BlueB

I wasn't until recently. I knew it would be better, but for pure laziness I wasn't. Then this Christmas Mrs Claus decided that I should preserve a bit of brain that I still have... The advantages are enormous - besides the obvious safety, it is drier in the wet conditions, warmer in cold, perfect for goggles in use and out of use. The only complaint is due to the funny size and shape of my old melon - the L is too small and XL a tad too large for me. Then again, that allows for extra air circulation when hot, and beanie or ear warmer belt when cold...

Much less fun than steeper greens / mellow blues on which I can really rip on this board :( Due to short radius and short length it felt really unstable and difficult to ride sweet spot. I often panicked and went into skidding mode... Also, the very small camber made it very demanding on legs (lack of shock absorption). Scary fast too, compared to my other board. Looking forward to master it at speed/steep. I'll give it more tries, of course, but it seems that the small board will be for flatter terrain and packed runs, and my old 168 for all mountain...

Thanks for input! Since the first post, I rode the board more and managed to do some deep carves. Couple of our board instructors were watching, and later wanted to see / touch the board and ask the questions... So cool :D As for the bindings, they are what they are - no changes possible on the cant... At least the lift is good. Boris

We discussed this a lot recently, in one of classified treads. Now, it somehow disappeared... Boris

I'm starting to really like the narrow waist and these high binding angles... Still have to try them on steep terain - it might be less fun? If there wasn't for built in cant on these bindings, I would try the Skwal-like angles too.

My apologies, I started the tread with wrong spelling... You should see all the nonsense I get with my surname... :D Boris

Gnu Kinetic 168 Hey Brian (or other collectors), I thought you might be interested in this one. I met a guy selling it - he said it was way too fast for him, and after one run it just collected dust in his garage... The top is mint, and the base has some funny damage (like a shallow missing chunk ?) but no scratches. It has funny insert pattern - 4x4 but wider than today's, and front ones are at 45 deg !? He's got some high back bindings on it and willing to sell with or without them. If interested, I'll email you the guy's tel no. Happy New Year, Boris

I picked a wicked little SL board, with bindings, at local sports consignment store. I was almost as surprised to find it there, as them to have it there :D Now, everything about this board is extreme: narrow waist - 18cm, super-minimalistic nose, almost non-existent tail, running length almost as on my a 168 long all-mountain carver... Slight taper to the tail. Pity it's old and lost a lot of camber. Steel used for the edges seams to be of higher quality than on US/Canada made boards, too. Now, bindings are quite interesting, the faded text seems to be reading Crazy Creek? Quite stiff for old binding, I would say stiffer than my Emery Quattros. Has a bit of inward canting built in (which I dislike) and quite a bit of rear heel lift - front toe lift built in (which I like a lot!). No disks, but direct mounting with adjustment slots for rotation, with dampening material under. Standard 4x4 pattern. The test ride: Yesterday, on reopening day of Cypress (after big melt down on Christmas), the snow was wet pulp, but quite compact - slow but supporting for carving. Our Easy Rider slope is wide and a bit steeper than a green run should be, but with uniform grade - just perfect for test-carving (and I shredded it into pieces by the end of my session, he, he :) ). And it was such fun!!! I never rode a slalom board before and I was expecting something similar to my LTD (25 waist) twin-tip ridden with plates. No way Jose! 5 times better! Due to narrow waist and long soles of my ski boots, I had to set it to high angles, F63 / R61, which was fun, but I think I would still prefer my standard 57/54 angles. Still, not so unstable as I expected from narrow waisted board. But definitely super fast edge-to-edge. Hooks easily into carves and holds nicely. I battled on toe side initiation at first, until I realised that I just had to push the board harder. Works better with torso counter rotation (fall line style), as the turns become ridiculously tight when pushed. It likes weight transfer towards tail in the last part of turn to get rebound into next turn. Generally, It seems that I had to ride it with quite a bit of weight on rear foot, but that might be due to slushy snow and small nose... I couldn't lay it out too deep (lack of speed), but looking forward to faster snow conditions. I definitely missed out for not trying SL boards before... Happy New Year, Boris

Yes you can carve them hard, but it feels different. I also find it more physically demanding than board. A bit more forgiving to mistakes (there's always the second edge to relay to). Also, to really lay out you need more speed on skis (longer radiuses on skis, i.e. SL ski = 11-12m, Sl board = 9-10m; GS ski = 21m, GS board = 13-16m; all-round carver ski = 12-18m, board = 11-12m). I happily do both...

Hey, Jack, where is Africa on the poll? :D There was a single hard booter in South Africa, when I lived there (not me - I didn't have a board at that time). Quite funny, the guy was not carving his turns but rather doing very advanced skid turns at the gate and then straitlining for the next one (in GS). He was quite a good skier too, I struggled to beat him in ski events. Then one year, a Canadian (former South African) hardbooter/carver came to compete in our Nationals. He did a clear sweep in all gate events and BX. He even went over big air (but without much of twisting and turning).... Boris

Ok, this one is for October. After whole summer without snow, everything goes ;)

Hard. Easier and more appealing for skiers - from my own experience. Skip the side slipping part, and ask him to use a lot of vertical movement in transitions (upward unweighing / cross-over) and he'll be carving in no time... Easier off the chairlift too - you actually can controll the board with one foot only, which I don't find the case with soft boots.

