mrjamie

Usually they groom the runs, but not saturday night... wow that last wall was so bumpy :p Thanks to everyone who contributed to the heel side & toe side turn threads in the carving community forums... I did a lot of reading before these videos ;) <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOpt3AyYHTA&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOpt3AyYHTA&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object> Comments & questions welcome. Equipment: Driver-X boots, SPX 90 bindings, 164 custom rad-air swallowtail (originally 187 tanker) bindings: 51 front, 30 back (how do I do toeside turns on moguls with angles like these on soft boots? help!! :p)

Check out the new video for some shots of the tail -- you've got to wait until the end though ;) My favorite characteristic of the new board is that when I land jumps in powder, there's a big peace sign at the top of my new line ;) The cut-tanker rides really well considering what it has been through. I'll assume you've heard all the good things everyone has to say about tankers, and since it's a bit early in the morning, stick to a list for what I've noticed with this 'custom': The original tail, and all it's rebound, are gone Bringing the board around underneath the backfoot, especially on heel-sides, occasionally skids the board because of the shaved swallow-tail edges In other words, what the cuts gained the board in manueverability on walls and tight spots, they took from the board in edge hold (not much in either category, but noticable) no riding fakie (duh ;) sometimes the swallow-tail edges (which happen to be right where the camber comes down) are annoyingly noticeable, feeling like they want to dig right into the snow even though as the rider I don't want to be on edge just yet. don't give much weight to the words of people who tell you that your custom board is 'never going to work' or that 'you'll be lucky not to break something.' These people have likely never tried any weird projects themselves, or are just adopting the 'they're all going to laugh at you!' attitude to avoid actually having to help with design :p cheers, let me know if there is anything else I can answer.

I've been riding a 187 cut down to a 164 (check the videos thread) with a swallow-tail. I use Salomon SPX90 bindings and Burton Driver-X boots, so I'm on the stiffer side of softies. My tanker handles carving no problem, and every day as my technique gets a little better I find new ways to push the board and enjoy riding. If this is a really big purchase for you, I can shoot some video on hardboots so you can see with your own eyes -- or you can just take our words for it :p

Night-riding yesterday on a perfect piste, I was watching some soft-booters carve with soul and style, dropping their front shoulders into toeside, and bring them out for heelside carves. Wanting to imitate and innovate, I decided to copy the basic movement but add a swing to it, building up momentum in my shoulders before I swung my whole body, front first, into each turn. If you're having trouble imaging this, think of swinging your left hand, followed by your shoulder and hips, from above and behind your front shoulder, down across that shoulder, to diagonally in front of your chest for a toeside turn, and back to the same position but behind your shoulders (lower than the position you rotated into toeside from, because that position is already part of the toeside turn) for a heelside carve. This momentum build-up into each turn really helped me keep my weight over the nose of the board on both heel side and toe side. Coupled with weighting and unweighting the board by bending my knees up and down, I managed to get a board whose tail is a custom cut in what used to be the center-rear just behind the rear bending (see 'Rad-Air Custom Swallowtail' in videos) into jump turns, to carve more consistently and solidly on flat(ter) pistes, and finally to control the distance from my body and the piste on heel-side turns. I don't know if this is 'driving' the board, and maybe it looks really silly, because people kept stopping to look at me ride down the mountain, but for someone like me who has no coach save for the forums, it's a good start. :p It felt nice too.

Followup on the other thread -- thanks to all those who offered advice. I ended up grinding down the rear edges 6-7 cm on each side because the camber comes right down where the new tail section ends, both of which -- the grind down edges and the tail-edge camber -- make for a different ride than usual. Driver-X boots in Salomon SPX 90 bindings, mounted on a 164 cm rad-air swallowtail (custom cut). Comments & questions welcomed. Enjoy. <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzq_h3RrWRE&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzq_h3RrWRE&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

you may have already seen my unhappy 187 tanker, but until I broke it three days ago it was _rapture_ to ride in powder. I'll be replacing it with a 167 for the extra .7 cm, but really just because there are no 187s or 177s in Japan. Ah well, there's always next years model :)

Buell > good point. If the retuning isn't that expensive, then a floppy-fish could easily be cut into a swallowtail. Working in steps, I like it. I'm not sure how I would go about putting edge onto the cut parts, but today I'm going to get in touch with the gentem stick makers around here and see if they would be able/interested in helping; since they ride surfboards & make snowboards my hope is that they will have all the tools necessary. The tanker is a 187, by the way. cheers!

