csquared

JV: I have offered Uku a ride up in the morning but I am not coming back on Friday evening so he would need a ride home. He needs to get back down to Spadina and Bloor but I think he would settle for a subway station if you are able to help.

... but I can still squeeze in one or two more. Absolute closure is noon Wednesday. After this, I have to turn the attendee list over to the coordinator so that the ticket ladies at the club will know you're coming. DMC - welcome to BOL. You would be welcome and hopefully you will learn a lot. Certainly you will have plenty of inspiration. I can put you on the list but I need you to e-mail me through my profile (you should be able to locate this if you explore the site a bit) and give me an e-mail address and your real name for the guest list.

Stewart: You beat me to the suggestion. Bring the cam's if you got 'em. I will be equipped (thanks Santa Carol). Pat: You would be most welcome sir.

If you are out there lingering on the sidelines undecided, now is the time to get in touch and let me know if you are coming. Only 2 more weeks to the event and interest has been brisk this year. The list at the moment is up to almost 60 riders. Still not convinced? You're not easy to impress I see. Well, we have a special guest this year. Canadian National Team rider Michael Lambert will be at the event courtesy of Apex Sport. This is going to be legendary.

Sorry to see that Gord. The ragged pattern at the edge side of the shot may be partly due to the fact that it is so close to the bonding flange on the steel edge . The bonding flange is located directly under the ptex and extends in almost exactly to the edge of the ragged line. There would be very good bond to the ptex over the flange too because a lot of excess epoxy works its way to the edge during the lay-up and pressing. I have to say this does not look like one of those conditions that would be easy to fix by routing a piece of the base out. You really don't want to try that in such close proximity to the edge. The Fleaman fix worked well because it was closer to the middle of the board and the patch was closer to being square (I am going by memory here) but you would need to router a very long strip out and I think this could be pretty susceptible to debonding. I'm with the "send it back to Bruce" crowd on this one.

Just trying to keep this thread from expiring before people start getting interested.

I am going to be at Sugarloaf Feb 6 through Feb 11. Might be a good time and place for an informal event. The accommodation and lift ticket deal was too good to pass up.

...I have two sets of TD1's that I could part with if you can't find anything elsewhere. I had noticed that you were chasing a set before and should have let you know but forgot. Contact me through my profile.

If you're like me, you're starting to yearn for that perfect carve again. Well, it looks like it will be a while before the first snow flies, but there is something you can do today - mark your calendar for Friday, January 28, 2010 and book the day off. The pleasure of your company is requested for SOS 2011. This is an open invitation to a one day event at the Osler Bluff Ski Club in Collingwood to join the hard-booting core of the Southern Ontario carving community. Its a great chance to meet or get back together with dedicated alpine riders on great terrain with excellent grooming. We've had great sessions for the last six years with many repeat participants each year. If you know other alpine riders that might be interested in the event, please bring this to their attention, no matter what their ability. The event grows in numbers each year and so does the love. Our friends from YYZ Canuck, Apex Sports, and Coiler Composites will be on hand to give you a chance to kick the tires of this year's latest alpine gear trends. If you would like to attend, drop me an e-mail through my profile so that I can get you on the list. I will need your name and e-mail address so that I can keep you informed as we get closer to the event. While I am happy to open this event to as many as possible, this is an event for the hard-boot community and I would prefer to keep spots open to alpine riders. However, I do understand family situations and I can make exceptions to help make it possible for you to attend.

You can see Skategoat's community profile hire: http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/member.php?u=199 Henry has been a strong booster of the Southern Ontario alpine racing scene through the AOS. He has also contributed thousands of thoughtful and amusing posts to BOL.

President of Apex Sport Henry Kim is none other than...Skategoat. Congratulations Henry. This must be pretty exciting. Living the dream... I haven't ummm, placed my order yet. Need to go check the piggy bank.

I had an unhappy experience after sharpening my Coiler NSBX (decambered nose and tail) this year and neglecting to detune. In normal hard carving conditions, the lack of detuning was not an issue or even apparent. However, at low speeds, the nose had a tendency to hook up HARD on the toe-side. My first discovery was cruising up to the lift line corral at the end of one day when I made a very minor turn initiation and hooked up so hard and so quickly that I was turned almost backwards and went through a crash net, over a bank, and landed upside down beside a tree. No injuries but it looked so bad the lifty called the ski patrol before racing out of the shack to see if I was still alive. I couldn't figure out what happened and decided that there must have been some bad snow but I couldn't see it when I inspected my track...shrug... back to boarding. The next day I took another spill off the side of a run after a very similar incident (again, miraculously, no injuries). Then the light went on: forgot to detune. Three passes with the gummy stone and the problem disappeared. I start at the rise in the nose and do a 2", a 4", and then a 6" pass with the gummy stone. There is still plenty of edge left to hold on anything but the tendency for excessive and unpredictable initiation is gone. I think detuning is likely less critical on the heel side so I am experimenting with limited or no detuning on that edge. Seems to work fine and provides a bit more bite/initiation.

