Neil Gendzwill

Just curious - are the Nidecker 900s and Catek Freerides pretty much alone at the top of the heap for stiff softboot setups? Any other comparable ones?

Not sure how they're doing that with their knees almost locked. They might be in big trouble if there was ever any variation in the snow...

The ski website isn't up yet, I notice. They sure look sweet.

It's a little hard to explain - it involves driving your knees into the transition, using weighting and unweighting, and timing these things correctly. Think of pumping a swing, although it's more complex than that. It's something you have to practice to get the feel of.

Pumping is working the transitions of the jumps (either down or up) to generate more speed. If you've ever skateboarded ramps or pools, you use pump to gain height on the walls. Pumping an upward transition will result in more air, I think. Pre-jumping is used to avoid getting thrown in the air by a jump you don't want to take.

Yes, a Better Off Dead reference. Funny, funny movie. With skiing!

[frawnch accent]Go that way, very fast. When something gets in your way, turn.[/frawnch accent]

Well, ask and you shall receive - Coiler updated their website with a brief production note, although the rest is unchanged. As of Sep 7, they've begun the 2004/5 run. They're booked into February right now.

Yeah. Keith's first questions when I asked him for help were "what are your goals? what are you training for?". He's not interested in the slightest in hypertrophy. He's not even all that interested in absolute strength, unless it applies to the sport. The stuff I do is what he considers specific to the various sports I'm interested in. But because there's a lot of strength involved (judo, carving) the reps are geared towards strength (3 rep sets, wave progression).

Great story. Unfortunately reminded me of an acquaintance of mine who died after taking a duck to the face at 80 mph. Not a lot of m, but a whole lot of V-squared.

Yes, I would. Because I'd be wanting something to race next summer and I'd be needing to know whether it was going to get done or whether I'd have to go elsewhere. Given the situation there or with Madd, I wouldn't get mad if there was going to be a delay. I'd even understand if it wasn't going to get done at all - these guys don't do this for a living. But I'd just like to know about it so that I could make alternate plans.

If you look at this thread you'll see that Bobby Buggs has a RaceCarve and bschurman has an AM with the tribal thing I'm talking about. As Bruce has done two, I'm hoping he might make it available as a stock sheet? That thread also has nice pics of the blue and orange flames sheets, better than on the website.

Was just wondering if he was adding any more stock topsheets. Someone last year had a sort of black and red tribal tatoo dealie on an AM 177 that looked pretty cool and the sort of thing that might have mass appeal. 'spose I could just email him.

That seals it - I was tossing around the idea of a custom topsheet for my Coiler, but I'll stick with one of the stock ones. Hopefully that will increase the likelihood of me being on snow with it this year. Anyone know if Coiler intends on updating their website this year? They've been on vacation since May, apparently.

Not sure I'd agree on weights being last... Kent is coming from the position of being a pretty serious endurance athlete. The development they're looking for is pretty much the opposite of what you use weights to train for. OTOH the sort of explosive strength that weights can develop is very useful for snowboarding. But when I think of weights, I don't think of bicep curls and that kind of crap. I think of compound exercises that build overall strength and coordination. Full-depth squats, squats to press, dumbbell snatches, turkish getups - these all build lower body and core strength like crazy. Situps and crunches don't do much in comparison. For muscular endurance, look into hindu squats and pushups (basically fast bodyweight squats with heels up and dive-bomber pushups).

There's no reasonable explanation. There's no excuse. They've got a mailing list. An email takes about 30 seconds to send. Nobody is so busy that they can't take 30 seconds to send an email. It's not like they have to respond to everybody individually, even though that wouldn't exactly be a Herculean task, either.

If you're going to stretch, that's the way to do it. The thing about running and most aerobic activities is there isn't a lot of sudden movement which risks injury - the best way to warm up for the activity is to start into it at an easy pace and speed up as you warm up. Weight lifting OTOH (and my other sports, kendo and judo) have opportunities for injury. With those, it's definitely do something aerobic to break a light sweat, then stretch out. My advice comes from a friend who's a fairly serious triathlete. He says about 90% of running injuries are caused by overstretching. I'd say that's stretching the point a little as many runners get non-stretching related injuries. Still... the only injuries I get from running have been soreness in the knees, and that's just an overreaching thing - my 43 year old knees need time to adapt to increased distances. Other runners do run lightly for a few minutes, then stretch, then continue. I don't think it's necessary. The post-activity stretch is what I need for running - if I don't, I can get some cramping, especially in my calves. Running tends to tighten up hams and calves. I've got good advice there - Keith Hobman, misc.fitness.weights resident guru, lives in my city and has helped me with my program and general approach.

There's a lot of people who would disagree with you on that. The standard static stretching that many people do before a run can actually increase chances of injury - the stretching causes small tears in the muscle, the running compounds the damage... It's not all cut and dried yet but there's mounting evidence that the only stretching you should be doing is after your run (or whatever). Now for strength training, I just don't feel right about launching right into it so I run for a couple of minutes to warm up and then do some dynamic ROM stretches.

Weight would definitely be a problem. Venting is another. I also speculate that the plastics used in bike helmets might not be tested to temperatures much below freezing.

I had that one. My most vivid memory of that bike was slipping a pedal while pedaling standing up... that shifter is just in the wrong place! I managed to father children, somehow, but it never shifted the same after that.

Gawd. I live in Saskatoon which is probably 2000 km closer but the fares are double. Anyways, we are tentatively planning to attend but as there's four of us and the airfares are ridiculous we'll probably drive. 2 days in the car with kids, whoo-hoo! Hoping to swing a deal with a time-share condo-owning friend who's got a week to get rid of. Did that for a vacation to Orlando and it worked great. Anyways, if it all works out I'm looking forward to meeting some of you all, and learning lots - I never get a chance to ride with other hardbooters.

Have you looked through Prior's sale stuff? I found one here.

From what I've heard, your Never Summer is an excellent board to learn softie carving on. Just make sure you've got enough angle on your bindings so the boots aren't hanging off the ends and have at it! Jack's article should help you out.

Yeah, I suppose if I had a purely carving setup I'd be forced to devote a chunk of the day to just groomers and then switch to a more forgiving setup to hit the bumps and steeps I love. I use an all-mountain board though, and then I can go where I like. It carves well enough, especially in the soft conditions we usually have in Alberta and the BC interior.

Carving is just something that happens if I find myself on a groomer. I can't see myself lapping groomers all day. That must be a phenomenon of the East.