Thanks for the post, Strider. I'm guessing that a radical change of performance is because a swallow tail would involve cutting into the core? Would an amputation & square tail be less invasive and less... transformative?

Crash landings are never comfortable, and the tail of a tanker caught the brunt of this violence -- things will never be the same for the board. With a tail that's busted, how practical are some cuts to the rear and a new swallow-tail to bring out a whole new 'radical' in the board? Cheers Jamie

I have 31cm feet, so 65/65 is the lowest I can go without overhang. My boots are so large as to be comical. Moonboots.

Just some comments from a ~70kg rider... The 4WD is wonderful for riding all the nooks and crannies, fields and coillers, and packed piste on a mountain, but definitely not the best tool for any one area. Damper than a pure powder board, I like to use my 4WD when I'm going to be spending the morning in powder and the afternoon on piste. Regarding riding the 4WD in powder, it took me a week give-or-take a day to grow into the style that 65/65 bindings on this narrower board necessitate. But gliding down untouched white slopes on my 4WD does feel a lot... faster than a pure powder board, if not as manouverable. On piste the edge grip feels solid, though not completely stable. Although stability admittedly is influenced by snow quality and riding style. I haven't ridden any other carving boards, but there seems plenty of pop on this board, at least enough for a foot of air between carves. Enjoy your season, and let us know what you think of the board once after use! :)

Must be all the humidity in the Japanese air that makes the boards so strong... I had a sector 9 get hit by a truck, spin maybe 5 meters into the air, then get run over by a minivan... other than the broken nose, the board was alright. Hooray. As ironic as it may sound, I have a harder time believing that a vanguard would succomb to a car... really?

With boards as long as the vanguard power slides -- especially standing power slides -- become yet another trick to work on and enjoy. Once you've worn down your wheels a little, that is if you're using gumballs or other, larger, higher durometer wheels, mixing in surf-style cutbacks with hard, carved turns is quite easy. Then there's the pleasure of board-walking, the aesthetics of the board, and speaking of bamboo ... well, my board was run over by a commuter train, and other than several black spots and a little scratch the vanguard was fine. Of course, if you're going to having your board run over by trains frequently, you might want a lower flex to avoid denting Remember that you're not going to find snowboarding on a skateboard; there's a different pleasure unique to the concrete wave.

yea, that's me. Thanks for the comment. Hopefully next season I'll be working a little at Niseko Adventure Club and have some more opportunity to ride Hokkaido back country :-) were you up there this season?

yea, thanks a ton for posting this thread, and thanks a ton for answers. The same thought had been nagging me.

I find new ways to push my Prior 4WD every year, and Chris replaced it after I foolishly broke a brand new one two seasons ago. On the piste, in deep powder, on moguls, every time I step into the 4WD it's bliss. That said, I spoke with Sean too when I was deliberating the choice of board beneath my feet, and he seemed like a wonderful fellow. Burton makes some nice powder boards, and you can get them reallllly cheap off of auction sites because they are mass produced. And apparently they replace all their gear if the person in one of the threads on broken boards is to be believed.

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9WeuuCiE9Q"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9WeuuCiE9Q" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object> hard boots on a burton malolo, I wish I had some footage of the prior 4wd being ridden... ah well, next season.

word; I was out the other day and after some runs of 'the norm' changed my normal stance to what had been my crouching stance, and crouched even lower -- this, along with keeping my weight above the edge, helped so much I'm sure I got a lot better in just one day. Congrats to a new discoverey, it's always fun to get better at boarding eh!