There was only one time better in the B Groups and compared to the Open category (which had some serious names) he would have been ahead of the 9th place finisher. I think he was inspired by Jasey.

Definitely a problem. I recommend that one change their name to Acme. The Canadian Apex plate is not for sale just yet but we expect news in the near future. Keep stuffing that piggy bank with $. They won't be cheap.

You and your Dad should consider Sugarloaf. Okay, I know that northern Maine probably sounds like a crazy distance to go but it is actually about the same driving time as southern Vermont (9 hours from Toronto). The 'loaf is my all time favourite for carving terrain and there are affordable accommodations off the hill. The drive takes you through the Eastern Townships (where you could hit Orford, Sutton, Owl's Head, or even Jay Peak on the way there or back). For bargain lift tickets and great terrain, I also liked Burke Mountain in northern Vermont (about 45 minutes south of the Quebec border and another possible on the route to Sugarloaf). Burke is small (two chairs, neither high speed, and a poma lift) but the hill has produced some of the best American ski racers. E-mail if you want more info.

...it looks like that kitchen still isn't done.

http://northgeek.com/2009/10/cross-country-snowboarding/

I think the journalist was trying to get across the fact that alpine snowboarding is the shy cousin to the free-riding, jibbing, pipe-dropping hoards rather than to racing (which is truly marginal unfortunately). Whatever. Bring on the plates. Let's have at them.

...but I haven't check my home e-mail in a while. I will go do it now.

Hey Lowrider, now that the Olympics are over, how 'bout showing off your homebrew Apex-like concept. Or do you have your own agreement with Pwn the Odium for the 2014 Olympics?

From yesterday's Globe and Mail (not posted on line so I had to scan and OCR the article; can't do much with the picture but we all know what they look like, right?). There is a series of sad aspects to this article. First and foremost is the misconception that this plate will actually be profitable for anyone (with Apex and Own the Podium quietly fighting over who should make a buck here). Second is the fairly shocking price target of $1,000. Third is the idea that this could sell at some scale to the recreational market (at $1,000 they might sell 25 units a year worldwide to non-racers like me). It would be great if Apex and Own the Podium could recognize that keeping the plate affordable would be the best way to get them into the hands of the young racers who should have access to them. For Own the Podium, foregoing profit would be the best way to bring new talent up the ladder to the Olympic level. Apex should be making something modest off the plate given their investment in getting it off the ground and onto the podium. Anyway, here's the article: Globe and Mail, 03/16/2010 OWN THE PODIUM ]] TOP SECRET PROJECT Snowboard engineers helped get gold, now they want some glory BY SIRI AGRELL Proudly displayed in the Burlington offices of Apex Composites is a piece of snowboard equipment inscribed by Canadian gold medalist Jasey Jay Anderson. "I blamed my equipment for failure, Apex gave me the chance to credit my equipment for success," it reads. Through a partnership with Own the Podium's Top Secret project, the aerospace company developed and produced a snowboard plate that Mr. Anderson and the alpine snowboard team used to reach Olympic glory. Unlike older plates made of aluminum, this design is crafted from carbon fibre. It sits below the bindings, allowing the board to flex while the rider's feet stay put, creating a faster ride and sharper turns. The company is trying to find a way to give the product a chance at commercial success. But first, the company is renegotiating its contract with Own the Podium, the national sports funding program, which had demanded about 25 per cent of any future sales as part of royalty agreements written into each of its Olympic research partnerships. "If I were a tougher person, I'd argue that until we get back what we put into it, they shouldn't get anything," Apex president Gerry Kavanaugh said. "But that's not the spirit with which we got into this." He invested his company's time and money with the aim of helping the Canadian team win gold, and said he never considered the project a money maker. His contract with Own the Podium,which put $8-million toward research and development projects for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, granted exclusive rights to Canadian athletes only until the Games were over, and he thought his role as a snowboard engineer would end there. "We didn't care at the time because we actually thought there was no market for this," he said. "In fact, there is interest." This week, hewill work out a new contract that gives Own the Podium a royalty based on his profit margin, not the product's $1,000 price tag. Todd Allinger, manager of the Top Secret program, said Own the Podium is happy to renegotiate the deal, and that royalties were a secondary goal. "It's always good to have some research payoff and put money back into Own the Podium, so we want to be reasonable," he said. "You could kill it if you put too high a royalty on it." Denis Rancourt, a University of Sherbrooke professor who helped develop the sit-ski being used at the Paralympic Games, said the school owns the product's intellectual property, but discussions are under way to transfer the rights to him. "I've developed a lot of things over the years, but many times, commercialization has hit a wall because the transfer was hard. I'm tired of that." Canadian companies that manufacture sports equipment for disabled athletes had no interest in the product, Mr. Rancourt said, prompting him and his research partners to form a company called Kinops to sell it, with some royalties going to Own the Podium. "We won't get rich," he said. "But we'd like to keep the technology in Canada." After Mr. Anderson's gold medal run in the men's parallel giant slalom, Mr. Kavanaugh said, friends predicted that a large snowboard manufacturer such as Burton would be knocking down his door. But the plate he designed is used in carving, a less popular form of the sport also known as alpine snowboarding. Mr. Kavanaugh is hoping the Olympics will lead to new interest in this aspect of the sport, and has filed a provisional patent on the plate. If the product is a success, Mr. Kavanaugh said, he will be happy to see some of the profits go to Own the Podium. If not, having seen Mr. Anderson ride his creation to gold is reward enough. "If we make 100 boards and that's it, at least we know," he said. "I would have kicked myself if we hadn't tried."

