skywalker

Hi, Q#1: Of course I could answer this by my personal history, with the pictures in my mind of the first carving snowboarders I saw. At this time I had no Idea of Peter Bauer, Jean Nerva and so on, only some rare carvers at my holiday resort. But that's only how you are recognized by others, only the first step. What really kicked me, are the G-forces. There is no other way to feel the accelleration so pure. It's only you, your board, your control and the response of the snow and your board. You can feel G-forces in or on other vehicels, but there are only few, where you can just decide, how much at which time. On your alpine gear it's just little more or less angulation, if you are not totally satisfied with the G-forces you feel. This is the real freedom of the hardbooter. And there is another difference to other sports, which is the smoothness of your run. Surfing is smooth, too, but only carving gives you this combination of power, freedom and smoothness. There is no such element like water (maybe air, but unreachable for most of us). You can have unique feeling surfing the swell... and you can have totally different but also sensational feelings on frozen water with just a different board. One more issue comes up here: The natural stance of a slidingg person, which makes snowboarding in general so great. Q#2: No! It's totally different: I always feel me limiting my equipment. Of course there were moments, where I knew, that I would be better with better equipment. (These times are gone now, for at least one year I guess *LOL*) But I always knew, that my equipment could perform better with a better carver on it. These days i feel like reaching the limit of equipment, but one thing I know: After a few years of cerving my equipment will perform better... due to my increased skills. Only thing I would like to have: A board with 18cm waist width, on which I can mount my bindings under 48R / 55F. If you find one, let me know ;) Q#3: Of course, o lot. Please make sure, that the wide and even red to black slopes are perfectly groomed. Let the narrow slopes be bumpy, soft and demanding for thse, who don't like these perfectly groomed "easy to ski / board" slopes. in my most beatyful dreams, there is a part of the biggest slopes separated like the training area in a swimming pool. One side like always, for everybode, groomed like every slope in the world... and one side only for those who really want to carve, perfectly groomed and never crowded. Yes of course, carving parcs or even better carving areas would be great. i guess, that's all for now ;))

@ Chris: Sounds like you were happy with your new toy ;) ;) ;)

Hi, I can't see any problem that would keep anybody from introducing a valid rating. I think, something like nose stiffness - overall stiffnes - tail stiffness and torsional stiffness would be easy to measure and give us a decent hint about an estimated board behaviour. But "we" are nobody. This few carvers aut there, that are interested and knowing enough to want and understand these numbers... it may be 0.5% of all customers. I also think, the bobsi is by far not exact enough... but a good way to start. If everyone of us starts measuring all his boards, and if all this data is collected somewhere, there will be a rather good database. I really would whish there was some space to collect all these Bobsis! Burton Prob could easily be solved by special mounting plates from binding manufacturer... and much easier by burton themselves ;)

Hi Fin, with my browser I have another picture at the part where the "welcome new carvers" is written. This were the pics I was mainly talking about. It's really interesting especially, if there can bee members seen on them ;) Thanks a lot for your answer! Tom

Maybe this helps: My little sister teaches her students to push hard with their rear leg during the extensoin. At extension turns i.e. this automatically brings your C o G forward. Maybe flexing front leg on extension turn more than rear leg has the same effect!

Hi Fin or somebody else at BOL. I think it would be fine to know, who the guys on the pics on BOL main page are. Maybe there is a chance for name, place and time of the capture below the pics? Just thinking what I'd like to have, maybe all American users know these celebrities anyways?! Tom

Serious muscle training especially in the 8 weeks before saison start does the job. Mix up some heavy weight/low number trainings with some more endurance/strength trainings that burn your legs already in summer or autumn. And don't forget your shoulders! There would be nothing to add, if there would not have been said so much before. I don't like drugs to achieve more performance in sports. For me it's a little bit like doping. As in competition sports, you should do everything to give your body what he needs, i.e. bananas and noodles the evening before and after a day on the slopes, enough carbohydrate during the day and lots of water as mantioned before. Stop thinking like a skier, start thinking like a sportsman. This said, I can't find any sense in carving with a bad headacke for example. So if I fall, and the pain keeps me from having fun, I love ibuprofen ;)

