Neil Gendzwill

Hope the orthopedic surgeon has an opening in his schedule?

Bordy, are you saying you never pull inserts or compress the core with the 3 hole pattern? Is that because something else breaks first, or is the 3 hole pattern somehow better (I find this hard to believe)?

Glad to hear your recovery is coming along well. Those who can't do, teach - literally in this case I guess.

John, are you going to be able to ride this year?

Lessee - I pulled the inserts out of a Burton Elite several times, but any strong 2 year old could probably do that... Bent some skis in the bumps once - but they were GS racing skis with metal, that was pretty much abuse. Broke one of the Intec heels on my Raichles last year - my fault, hadn't checked the screws for tightness. Other than that, no problems.

Calves are notorious for being really restricted by genetics - if you have naturally skinny calves it's hard to grow them a lot. Some bodybuilder types even get implants.

One thing I just don't understand about the surfboard industry - if you find a good shape for a particular application, why can't you automate it so you can crank out a bunch of identical boards? Is the shaping too complicated for machinery?

I really wanted to go but... bucks was one issue, packing up the family for a two day drive so close to Christmas was the other.

If you rent the "Step Into Liquid" dvd there's a short segment that shows some of what goes into making surfboards. Those guys did the main cutting using templates, then refined the edges by hand (well with help from power tools), laid up the glass and finished all by hand. Not sure if the hyooge outfits like Rusty do it that way though...

The hi-res photos don't have to be the only ones - the medium-res ones they have are good, just let us click through to some really good photos of the boards.

No worries for me, shipping within Canada. Can't wait!

First car - '73 AMC Javelin. Green with white stripes. Always regret selling that sucker.

I dunno, I find all the little windows with scroll bars a bit annoying. It would be nice to be able to click on those and get a seperate window with all the text nicely readable. I always prefer nice, big, high-resolution pictures to be available. All the topsheet stuff is too small to get a really good feel for how it looks. Also, I don't like the legend for all the spec charts - there's room to put proper titles for the columns, or at least abbreviations that make sense (Len or L rather than 2, for example).

Corey, what's involved in brokering the packages yourself? Is it even possible if you don't live at the port of entry?

You could go with a less stiff step-in, one of the F2 models perhaps.

So I found some SI soft boots for cheap at the local ski swap for my daughter. I'd like to find some SI bindings to go with them to fit a ladies size 8 (I believe that would be the small or medium sizes). If anyone has a pair for reasonable, let me know.

Hey, nice picture of Olson on an old Race Room in that article - I've got that board, it was the first one I used plates on!

He says he wants his lateral flex to come from his bindings, not his boots. Step-ins don't flex as much laterally as conventional bindings.

Read Ski Canada.

It seems like the digitial P&S take waaaay more time on the autofocus than the analog ones do, can anyone explain why that is? Anyways, Dsub, as others have said you push the trigger halfway down and get the focussing done first, then you tell everyone "smile", then press the trigger. It's pretty quick then. A have a Canon A75, which is a 3.2 MP camera. That's plenty of resolution for my purposes. It's inexpensive, and has more features than most in its price range including manual override of damn near everything. You can shoot aperture priority, shutter priority (up to 1/2000), manual them both if you like, or select from over a dozen automatic modes. You can switch the focusing mechanism to focus on the centre, then manually keep that focus for the next shot/shots, which is what you want for action. You can select the ISO number to digitally "push" the picture. There's more features, can't recall them all off the top of my head. Video, of course - 640X480 with sound for 30 seconds, lower resolutions for about 3 minutes. Both of the review sites mentioned give it high marks (look for either the A70 or A75 review - basically same camera, coupla more features on the 75).

Nice post, Alpinegirl! However I think the vast majority of the time when people have the problems the OP mentioned, theyre riding straight-legged on the heelside turn.

I have a pair of the original Damian model (a pink Valugga light with a gaitor tacked on). I cut off the gaitors and rode them for a number of years. They have two main problems. First, they are fairly soft in flex until they stop dead and flex no more. My Raichle 224s just keep flexing progressively stiffer - way better. Second, they have a regular shoe-type tongue in the liner that twists sideways, which then exposes your shin directly to the shell. I fixed that by gluing/sewing some velcro in there to keep the tongue where it should be. I like my Raichles much better. If you want AT type boots for splitboards or general hiking ability and whatnot, I think there are some better models out there. If memory serves, Couloir magazine has a website with a forum for splitboards that should have some good information.

The motto is - don't use fedex or ups ground for cross-border shipping. Use USPS/Canada Post. The brokerage fee is about $5 (as opposed to 40 for UPS).

Another huge factor is if you're at a resort with lots of flats - yank the cable and you're skating, step back in on the fly without losing any momentum. I'll never go back to toe levers.

I like this one, for some reason.