nigelc

to quote alpinecarving.com: "When using the BTS on the low-end Raichle boots, such as the SB series, it's best to go with the softer (yellow) springs. The stiffer springs may not make sense with the softer boot plastic" however I am fat chap at 100kg's and I am leaning to the medium springs. I tend to ride all-mountain in very variable NZ conditions and do not like a set-up that is too stiff as I feel it is unforgiving when the hill is chopped up. Ideas?

thanks for the reply. Will the bts still give me a sizeable benefit when the sb413's are so soft?

I have the SB413's with the single position forward lean. Would there be a benefit to upgrading to either the five position lean or the BTS spring system?

I just bought a new Prior WCR metal. I bought it after riding it for several days in a variety of conditions from new snow to hard pack and ice so I knew exactly what the board was like when I bought it. Is the board more fun than my previous glass boards (oxygen proton and hot blast) - oh yeah. Its more grippy and better to ride in a variety of conditions, particularly in the spring morning hardpack and lower mountain ice. Does it foster bad technique? Actually no - if I ride it badly then it feels just like any other board. Its only when I get my weight in the right place and angulate properly that it really comes alive. It gives me more feedback about what is right and wrong as the level of grip when I get it right is just unbeleivable. If I am lazy then it is merely ordinary. I feel that i have improved substantially since buying the metal board. Of course the proof of the pudding will be to get back on my proton to see if I am better on that but I wont get the chance until july or so

Like french bread eh?......that must be a pain! sorry couldn't help myself

I enjoyed myself immensely today, and I hope thanks to you Ondrej that I improved considerably. Also that Prior board is like......cheating. I am sure its not supposed to be so easy cheers Nigel

sorry guys I lost you at the beginning! I didnt really know where I was going and was following someone - i thought onto the emerald chair, but at the top nobody was there and that was that. Anyway I had a great day out on the harmony and symphony lifts and the conditions were perfect. I have had two days now on that Prior metal 177 and i may have to abscond with it. yesterday there was alot of fairly hard and sketchy snow with icy patches and this thing doesnt even seem to notice. its like cheating!

When I was at Prior's earlier Chris said that he might come along as well so there could be a few people! - what a change from being the only carver on the mountain for the last week - well actually I have seen two others. I am going to park on blackcomb near the tube park and ride down to the whistler gondola then maybe ride on the emerald until 9:30. If is as cold as this morning then I may be in the cafe warming up with a coffee! The snow was great today and the weather perfect - one of my all-time best days on any mountain anywhere. I expected lots of powder and knee high moguls but actually it was pretty good for carving and should be better tomorrow.

is everyone still meeting at the roundhouse lift status indicator at 9:30? I am in whistler at the moment and have borrowed a prior for tomorrow so would like to ride with some other carvers.

silk next to skin and merino wool on top of that. all you need. never too warm, never smells, light, easy and still comfortable in the bar afterwards, silkbody and icebreaker are the best brands

Hi My wife broke her tib fib in a pretty major way skiing in nz in september 2008. X-ray and cast within an hour. Full reconstruction with pins plates screws and wires four days later. total cost to us $40. She has made a good recovery and we will be going to whistler in canada in a month - so around six months total since the accident. She tells me that it wouldn´t have happened on her carving board so maybe she will spend more time carving now and less skiing!

Its a poor attempt at an all mountain board. It has a tight sidecut - I have a 162 with a 9m sidecut radius or close to it. I find the board to be soft all round especially torsionally and I always struggle with poor edge hold - a problem I dont have on my oxygen proton or hot blast. I am too heavy for the board so it might be a different experience for someone of 80kgs or less. I do like it in moderate powder, especially on steeps and I find it very forgiving all round - easy to just cruise on. I hate it on ice or hardpack but love my proton in the same conditions. Snappy ride? - just cant see it.

hi will be in qtown around the dates you mention, mostly at coronet peak. It would be good to take a few runs together you could call me on +64 21 079 6853 or leave a message here

any carvers around queenstown for the next two weeks?

"We all know that free-carving and racing techniques do not cross over well. While many riders can do both with a single set-up, they tend to be a select few who are physically gifted." I have no loyalty to either camp.In a perfect world i would love to be able to do both. I am sure many of the posters here are better riders than me and so I am interested in what they have to say. Of interest to me in the statement by Bob Jenney above is that the setup for each style may vary - how in general?

first of all thanks for all the input - I feel that the more information I have the better carver I will become. some interesting points: I find as stated previous that as I rotate a little more toward the bindings on toeside that I am able to ride more in the front seat - the load on my quads evens up and the carve is easier to control. Actually hand position seems to make little difference as I have tried riding with my hands behind my back as a way of "educating" my body to keep my weight more forward and my riding is in fact very similar in this position. Another exercise I often try is to ride with my arms extended straight out horizontally from my shoulders like wings but keeping them aligned with the slope which encourages me to angulate. I am not yhinking about weighting my feet independently. What I am doing after a run is thnking about how the whole thing felt. What I come up with is that on the heelside carve the load on my legs is even and I feel confident and secure even on bumpy steep and icy terrain, while on the toe-side I feel like I am riding the whole way on my back leg and the burning of my quad confirms this. If I ride a pitch which is biased toward the heelside so I spend 80% of my time on that carve then no leg pain. If the bias is reversed then I am definitely loading my back leg much more despite consciously trying to even up, only a rotation toward the binding seems to enable me to "unlock" The reason I mentioned my setup is that I was wondering if this may be contributing. I general I would like to keep it as simple as possible. sorry WB there is no riding at mt cook in the summer. Problem with rotorua is that I seem to be able to smell it from...everywhere. Wife says its me!