back in 1989 I haf hardly ever heard about snowboards. By shere luck I met some guys with old burtons, who lended one of them to me for one day (not longer they said). I got a nice basic instruction with some skidding around, some rotation-style instruction and finished my first turns in the afternoon. Had some beautyful crashes also, got a tiny little brain concussion, felt really awful in the t-bar and needed somebody's help to get out of my pullovers, as my shoulders and arms ached horribly. The next day I did everything to get the board borrowed again, had another day on board and was totally kicked. Unfortunately this was in the last days of that winter, so I bought my first board the next December. This Crazy Banana is still in my quiver, as it's my first love ;) ;) Wouldn't want my starting to be different at all! Of course the first three years were on my soft old Ski boots, top buckle opened. Changed to an asymmetric IQ then and a pair of UPS boots, never had a softboot-setup ;)

Hi, those boots are not that bad, as the post before might suggest! I have a pair, although I don't use it anymore, as I found a pair of the NWs. My sister has got a pair of them too and she loves them. Pros: Very good adjustment, rather stiff shell, but softer of course than the Indies and Le Mans'. There was also a later model mith the much better medal made buckles. Very short sole, as all the UPS stuff. Cons: my 270 are the biggest size of the shell, what might be good for length reasons. But the shell/tongue is too short, so you tend to pull your heel out of the boot by pushing downward onto the shell with your shin. Also the liner of the old model shown on the pic is too soft. Both is improved but not perfect with the later models. Sum: Better than most boots of that time. If you like it softer, even better than some of the new ones. A perfect boot would be different, but that's true to every boot you can buy. Hope this helps Tom

... For me you win! No doubt, this is a great look, that I would like for my board,too!!!

How can one compare Madds to Virus, Donek, etc.? Those guys are making custom boards that are perfectly adjusted to the rider. As far as I see the Madds are real stock boards with the same specs for each and every board available in only 2 sizes. Maybe superior snowboards are mainly made of myth, hype and coolness, not only of unobtainium ;)

Hi Christoph, although I still don't believe in asyms, as what I described was pure physics, I really would like to testride a #1. Maybe we can manage it at the ECS, where I will be for sure. There's only little chance for me to be at the carvingsession in St. Moritz, so the ECS will be the place to change boards. MAYBE you can have some runs on my Virus, too, so you will see, what I think is a really really good board. In any case, besides all the material-s..t, it would be great to meet you again one day to have some nice runs ond well-groomed steep slopes :) :)

I don't know, why, but I like best these names of slopes, that actually aren't names. I like the black slope at Mountain XY and especially "slope NO 19" (Livigno). Maybe it's just because hey don't tell you anything about the slope they belong to. BTW @ Neil: AIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIIIII !!!!

Hi, most of the pureboarding-riding is done on their asymmetrical board. There are two issues about the shift of effective edge: Theory behind that was, that the rider's CG moves along the axis of his feet. I know some measurement of the move of the rider's CG and in fact it moves almost orthogonal to the board axis. So there is no sense in shifting the effective edge, as this would force the rider to adjust his riding style inn unnatural way. Second point is, that toeside nose and heelside tail are weakened, as there is some material missing to support the edge. Caused by the shift of effective edge, the running length becomes shorter in relationship to board's overall length. The weakness of some areas of the edge makes this even worse. So, although I realy like the old school look of (my) asymmetric boards, IMHO it's nonsense.

As you are going to start from Kaiserslautern, I would recommend Soelden, too. Maybe you can visit me in Stuttgart for a beer on your trip. And: pretty sure you will meet some hardbooters maybe even from the EC-forum in Soelden. So go for it :) Tom

I got one more ;) A friend of mine wanted to store his board over the door of his room. So I welded this one for him:

Hi Ray, AFAIK as I know, my WCR is one of two baords, that were not shipped to Japan :p :p and believe me: It's incredibly good! The boots work fine with my moderate binding angles (55/60 R/F), I love the super secure feeling in these boots. The spring stiffnes is o.k. for me as long as I keep pushing powerfully, but little to hard when I want to do some freeride style. What I believe, I can feel is: I'm in boots designet for Racing on a board designed for GS but not in the 17cm range. It works :) One additional point to my flex-posting: IMHO you need some for proper weight shift along the board axis (longitudinal). This is, what I wanted to point out. Furthermor a wider stance is possible, if you have some lateral flex between board and boots, which improves control in laid down turns. Again only my 2 ct Regards Tom

Sorry, if my poor English kept you from understanding :( If there are any questions, maybe you could precise them ;) ?