Hey Ike, I just had a chance to ride my friend's Rossi 159 yesterday. What can I say - nice! A bit too short for me but almost stiff enough. I'm 165 lb at the moment... So yes, it might be a bit too much for you this year and perfect next year? But then again, you could buy it, as it is a good deal, try it and if too stiff use the plates on your current board and shift to Rossi next year. Just an idea. Boris

Forget it... This kind of discussion came up few times, and we couldn’t even agree on calculating approximate stiffness index for boards, never mind matching it to the raider weight / style... Sad part is that manufacturers always ignored that type of discussion - it is actually not in their interest that we are able to easily compare their boards. Some have their internal stiffness scales, but they are not compatible to each other. Anyhow, search under BOBSI and ULFI and DFI, for the old discussions. Boris

Learn to ski, by all means. It’s fun. It’s same but different (same principles, different motorics). More versatile and more things you can do, like: carve both skis, carve outer ski only, carve inner ski only, do linked turns on one ski only (this is often a jaw dropper for spectators), not even to mention skidding the turns and snow-plough ;) I even dare to say that skiing is more physically demanding than snowboarding (at least for me). Talking about myself, I have ski background, but that was one of the things that made me want to ride the hard boots, and trying to carve the board right from the beginning. Then, learning to carve the board properly made me better carver on the skis, too. When it comes to pure carving sensation, I prefer the board. For all the rest – skis. Then the roots of sport… Park hordes would tell you – skateboarding :(. I think it’s fair to say it’s surfing and skiing, both. Surfing for the stance and overall idea of the tool, skiing for the very idea that you could do it on the snow, plus the technology. Contrary to the popular belief, the concept of side cut does not come from snowboard – it comes from good old ski. The very first snowboards mostly had convex side cut like surfboards and no camber or edges (correct me if I’m wrong), while the skis had all of that for decades already. Yes, the concave side cuts radiuses on skis were very long, but you could still carve them! A pair of Elan Omni Lites that I bought in mid ’80 had noticeably deeper SC and widest part of shovel further forward than any other manufacturer… For the first time, after many years, there was no longitudinal groove in the centre of the base either. When I asked the tech people about the changes, answer was “our research shows that 75% of modern skiing is on the edge…” When snowboards dropped the surf technology (convex SC, reversed camber, even skegs on some), and adopted ski technology (concave SC, steel edges and camber), they became, more or less, what they are now. Due to the fact that snowboards were shorter and wider, the SC concept has been taken to the extreme. Ski manufacturers have seen the light and applied the shorter radiuses to the skis. Verdict? Skiing and Snowboarding have a lot in common and have learned from each other and exchanged technologies. It’s even more true for alpine, as we share the boot technology, too. Boris

I second on this opinion. Get cheep plates (you do not need Bomber / Catek at your weight) and mount them onto your current board. You'll be surprised by carving improvement! If you're a skier too, use your ski boots. Or borrow from a buddy? There you go - shoe string budget hardboot setup... And welcome to the Dark Side! Boris

Yap, hardcore would be better ;) I meen boots...

Dave, way to go! Ninjette, beer pics would do - post them on! :D And my contribution:

Great idea - the resort reviewes! Maybe we could even include the screen names of the riders who use the particular resort as home mountain? Boris

Sooner you destroy the old board, sooner you can justify the purchase of another one :D

Jack, thanks for reminding me of that formula - I used it when I worked for an engineering company, long ago, and I couldn't remember it any more... However, there's another way, for CAD users: 1) Draw a line, same length as the running length of your board. 2) Draw a perpendicular line, long as SC depth, from the centre of the first line. 3) Use the 3 end points as the definition points for an arc (or circle) 4) Use the auto-dimensioning to read the radius. Boris

Still snowing! I had my first day of the season today. Nice! Board hooked up too much on one heel side turn, on a narrower trail, and I almost ended up in the woods :O Still good to be on the snow again. I’ll start again teaching kiddies on Mondays…

Oh, yes, avoid anything that has foam core. Nothing beats traditional wood core for durability. Plus, heavier ski would bust trough crud better and is dumper. Most of our rental Salomon skis (foam core) loose cumber completely within a year.

Elan MO2. The only ski that is versatile enough to let you carve long AND SHORT radius on groomed (smallest SCR of all competition ~16m) , would do powder pretty well, and rule in the park. It even has the special steel reinforcement in the base under the foot for the rails etc. But then, why the fat twin tips, unless he is planning to spend most of the time in the park/pipe or in powder? This is the marketing pressure on the public, where the skis are going fatter and fatter every year, and moving from propper skiing to monkey business (like it happened to snowboarding). Average skier spends 90% of the time on groomed slopes, so anything over 70mm-75mm waist is excessive and would carve less good than a narrower ski. Good pair of all-mountain carvers or all mountain riders is the best choice for “one pair quiver”. Boris

"Cypress Mountain is pleased to announce the earliest ski season opening date in our history. This will set a new record for Cypress Mountain, our last record opening was November 11 in 1994 and we were open right through to late April. " This is from official Cypress site. Yesterday we had first briefing at Ski/Board school. Then it started raining again, today... Still promising for a spectacular season. Boris