then you get severe overexposure not only on lightsource but also in nearby areas due to sensor "overflow". * Automatic white balance is not good. This is especially visible for snow scenes (e.g. for riding pictures) where different colors of snow are very well distinguishable. Despite of these shortcomings it's still very good camera and produces better images than any of compact cameras, not to mention operation speed. My camera line goes D70>D200>D300>D700 and most noticeable quality change seems to be from D70 to D200, next changes are less noticeable except for low-light/high-ISO where D300 is quite decent and D700 really shines. If budget is limited, then I'd suggest D70 or D80 and good lens(es), but if there is more money to spend, then D90 or second-hand D200 or D300 is better choice (here second-hand D300 goes for almost same price as new D90, D200 is much cheaper). For lenses any kit will do for a start. For action shots (snowboarding) telelens I'd suggest AF-S 70-300 VR which has quite decent optics. Or 55-200 VR lens, which is also quite sharp and price-performance is good. Can't speak for cameras from other companies as I have no experience with them...

"EC carving" sounds like echo ;) Voted "no" though I ride Swoard since 2004 and hope that one day I can drag my arms as nicely as Jacques and Patrice... But for me the ultimate goal is to have fun. Swiss carving technique ( prerotation and push-pull) is visually appealing and quite effective, so I learn it. Extreme carving is development of it but it's not applicable in every condition. However when conditions are right then it's blast to drag your body and see heads turning. Modern racing technique is another thing which I hope to master and use for the sake of fun and alternation. If you get this feeling from Carver's Almanac Extremecarving topic last paragraph then I think that you read this last paragraph too seriously :P

Seems like there is no more sales than initial (7 books). But despite of this (or maybe because I don't want to admit that my photo book sucks :D ) I'll probably make another book this spring. Or maybe two books. :rolleyes:

Reading 10 pages of discussion is quite a lot, so I suggest to read first post: it should be sufficient to get understanding about challenge :)

Argh, please don't post into this thread anymore so it can go into oblivion! After seeing this photo I can't eat soup anymore: each time when I see soup this picture comes into my mind and I can't raise spoon