avante

Some skwal riding footage from the previous season in the Video subforum

I have hyper-flexed my rear ankle in riding mode while tomahawking down the mountain. I do believe that it would have been a season-ender for me in waliking mode. BTW, I ride UPZ RC10 with stock black tongues. I have been riding yellow Head Stratos Pro in walking mode for a couple of seasons though and it always felt fine. Just my 2 cents.

Kirkwood: icy in the morning (not typical Californian "icy" buy really icy), grooming sucks with lots of bumps and pits. In 40-60 minutes it starts to soften up and by noon it is slushy everywhere. By the way, the backside is closed for the season. I will be in Kirkwood this weekend riding my skwal for the first two hours in the morning, then maybe switching to ski boards.

Say hi to the guy next time you see him :)

Nice meeting you too! I hope next time I will be in better shape to ride some good lines. The rest of my day was great indeed, I went straight to my car to take a nap while waiting for my friend to finish her riding for the day :) I cannot tell anything about Homewood - I have never been there, but if you don't like it get to Kirkwood on Sunday, there might be 1-3 carvers there (including myself).

Nop, it is a friend of mine :) Anyway, I ride in black jacket, high-viz green pants and on a skwal - hard to stay unnoticed :) See you there.

I know the guy, he is not barryj for sure :) BTW, I'll be in Kirkwood this weekend and at least one or two more carvers will be there (mennanov, Ladia). We usually start the day on char 5 or 6 depending on conditions.

+1 on stance width and possibility of customizations

For my 220 lbs it is way too soft with little to no grip on anything firmer then the next-day-after-the-snowfall Sierra snow. Easy Jungle is a soft and very short radius skwal originally targeted for beginners or extremely light riders.

Most of modern skwals have 11.4-11.5 cm waist, not much narrower than 12 ;) What angles do you set bindings to?

Well, I have explored the dark side of skwaling on my softish rockered twin-tip Lagriffe RS 176. Grabbed poles and went shredding some pow in Kirkwood. Actually it turned out to be a great way of enjoying the Mother Nature despite of the unplanned front-flip with more than embarrassing hard landing and several other ugly wipeouts trying to set poles aside and ride without them. Still had no chance to try my new skwal, it is snowing all the time (hey, I am not complaining, just saying :) ).

Hi Ladia! Did you manage to do a shell test? How many fingers can you fit? If you are in the sweet spot, the next step would be to check your original liner size. What size is it (liner size is in GB scale written in white on the liner itself)? Let me know the liner size and I'll tell you if it is possible to fit a longer UPZ liner in this shell. You can also take the liner off the shell, put it on and stand for 5-10 minutes on a flat surface. If your toes go numb or in pain you probably need to size up the liner. Remember I told you that previously I had size 10 liners in my RC10 and at first they were a bit too tight and my heel went numb after several runs, but after 2-3 days everything became normal and now I have size 11 which is maximum possible liner size that still fits my shell size - and according to Den's size chart that is my "true" size - they are pretty comfortable since day one, but my heels are going up easily even with "heel teeth" installed.

Swiss made Mpride Imaginaerum 183

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

Thanks! In my case it will be Swiss post I guess, so it should be handled by USPS on our side.

MPride skwal

Ok, I have found tariffs, but still don't know the procedure

Thinking about buying some new toys for the season I am curious whether I may need to pay an import tax on them. The price is about $850 + shipping. If I have to pay tax on that what might the rate be? And how it all happens? Do I get an additional bill or I have to do lots of paperwork with customs on my own? Thanks.

Toe height may not allow your boots to interface properly with ski bindings, it actually depends on bindings. If ski bindings allow height adjustment in the front, you should be able to make it work. Other than that, you would have to lock the rear binding manually as BlueB said.

And we have two more skwal riders :) Both Thias and Volkl skwals are sold. Best of luck to the new owners!

I am considering selling some of my gear: Thias Easy Jungle 165, 8m radius (no bindings) and Volkl Monocarver (green topsheet) 176, 14.5m radius (no bindings as well and please note, that this one has inserts rotated by 45 degrees, so you are limited in bindings selection even further). As I remember, there were riders in this thread looking to buy something inexpensive, so I am posting it here first. I will create a proper listing in the corresponding subforum later with details, prices and pictures.

Yep, moreover they may stain with this black oily s**t, so be careful. Washed mine by hand, just don't twist them hard when wet - stitching may not hold that well.

Great to see new riders involved :) maybe one day we will be able to do a dedicated Skwal Riders Meeting/ Also, I am glad to hear that SkwalUSA is alive. They were extremely unresponsive for previous several years.

Explanation about "4 cm between boots": My regular bindings setup: front inserts for front binding, mid inserts for rear binding. Front binding 0 degrees, rear 2-3, sometimes 0 as well.