mrjamie

http://homepage.mac.com/mrjamie/.Movies/hardboot.mov it's a little big (half a meg) but anyone with quicktime should be able to see it now :-) enjoy!

Echo Valley is where I rode. Gray and BC Stream certainly do seem to be common; at the end of the first day several guys were carrying 2 gray boards each o.O. I didn't get into any long conversations this time, but there was a lot of waving and smiling exchanged ;).

I just got back from a weekend in southern Nagano, and wow, were there ever a lot of hardbooters. Apparently the fame of a certain Japanese hard-boot athlete who trained locally has resulted in nearly as many alpine riders as freestyle riders, at least through the early morning. On saturday there must have been at least 30 different hardbooters riding the mountain, and there was never a time on a lift or a course where a hard booter wasn't riding within view. Here's a short movie I took on my phone while waiting in a lift; it's a bit poor quality wise, but if you can't tell there are two hard booters in front of me, two hard booters in front of them, two hard booters behind me, and two hard booters behind them. That's 9 hard booters(including me) in a row, for those of you with problems counting ;) Also, this wasn't a special festival or anything...just a regular weekend! Also took a picture of a nice extreme-carved heelside trail ;) Please let me know if you can't view the .amc format, I'll convert it to quicktime and re-upload. hardboot.zip

When I'm out in powder or on the lift I turn up the volume a little. I listen to the iPod on trails with lots of people too, though this is at my own descretion and should I get hit it's my fault I suppose. The other day a lady talked to the school I'm attending in Japan, saying that she had almost hit me skateboarding because I didn't hear her honking her horn at me. Kind of weird considering I skated in NYC and Boston for a year each while listening to my iPod and was always able to hear honks -- but you never know. It's that one time that you don't hear it that gets you hit, right? Or so they say. I guess my overall opinion of the iPod (or any mp3 player) would be, it makes the lifts go faster, but when you're riding a powder run you have so much fun you don't even notice the music, and I can't really reccommend listening on piste with a clean conscience. That said, I don't not-reccomennd it ;). Just wear your helmets. I don't have one yet, but sometime soon. The order will probably come when I'm laying in the hospital wishing I could still feel my body from the neck down. They say experience is the best teacher. So long as you keep your head about you and ride safe you probably won't hit anyone or be hit, regardless of whether or not you're listening to music. Probability is a son-of-a-bitch, huh. cheers Jamie

huh. I guess alpine snowboarding, like many things in life, becomes much more scary the more you think about it. Yay!

Oh boy, there's a syndrome now! Well, to be honest do try an EC turn every now and again ;)

So, I e-mailed Catek. Jeff Caron is a wonderful guy and has agreed to ship me two (!) new toe bails, a new hex key, and 8 block screws! What a great company :-). I suppose I'll play with my angles some -- try some steeper setups :)

I did some thinking, and realized this probably happens when I go to initiate heelside turn -- I twist my knees a little to the heelside, and it is probably at that point that the foot twists as well. I took a lesson last weekend and it was mentioned to me that twisting your knees a little to get the board on edge is a good thing to do. Is this incorrect, or do I need to play with lift/cant/angles (I use neither lift nor cant at the moment) until the binding stops bending into weird shapes? Or should I work the binding into a pretzel and be happy with that? cheers, Jamie

Yea, I have actually bent them back several times before getting back onto lifts. Whether or not this is a good thing to do... The weld looks like it has been under tremendous pressure, which is only normal I suppose, but does look a bit more worked than the front-foot weld. Thanks, I'll try to pay more attention to what my feet are doing next time I head out. As for my angles, they're a little steep -- 57º and 54º -- but that's the lowest I can set them without boot overhang. Darn 31cm feet. ;) Just from riding, of this I am sure :) ---- Thanks everybody for the comments -- I've sent Catek a mail. Thanks again, Jamie

I noticed the other day that the binding I've been using for my rear foot is quite literally bent out of shape. Was wondering if this is usual, or I should be worried about the binding snapping any time soon? cheers, Jamie p.s. bindings are a year old this season.