My Fintecs occasionally lose all traction and I feel like I have stepped on a ball bearing. I think Fin wants to test our balance and ability to recover before we get on the trail. On my wish list of further refinements when the Fintecs first came out: replaceable Vibram walking pads.

Tabatha: I know that this may seem hard to believe but the number of people on the hill was not significantly fewer than would usually be there on a Friday (notwithstanding the cold). Even on weekends, it is not hard to find runs that are that vacant at Osler. Come again next year. In the meantime, check out Eric's photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eajraci...7623324654626/

You need this because the Fintec heel has harder pins than the standard Intec heels. It was found with the first Fintecs shipped that they were causing severe galling on the surface of the aluminum receivers and that this was impeding pin engagement. Ironically the standard steel shoe used on the F2 binding is very resistant to the harder pins. Other bindings need the conversion kit which consists of a plated steel shoe to replace the aluminum ones that come standard with Cateks and older Bombers. The 'leaves' discussed above are the projections from the sides of the Intec heel that are part of the plastic heel moulding. They prevent the boot from travelling past the pin holes in the receivers but they are not strong enough to support the boot under full riding loads. If the binding is not adjusted correctly, these 'leaves' or ears can be subjected to loads that will cause them to break. But you can break them just walking around too. The Fintec has steel pins set in the aluminum heel block and they are presumably unbreakable.

I don't think your notion about binding angles is strange at all. I have had lower back pain many times since I started riding and I have thought a lot about the causes. I think there is a natural tendency with higher angles to initiate turns by throwing your weight forward to get the nose of the board carving. One tends to do this by dropping forward, putting more weight on the back foot and driving into the front of the boot. When you do this your whole body is hanging forward off your back foot and all of the muscles that run up the back of your leg and butt to your lower back are stressed to the max and your upper back is also tensed because of the crouch position. By comparison, with lower angles, it is easier to angulate and one can roll the board up on edge and work with the sidecut to initiate the turn, placing a lot less stress on the back. When I ride higher angles (as I have had to do with my VSR board), I find myself reflexively falling back into my old nose-riding ways. I think this is partly because most of the board has a 17 m sidecut radius with a small section of 11 m sidecut near the nose and turn initiation can feel a little sleepy compared to my other boards. However, I have found that if I conciously start my turns from my feet moving up to my knees and keep my hips and upper body neutral until needed for higher G turns, the board behaves well and I don't experience back pain. The ways I have dealt with llower back pain in the past have included riding with my boots in 'walk' mode (this makes it almost impossible to pressure the nose of the board and helps promote turn initiation through more refined technique), riding lower angles, moving bindings further forward (to move more weight toward the nose), and doing stretches aimed at loosening the lower back before I ride.