I ride my catek plates with screws in the following spots: o = empty x = screw front plates: o o o x o o x o o o o o x o o back plates; o o o o o x o o x o o o o o x it's a pretty centered stance, which is what they recommend.

I got a chance to ride on nice groomers today after more hikes to the summit... 120 cm in 3 days, hooray :-) anyways, I was angulating all the way down, looks like the board doesn't matter for EC after all!

I've been in Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan for the past 5 days (3 of which have been blizzard conditions) riding a 2007 burton Malolo on 2004 Catek Olympic plates. Last Thursday I put on snow shoes and hiked from the base to the peak, taking only one ride down. On Friday I spent the whole day over on the Annupuri side and the 3 backcountry bowls, natural half-pipe formed by a ravine, and a mountain-sized portion of powder. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday the high winds kept the top lifts open and I played around in trees and powder, but as much powder as there was the limited access to other parts of the mountain resulted in what good snow there was being tracked out relatively fast, and I retired earlier finishing with some runs on packed freshies. On open powder, steep or gradual in gradient, the board whose name means 'flying fish' in Hawaiian kicks up not powder, but magic fairy dust. Or at least that's what it feels like riding this board on the deep steeps and the not so steep deeps. Turns -- short, jumpy turns or long, carved turns -- are effortless. Leaning back to pop a wheelie on the tail of the board is simple because of how pliable the tail is. The confidence this board inspires in turns makes bombing the runs without turning that much easier, and I quickly picked up more speed down the steep powder runs than I have ever felt comfortable with (in the powder) on an all-mountain board or carving board with plates. The malolo turns quick enough in powder that riding through the trees is a blast as well. Thanks to some of the advice I got on these forums about riding plates in steep, tight powder I was able to cruise down between thick copses of trees with no worries about the board being unwieldy or too long. Meanwhile, lower down the mountain, the powder has been packed down by everyone else while I'm busy riding back country, and it's hard-pack/ice conditions. On the former the edge hold isn't amazing, but it's decent and if you want to you can throw out extreme carves on this board. On ice though, I had to carve much wider turns because I couldn't keep the edge. Bombing the hardpack/ice steeps continues to be much more frightening on the Malolo than on an all-mountain/carving board. The flexibility and lightness that pay off so much in the back country and powder are bullied by the hard snow and the ride is very jittery. I'm looking forward to bringing out a prior 4WD after the powder that the blizzard brings us has been tracked out. As for jumps, I went off as many bumps and natural kickers (as well as some smaller hand-made kickers) as possible, and as long as I didn't mess up with the edges or back-forward balance, the board did a great job of landing. Which brings me to a conclusion of sorts. For powder and back country, the Malolo is an incredible board that will take _anywhere_ you want in comfort and with ease. On the groomers it holds an edge well, but on hard-pack, mush, and ice, I'd recommend a stiffer board that's a little more damp. enjoy the rest of the season.

