neanderthal

The wider a board is the more leverage it takes to tip onto the sidecut. That extra width also gives the chop and crud a longer lever arm to throw you around with as opposed to a narrower ride cutting through the chop. A wider board makes it much harder for me to put as much weight/force on the edge. Think scraping ice off your windshield with an 8" scraper vs holding onto the end of a 4' scraper. Sure it is nice not to walk around the car to clear the other side but when the ice is difficult you walk around and choke up on the handle. ( Havnt ridden it yet but this is probably a big part of the reason the MK is so narrow ) Thats about how I select my ride for the day - If it looks like stuff I can brush off my windshield I use a longer handle and a wider board If there isnt anything on my windshield I use a mid-sized waisted board If I see an inclined skating rink I bring out a narrower board I recently have been riding a wider board (Jones Ultracraft 26.4cm waist). It takes a lot more energy to carve but with the rear foot at slacker angles I can force a turn easier. By using my feet like walking you can slide the rear with the full force of your Quads when you toes are pointed across the board. As I am recovering from a Knee injury to my LEFT/front knee I have played with a number of factors tuning what works biomechanically best for me and found that my knee likes angles not less than 45degrees because these put too much lateral force against the axis off the joint while steeper angles the forces work with the joint axis. DrSchwartz reminds us of riser plates but canting for similar reasons can also help bootout on a narrower ride because not every turn puts the board edge perpendicular to the snow. Canting with the rise given by TD3 lets me ride slacker angles than Catek (less rise) or Rat Traps (not sure why? but along with the dampening provided from a big bomber elastomer this is a big reason for my Franken-Bomber Rat Trap) Lets also remember Gilmour bias or reverse Gilmour may help with preventing bootout and riding. I have mondo 27 and for a regular carving ride cant TODAY imagine wanting a board wider than 23cm - That said I agree with the sentiment of LordMetroLand about the economic incentive driving most companies. We are very lucky in the alpine world to be able to ask for a truly custom board for not much more than an off the self jibbing/softboot ride. They do have some tech we havent adopted yet like the 3D nose or Spoon tech which I would love to see incorporated into an alpine ride and while I do not fully comprehend SoftBootSailor's assymetric rocker idea it sounds like something I would love to try.

How much and how long do I have to wait/save for these? I love the yellow

Next in line

Amen!

Depending on your budget I would say to take advantage of the stong dollar vs Canadian and just get in contact with Bruce @ coiler. Tell him a bit about yourself the hill and what you THINK you want and he will cool up something that will probably be better than you could select. Then save money by findings bindings on the forum

Another vote here for g-form They are great for snowboarding and mountainbiking

So here is my update after riding a bit and I may revise and write a board review in the proper section after this weekend when there is projected some more powder. Last year I broke my leg in the trees so this year I wanted an uncompromising powder board short enough for tree riding, stable enough for crud and carvable. Initially my gut said swallowtail but I couldnt seem to find one than met all above criteria. (Please send me any suggestions if you can think of something else to try) After a bit of looking I decided on Jones Ultracraft 160cm 26.4 waist 9.5m sidecut(https://www.jonessnowboards.com/gear/solids/ultracraft.html) So did it work as intended? - In a word YES This board has unreal float - I'm about 215lb on a good day with a large breath of helium filling my lungs and just out of the shower - Even at low speed there is no stopping this thing when going through 2+ feet of powder. Cn transitions where I normally would sink or need to haul ass instead of a straight line I was playfully leaving lazy s turns and carrying plenty of speed . Between the small sidecut and the short tail it is very easy to throw around and force any line through/around the trees. The long 40cm nose wasnt floppy and didnt chatter but was great for smoothing out transitions through crud and obviously was a key component of this board's big float. While the board is overall quite short the long nose (40.4cm) along with 2.9cm offset lets you really lean into the tip without any fear of sinking. I found this especially helpful for committing to a toeside turn on steeps and bumps. It doesnt sink or catch so I found myself riding the sidcut rather than jumpturning on a few faces (both in powder and soft bumps). Not sure if its just the marketing hype but I'm sold on the "spoon nose"/3D contour nose for powder. Is this something that is helpfull for a more alpine board? Anyone else incorporating this tech? I will certainly be looking this direction when it comes time to fill my quiver with a swallowtail. Last but not least - Carving Does it carve? yea but Its ridable if you are searching for powder and need to ride some groomers to get there. You can carve but the effective edge is so short dont plan on being aggressive or leaning very hard to the front or back. There really isnt much of a tail so if you lean back in a turn here comes a skid. On this board the carve is pretty much right between you feet. In short it is possible to really carve some turns but quite tiring tipping a 26cm waist & the turns are more of a side to side leaning that is not nearly as fun as loading the nose of my coiler and popping the tail at each transition.