Lateral flex of boots is always an issue. IMHO lateral flex should not been provided by the boot, it should only care for forward/backward mobility and ancle support (and all that can be called comfort and fit). With stiff boot shells, lateral flex can only appear between top sheet of board and surface of boot sole. So either you need bindings with huge lateral flex or a boot/binding-interface with lateral flex. I only can achieve this with standard bindings with bails. my 2 ct

Sorry Fin, but IMHO there are binding available on the market, which even do more than a binding needs to do, which are issues of the boots. A F2 Titanium is all one needs, if he has a perfect board and perfect boots. O.k., maybe we could discuss the bending arc of the board at this point, but there are boards working very well with the F2. For all the others there are the high ends like Bomber. The point, why boards are on the first place for me is: It's by far the most important part of the system. If it fit's perfectly the rider and various conditions and styles, it will be perfect. But as we've seen in a poll a few days ago: Most people here own several boards for various conditions and riding styles. Furthermore my riding level depends much more on the board than on boots or bindings. Boots as second because of the mentioned reasons: Nothing happened for years. My old NWs ar by far the best boots I could get. Maybe the UPZ/Virus will change this, but not my ranking. because one suitable boot is not enough and the number of manufacturers is still too small.

thre are some things I would like to say about "them" and "us": In the beginning of snowboarding on the slopes (in mentionable numbers) in the 80s there were a lot of skiers of reasonable skills on the slopes. And not many snowboarders, but most of the basolute beginners (--> "them"). This even bacame worse with more people starting to be on the slopes with a snowboard and even more beginners. You could see snowboarders without any idea of how to use their gear, how to behave on the slopes and in alpine at all. Today there are some hardbooters of rather high level skills on the slopes. Also some skiiers with various levels (maybe bacause many of th enthusiastics changed to snowboarding) and also many many softbooters with various skills. In fact most of the absolute beginners and most of those who don't care use intermediate softboot-equipment, which looks like freeride. Also some of these use old skis or tose very short skis (I think you call them fruit-boots). These are detected as obstacles, as unkind, as beginners, as "them". I think most of us respect verybody else with a considerable level of riding skills, independently from the gear he uses. But of course sometimes it's hard to do so with those who don't care about consideration at all. And we should learn to be more patient with the beginners.

Hi, you should note, that Virus offers a customization for every board ther sell. So in conversation with Virus you can adjust amost everything to reach a board that fits you in the best possible way ;). I own a WCR70, which is part of the competition series and a nice compromise of width (19.5) and easy turning. The best board I can imagine so far :)

-Born 1974 -started skiing in 1984 -started Snowboarding in 1988, there was no alpine or freeride in Europe in these years -Got my first "Race"-board 1993, an Generics IQ asymmetric -Haven't ever used softboots. So maybe I switched from skis to Hardboot-snowboarding ;)

Hi, yes, I did. Maybe more than anybody else, who doesn't own one. See my post on extremecarving.com: http://www.extremecarving.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=985&start=45 In fact, I don't think there are big differences to other boards. I even think, it feels a little bit old-fashioned, which doesn't need to be negative!! The big difference comes from many details, which allowed me to do the deepest and especially best feeling backside ever. Of course this has to do with the width, but also with the overall behaviour of the board. Maybe one could say, that it looks and feels almost like a conventially made board of superior detail quality. A board with great edge grip, snappy turn initialization and a super secure feeling. Hope, this answer could help you!

Hey D-Sub, Speaking only for myself, not a group ;) Mostly ever this quoted sentence also fit's to the guy it comes from ;). I think, in this thread both sides are, so we should stop arguing about ist, o.k.? Funny thing about it is: When I read again the whole thread, I think there are not that many differences at all. Have a nice wekend ;) Tom