I have a friend who's korean, and he snowboards. I'll ask him some spots. Small mountains though...?

some travel magazine offering trips to whistler.

hah!

I too have a pair, size 31.5 mondo, 13 US. I would probably fit best in 12.5 us, but anyways! These are my first (and only) hard boots, and after one season (that only lasted a week. I broke my prior 4wd on it's 5th day of use, my first day in hokkaido, so I spent the rest of my trip there enjoying the lovely powder snow that falls in feet every day) I can't really judge whether or not I want more flexible boots or not -- what are the main differences between the boots before and after the mods? Thanks a ton, Jamie

june babies turn into awesome people, trust me on this one. :)

congratulations! wonderful! a new lady rider!

50 Cent vs. The Jungle Book (mashed by dvda) If you're not digging the song, listen until the chorus.

Well it's been about 5 years -- I'm sure there are a lot of us who would appreciate a new comparison done by you, Jack. :-) Also, you might want to throw in a long longboard with nice trucks and big, soft wheels. Something 55 inches or longer. You may be surprised how much you can simulate the push/pull on a regular board if the board is long enough and the wheels/trucks are decent.

Let me know if you get a chance to try out the board. I had been thinking of purchasing, but I'd like to read a review by some carvers first. Thanks!

maybe you just don't know how to snowboard well! haha ;) we all have our own ideas as to what makes which better, eh.

I had been skating for about half a year and then I found out about extreme carving and bought myself a prior 4wd, catek bindings, and head stratos pro boots. Now that the season is (more-or-less) over I'm back to skating. I recently picked up a new 55" board and outfitted her with randal 180 trucks (also a .5 inch spacer between the board and trucks) and gumball (abec11) wheels. I'll try to get some videos this weekend so I can show you what I ride like, but I try to practice carving as much as possible. I don't use my ankles very much; instead I push or pull the board with my legs to get the deeper carves. Definitely a little scary on moderately steep to very steep hills because even if you're not going too fast the wheels tend to skid more than I would like. If you can get used to that though, and have a nice pair of gloves, you can really throw out some nice looking carves.

good sex is fun but i'd take a week of snowboarding over a day of good sex. of course I just wanted to bump this thread because this is a very important topic that deserves lots of discussion !

I just got a sector 9 supercruiser and a sector 9 luke nosewalker with some randall 180 trucks for each board. Looking forward to longboarding, but I am going to rent (for testing purposes) a tierney once they are available (next month I hear) again to rent in Japan. I really like the idea of learning yet another way of carving, and the improvement in balance isn't a bad deal either! jamie

I'll add my voice, since a while ago I started looking for the whole carving-simulator shebang. I had been longboarding for a while, actually before I started freecarving -- I currently own a prior 4wd (169), catek olympic pro bindings, and head strattus pro boots -- I had been longboarding for about half a year. I originally bought a sector 9 and while I'm very pleased with both how my supercruiser carves and how it bombs hills, the fact that wheels slide on concrete is now impressed upon me. In other words, I can carve my board _real_ hard at low speeds but once I start going I can't carve without at least doing a standing slide, forget about the coleman slides I accidentally go into as I lay down and try to carve a hard turn once I'm no longer at a slow speed. Then I bought (about 2 months ago) a freebord. I can verify what everyone else has said: hard to learn, not much reward. Doing 360s downhill is fun, but there's not much value to this board otherwise. The vanguard sounds interesting, but again I wonder if I'll just run into the same problem I have now with my sector 9: carving is easy so long as you don't pass the speed where the wheels no longer want to grip the road and would prefer a slide. That said, I'm currently considering several boards: the tierney a carveboard a flexboard (http://www.flexboardz.com/)

Interesting indeed. How does the pocket pistol board perform at higher speeds? Any wobble? Also, from the videos it looks like this certainly is a slalom board; how does it handle wider, more drawn out carves?