Must resist Just bought a powder board :( Someone is going to be very lucky/happy with this

Tell me more about those bindings :)

I needed a powder board for some of the snow piling up at Wolf Creek lets see how this Ultracraft floats my fat ass and if it can carve. So here is my update after riding a bit and I may revise after this weekend when there is projected some more powder. Last year I broke my leg in the trees so this year I wanted an uncompromising powder board short enough for tree riding, stable enough for crud and carvable. Initially my gut said swallowtail but I couldnt seem to find one than met all above critera. (Please send me any suggestions if you can think of something else to try) After a bit of looking I decided on Jones Ultracraft 160cm 26.4 waist 9.5m sidecut(https://www.jonessnowboards.com/gear/solids/ultracraft.html) So did it work as intended? - In a word YES This board has unreal float - I'm about 215lb on a good day with a large breath of helium filling my lungs and just out of the shower - Even at low speed there is no stopping this thing when going through 2+ feet of powder. Cn transitions where I normally would sink or need to haul ass instead of a straight line I was playfully leaving lazy s turns and carrying plenty of speed . Between the small sidecut and the short tail it is very easy to throw around and force any line through/around the trees. The long 40cm nose wasnt floppy and didnt chatter but was great for smoothing out transitions through crud and obviously was a key component of this board's big float. While the board is overall quite short the long nose (40.4cm) along with 2.9cm offset lets you really lean into the tip without any fear of sinking. I found this especially helpful for committing to a toeside turn on steeps and bumps. It doesnt sink or catch so I found myself riding the sidcut rather than jumpturning on a few faces (both in powder and soft bumps). Not sure if its just the marketing hype but I'm sold on the "spoon nose"/3D contour nose for powder. Is this something that is helpfull for a more alpine board? Anyone else incorporating this tech? I will certainly be looking this direction when it comes time to fill my quiver with a swallowtail. Last but not least - Carving Does it carve? yea but Its ridable if you are searching for powder and need to ride some groomers to get there. You can carve but the effective edge is so short dont plan on being aggressive or leaning very hard to the front or back. There really isnt much of a tail so if you lean back in a turn here comes a skid. On this board the carve is pretty much right between you feet. In short it is possible to really carve some turns but quite tiring tipping a 26cm waist & the turns are more of a side to side leaning that is not nearly as fun as loading the nose of my coiler and popping the tail at each transition.

are these still available?

I know an edict has been issued but I very much think splitting the board will dillute things. If I read about splitboarding or an ultimate powder board on a (carving/hardboot/Alpine/plate/insert your preferred term) forum I can relate more and understand from a common experience in a way that does not exist on specific forums. When I read that a 180 swallowtail is too long - does that apply to me riding a 175 most of the time in all conditions or is it conventional wisdom from a community where 155 is the norm. Tell me about edge hold and unreal control - again is this coming from a collective wisdom familiar with isolation plates or just magnatraction. In short I fear a loss of crosspolonization and fragmentation. In the end I probably doesn't matter much - I hope not to miss too many posts by reading on the board I am most interested rather than most in need of hearing from

Phantoms max angle is 30 degrees. I asked about making some cleats with a higher angle when they started to make fixed angle cleats ( wanted to ride at about 40 - 45 degrees in the front and 30 rear). He said currently max angle is 30. it may be hard to use that system with a higher angle because it would interfere with the touring toe pieces as you rotate to place and remove the plate. A few people have asked but it isn't likely that higher angles would be produced :( If there is interest in some higher angles from this community I encourage everyone to write phantom and perhaps seeing a demand a higher angle cleat might come to be. I can see how it would be hard to use with dynafit toe pieces but there are more minimal which shouldn't interfere (http://www.maruelli.com/M2SPLITBOARD/M2SPLITBOARD.htm)

" you carve, you carve, you carve - no slide" I have spent many years chasing that feeling on hardboots and soft, in powder or hardpack its all about the "no slide." That and those tasty threads :)

Looks great - way more stable than my upz boots Keep the teasers coming :)

any specs or description for those of us not in the Know?

Thanks for the update!!! And for the warning looks like I have to scrape my piggybank to order all my dream coilers in the next few yrs. I'm saving my lunch money now - should be good for my expanding belly as well.

I buy immediately if they come out with an intec version! Best wishes to this venture and I am super stoked to have a new alpine boot to choose from

Yes there is another Fritschi made some bindings also sold by Oxygen that are DIN compatible and do work with ski boots. I rode these for years with ski boots and they do work but the mechanics of steping in are difficult because you have to hook the heel bail and at the same time lift your toes quite high. Weird position to balance in.

Ladia - looks like you are using 2 different boots. Can you comment? RoroSnow - what mods did you do with the TLT6 and do you ride unlocked? I am so conflicted after watching that video! Right now I have a pair of TLT6 ready to checkout in another window and was ready to pull the trigger just before I watched that video. The only hangup is that I really like progressive springs (BTS on Raichle and DGSS on UPZ) and could not figure a way to make either work with the TLT6. There seem to be less stock of TLT6 and the 7 wont work due to the toes. Looks like he may have solved my hangup but carbon will be hard to fit and the price will be hard to sell to my wife :)

I really like the leather liners in the UPZ boots even though it still has a regular design with a tongue. My favorite design is the intuition wrap design without a tongue. This avoids seams in high pressure areas and the tongue torquing and malpositon that sometimes happens with riding. Really wish there was some combination with the best of these two.

Man I'm envious! - looks like fun!

Looks like they are making the swallowtail in different lengths this year. If CO gets some deep I may have to give one of the shorter ones a try :)

I'll take them pm me the PayPal info

interested in the price for one board