No review is one of gear alone; the rider, bindings, boots, and conditions all must play some part in determining from what angle (no pun intended) the review comes and what "good" or "bad" -- though I hope to be a bit more precise -- mean to the person doing the riding. I've been snowboarding for about 6 years now: the first four in NY and Vermont, a total of maybe 12 days; two years ago was two firsts, Powder (Hokkaido, Japan), and Hardboots (Head 30cm). Last season I managed maybe 10 days, and this season I've already been 8 days and am hoping to spend the month of March in Hokkaido. In all my time snowboarding I've had two lessons -- my first day, and one hardboot lesson last year. Most technique I've picked up myself or from the community here when I've run into problems with that technique. I'm 70kg and as tall as about 176cm, with size 13US feet. Up until last Sunday, and excluding the first four years during which I rode a $250 oxygen board/boots/bindings package-deal, I had been in an monogamous relationship with a Prior 4WD (164). Two years ago in Hokkaido, during my second day on hard boots I managed to crash the original 4WD into a snowbank and now the board had three angles on it: my two bindings, and the 15 degree angle of the noise where it bent upward next to the front binding. Chris Prior is an amazing person though, and he sent me a brand-new board -- no charge, and I took care of international postage -- which I've been using since. The bindings I use are Catek '04-'05 olympics, and they usually sit at 63 (front) and 60 (back). As mentioned above, in those bindings sit Head Stratos Pro boots. On Ice, Crud, Groomers, and shallow (ankle-shin deep) Powder this setup worked well enough with me, but the thin waist and the relatively high angles made for difficulty in deep/steep powder and among the trees. So I picked up a Burton Malolo (162), and not wanting to forego the power & edge-control provided by hard boots and metal bindings, threw the new board together with the rest of the setup and took my first step into an open relationship with two boards. This, and that in the past month there have been a few posts about hardboots in powder, hardboots on soft boards, etc., led my fingers to these keys. I took the new Malolo (162) out to Oze Iwakura (Gunma, Japan) last Sunday and I've never been so happy in powder, albeit wet and sticky powder. (There is ~150cm base, but no new snow for a week) I hiked up from the top lift to just below the peak, and rode down through a spacious alpine forest which turned into thick trees before bottoming out in a coulior, a 10 minute hike from the bottom of the lift. The Malolo's effortless float was astonishing, and after riding the 4WD with 63/60 angles, the Malolo with its 54/54 angles felt telepathic; it seemed to know exaclty where I wanted to go. Even lower on the run, among tight trees (but no longer steep at all) navigation was not only simple but (and more importantly) fun on the Malolo. On piste the lightness of the board (compared with my Prior 4WD) combined with its width sent me higher up walls and off jumps than I've been before, and let me down more smoothly and comfortably than I could imagine capable of the 4WD. It felt either like I had taken weights off my feet, or added wings to the board. Carving took some getting used to: the Malolo has much more flex than the 4WD and the two of us had to work out some mutual jitters in the first few runs before I trusted the edge to hold a carve. These 'jitters' actually made me more confident by the end of the day because while the 4WD is damp enough that most of what the snow tells me through the edges gets muted, the Malolo was noisy but kept me informed as to what was going on, and that gave me more confidence in carves. At the end of the day I went for a laid-out toe-side carve, and the Malolo was right there to hold an edge. My heel-sides seemed to stick better too, because with detailed feedback from the Malolo's edge I wasn't afraid to lean over and brush the ground. That said, I'm curious whether this riding will give me more courage to push the 4WD. The only gripe I have is that the same lightness which lets the Malolo bounce between turns and leap off jumps, also puts the board on the receiving end of bullying by bumps when riding on the base on torn-up snow. Think small poly-urethane wheels on cratered pavement, downhill. While getting back onto the edge makes things slightly less jarring, after some runs on well-worn courses I was missing the dampness of the 4WD, even if that dampness does mean giving up some feel. Well, those are my thoughts after just one day of use. Fate willing, I'll have a chance to use the 4WD and Malolo side-by-side on the same trip, and gain a deeper understanding of both boards in more conditions. Until then, hope this review is useful for people thinking about hard-boots in places and on boards most people foresake them. cheers, Jamie

http://realtravel.com/asahidake-journals-j2648181.html March couldn't come fast enough ;)

Granted it was tough love, but a Prior 4WD handles well in all conditions with 63/60 angles and hard boots...a bit tough in steep trees though, but that means my technique isn't there yet eh! ... After riding a brand-new Malolo (same hard-boots, 54/54 angles) in wet powder and on piste, I now understand why people would want more than one board. Riding the Malolo on powder is one of the most fun things I've done on a snowboard in a while. It carves decently too, but maybe that had more to do with 54/54 angles than the board itself? Good luck with your two setups, whatever you end up going with!

I have size 13 US feet, (31 mondo) and I ride a prior 4WD with 63/60 angles (the lowest I can go without much overhang). With this setup I've painted the groomers, steeps, ice, mush, and even powder. Granted getting used to powder with those angles took a little bit of questioning around the board. I just (it was delivered not 20 minutes ago!) got a brand-new 162 Malolo off of Yahoo Japan Auctions for $360, so I'll let you know how this feels (if you can wait) with hard boots and plate bindings.