Neil Gendzwill

Search for “tie down strap”. You can find them at any good hardware store. Home Depot has a variety. They come with either the friction fit buckle shown in the photo or a ratchet version which would be overkill.

My knees should be more bent, I am a poor example in that regard. As far as committing early from a traverse, you don’t need so much speed but you do need commitment. Especially going from toeside to heelside, you have to be willing to huck it blind and that takes some faith in your edge. ETA: look at this video, especially around the 5:33 mark where Corey talks about early pressure and carving the downhill edge. Watch him demo, he’s not going fast and he’s on an easy blue. (Aside: was this really 10 years ago? Yikes!)

Did you take a noboard on the heli?

Not that I’m the greatest at getting low but from the video it looks like you are too casual getting on edge. You need to get on edge more aggressively way earlier in the turn than you think you can. The other tip I found useful is to actively drive the back kneecap into the snow on toeside and the side of the front knee into the snow on heelside. From the stills, on the toeside to me your shoulders are too open and you are artificially reaching for the snow. You need more angulation. Try the drill of reaching for your front boot cuff with your front hand. This will line up your shoulders better and force you to bend your knees and angulate more. Let the snow come to you, don’t reach for it.

It’s impossible to size down the stepon without dropping boot size as well. You get the size they recommend otherwise it won’t work.

Website must have detected location and converted for me. Still a lot of green for a snowboard.

Yeah, and I got that price wrong, it was in USD so tack on another 30% for those of us in North Canuckistan. ETA: apparently I was right the first time. Still, $CDN2473 is a lot for a snowboard.

I’ll save you some time: if you have wide feet, like EEE kind of wide, then hard boots will require some work to make comfortable so a demo won’t help you much. You’ll likely need to punch out the shell, get some footbeds and heat mold the liners.

US$1800/$CDN2473. I’m out.

What does the asterisk mean?

I wouldn't say people shit on them but they have been criticized for being too stiff in the past. They're not too popular with racers partly for that reason. I think some of that is racers sticking with what they know. Mostly people here love them but I note we are in the racing forum so...

I find toesides way easier in softies even though toe and heel are about the same for me on hard boots. However if you look at the video closely it looks like they have biased the bindings towards toeside turns, he's going to boot out on heelside if he tries it.

Didn't try a heelside I note...

I still don’t understand what the OP wants this board for. He’s posed some questions about what the hardboot community in general wants out of a softboot board but that doesn’t matter. What do you want to do with this board? Personally I think there’s a lot of overthinking on gear here. When I went shopping I looked for boards that were recommended for what I want to do (all mountain freeride), picked one and reckoned if others liked it I could also make it work. There’s probably 10 other boards that would have worked just as well. Whatever you pick, you will have to adjust to and make work.

Knapton hangs out at Breck, you can go make some turns with him. Not on hardboots but he does carve...

Is that the dude with the dark beard? So many pics of him killing it!

I met him at Sun Peaks in 2010, they were there prepping for the Vancouver Olympics. He was running some modified version of the old Burton Physics step ins with super high lifts. Conditions were soft and that Austrian team was leaving serious trenches.

I have a 2020 Flagship and I like it quite a lot. But I didn't buy it to be a carving board, if I want to carve I will get out my hardboot gear. Having said that, if I'm on the groom it does fine although it is pretty soft and the sidecut is short by our standards (9.3m or something like that). Take my advice with a huge grain of salt as I don't have any other soft boot boards to compare it to. It is my first softie setup in 3 decades.

Thanks for all the great shots, carvedog. Looks like everyone is ripping in great conditions!

Yes, just straight geometry. Unless you have teeny feet and run steep angles, 23 cm is too narrow for soft boots. The conventional width of 25 cm is doable if you intend to run steep angles, like near the limits soft boots support. Right now I am on a mid-wide (26.3 cm) running a pretty standard forward stance (12/27) with size 10 boots. I think I would boot out if I could lay it over as hard as I can in hard boots. It is OK for now as I did not get this setup for dedicated carving.

The roller skating had to have been Riceball's idea.

Description says waist width up to “23 cm+”, whatever that means. If he can’t make at least 27 cm then I wouldn’t consider it for soft boot carving.

I’ve been there twice, not much snow either time. From yours and other reports I think it’s the norm.

Oh, that sucks! They're still demanding a recent test or something?

Mark's shop Tribute has a bunch of good videos up on youtube including board reviews. He has a signature model with Kindred but rides and praises all kinds of other stuff.