thanks jack - i guess thats what I was after - that proper form is to keep the right hand forward not to rotate hips and shoulders past the bindings. I'll try and get some video organised during our winter but my attempts at educating the wife have so far resulted in movies of sky and boots only. I don't have a problem with a variety of styles when facing ahead of the bindings. My issue is that I can drop my hip on toeside quite effectively while facing ahead of the bindings OR I can weight my front foot efectively while facing the bindings. what I am having difficulty doing is dropping my hip in like I can on the heelside while weighting my front foot. I have found that i naturally seem to weight my front foot more as I rotate further toward the toeside, but as you say this prevents the hip drop. I am riding flat on the front(59 deg) with one wedge in my x-bones on the rear(53 deg). i might try riding flat as william blake suggests in ather thread. I also wonder if the BTS springs might help rather than the single position forward leans I have on my Lemans.

I guess that is what I am talking about - my style is changing to be more softboot like. I am also starting to prefer lower angles. I hear you william blake on the just ride stuff but its 30 centigrade here so i have to wait awhile. Once the snow is here I do tend to just get on with it but I find it helpfull to analyse the riding I have just done and how I improved - or not The toeside initiation is definitely where i need to improve now, especially as it gets steeper or bumpier.

unfortunately no video. I have just been to europe and canada for a few weeks of riding and now have to wait unril the NZ season for my next snowboarding so all I can do is think about it until at least july. Basically I am failing to get my weight forward enough on toe-side. Furthermore it seems to me that it is virtually impossible to do so without rotating toward a more face the bindings alignment. Yet many people seem to ride face-thenose so am I missing something?

Ok my question revolves round toe-side carving, rotation and alignment with bindings/nose.Like the hypothetical carver in bobs excellent article heel sides are my security blanket while toe-sides are more of a gamble. I have been trying out different things for the last two weeks and this is where I am at • If I adopt a face the nose/cross-under style then it is relatively easy to drop the hips into the turn a la Jack's excellent article. What is very hard with this style is to keep pressure on my front foot on the toes side as it naturally tends to rock me back. burned out rear quad ensues • If I adopt a more face the bindings/cross-through/retraction turn sort of style then it is much easier to keep even pressure on the feet i.e. initiating with mostly front foot and progressing to mostly back foot during the turn by feeding the board forwards. What is difficult is dropping my hips into the turn as again this seems to force my weight onto the back leg • I seem to be rotating on heel-sides to be facing the nose at peak rotation, while in order to get good front foot pressure on the toe sides I am definitely rotating to face the bindings on toe-side, then rotating back to a more neutral position as my weight shifts to my back foot to finish the turn and I am starting to either retract for the next initiation or target a bump to do the unweighting for me. • I have experimented with keeping my shoulders aligned with bindings on heel-side and this feels quite comfortable and I am still able to get my weight forward enough without locking out my rear leg. • especially noticeable on a long cat-track or flat where I am doing extended turns on alternating edges while trying to go as straight as possible is that on toeside if my hips and shoulders do not face the bindings then this really forces my weight onto the rear leg and locks that leg out at the same time- limits the range of movement Is there anything simple I am missing?

I am riding either an oxygen proton 170 or a hot blast 167. These days I am using 60/53 fr/ba on my sb413's with the single position lean adjusters. One of the reasons I am starting to prefer the hot blast is that it is a little wider than the proton so I can knock my angles back by three degrees or so which seems a little easier. I am not totally out of shape and do a little cycling and running all year - about 100-200km/week on the bike and 30km/week of running. It does not seem to matter how fit I am, nothing can prepare my legs for snowboarding. I don't remember having such issues on my softies way back - of course I was younger then too! I am wondering if it is stance or technique related. Am I putting too much weight on my back leg? - this always seems to suffer the most. Is this caused by rotating too much to face through and past the nose when riding heelside? It seems to me that when I ride with less knee bend then my ability to absorb bumps etc is impaired and the likelihood of a wipe out is much increased, so riding with straighter legs can't be the answer can it? My skier friends seem to ski with very bent knees and do not get burnt out like me. perhaps I am simply riding with too much weight back?

So when I ride with my mates who are mostly skiers I seem to use up my quads at a rate at least ten times theirs. I am riding race boards on chopped up groomers but surely there must be a better way. the amount of knee bend seems to be the issue - how long can everybody else hold a deep crouch against the g force?

i bought one for my wife a few years ago and like it alot. It is a good all-mountain carving board that does well in soft snow and powder It is easy to ride and a good first carving board, but it holds an edge well and with the correct input is a good performer. I have ridden it with soft and hard boots and it still performs well with the softies!

I agree that its worse when colder but I beleive that the foam expands slowly when not used and compressed - like the off season

exact same problem. They do pack out with time but but then...... too loose! I have tried remoulding several times with slightly different techniques and unfortunately similar results. so no answers sorry