NateW

I enjoyed it too!

At Stevens, one of the parks where the started charging, they have to pay staff to monitor the entrance. So the park is less crowded and everybody in there is there for a purpose, staying out of each others' way. It also coincided with a step up in the quality of the jumps. At Snoqualmie, the jumps get steadily worse, nobody checks for park passes, clueless people stand on/behind the kickers just as much as ever, etc. The improvements in Stevens' park was a factor in me getting a season pass at Stevens for this season, after almost 15 years of getting season passes at Snoqualmie. Having to sit through a video and pay $5 is not an improvement in itself of course, but if it means they can pay gatekeepers and maintain a better park, then so be it.

I take them out to try every time I come home from riding. With Raichles its trivial to get the liners out, UPZs take some wrestling. But as others have noted there's always water and/or snow in there. They get stinky enough as it is, I'm sure they'd reek more and faster otherwise.

It always seemed like a bad idea, but a couple years ago I got this free Zune... I really like it. I keep the volume low enough to have a conversation in the lift line / on the lift without turning it down, and it makes the lift ride less boring and more enjoyable. I can barely hear it when I'm riding but it's there when I stop or slow down. When the newer/smaller/solid-state Zunes came out I bought one for this reason alone.

Stevens and Snoqualmie both had this policy last year too. At Stevens the enforcement is rigorous but the class is basically huck/jib porn with voiceovers telling you to be careful. The message was lost and the kids just oohed and ahhed at the riding. Snoqualmie didn't enforce their pass policy (there were signs, but I never saw anyone actually checking), but ironically their class was a lot better. The video was actually instructional, and the presenter would pause it periodically to elaborate or quiz the audience or whatever. People seemed to pay attention. The park at Stevens was definitely safer for it though. Just weeding out the clueless people (who were only there to look around, or by mistake) made a big difference. I only went to Snoqualmie a few times last season but it didn't seem any different than previous years.

UPZs have less volume around the ankle and lower calf, too. I have Raichle 324s and UPZs from last year, both in size 27, and the UPZs fit my feet better even though they've had less work done to them. Boot fitters have commented that my ankles are scrawny. :)

Just go out and riiiide, maaan. Seriously though, in the little bit of experimenting I've done in this area (TD2s with and without suspension kit, plus UPZ boots that sit a little higher than my old Raichle boots), it's been irrelevant.

I'm another big fan of Intec, I agree with everything written above. I have to scrape snow off my heel or off my binding sometimes, but no more often than when I was using conventional bindings. (I have two sets of Fin-tec heels on backorder right now. Can't wait.)

Well, ****. I remember that ad. I was soooo close to buying that board. But no, I decided to pass because I didn't like the graphics.

For years, I didn't. I just did a base bevel instead. But late last season I realized two things: * My F2 183 feels amazingly neutral when riding with the base flat. * I like that a lot. * (Here's the shocker) The board was detuned. * It's still my favorite board for high speed carving on uncrowded days. I took it in 3-4 years ago, shortly after I bought it, and asked for a base bevel. I was delighted with the results... Turns out the shop detuned it at the same time. All this time, I thought it was just the bevel that made it so neutral. That board is one of the best-carving boards I've tried, and after not riding it for a long time (due to having so much fun on my new Donek AX (1/1 bevel, no detuning)), I realized that I really, really like the way my F2 feels when it's not on edge. So I took a file to my AX. Got one day on it, filed a little more, and the season ended. Will be paying very close attention to this when the lifts open for this season. I have a strong suspicion that the first time I took a board in and asked for a base bevel, it also got detuned. I may have been on the "don't bother detuning" bandwagon for a long time for the wrong reason. :lol:

And he sold all his regular waterskis and wakeboards after that because it worked SO well. :lol:

Nice work JK. All three of those are hot.

^ That was a joke, by the way. Don't anybody get the wrong idea. :)

Post reported, scumbag. This site is supposed to be family-friendly.

Well put. I suspect that the rockered boards are popular in the park because they make spinning/buttering tricks easier. The wake/surf analogies don't work for me. Those (and waterskis too) "carve" because when the base of the board is submerged the rocker (plus some trig) defines the carve radius. Snowboards on hardpack carve because the sidecut (plus some trig) defines the carve radius. I suspect that a cambered and sidecutted surfboard would suck. Never tried it, of course, but that's my guess. A reverse-cambered and reverse-sidecutted snowboard would probably be fun in powder (where you could submerge it and carve like a wakeboard) but on hardpack I'm guessing it would work about as well as a cambered and sidecutted surftboard. Which is to say, I'm guessing it would suck.

I'm sure this will sound like heresy to plenty of people, but so be it: I think it's one of the least significant variables in snowboard design. I've ridden a few boards to the point where they had no camber left. (I suspect that moguls are really effective at killing camber.) Each time, I was surprised when I noticed they had no camber, because they still rode well.

Yeah! http://flickr.com/photos/jimmy-p/341493140/ http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1043/525440660_03f4332653.jpg?v=0 http://flickr.com/photos/mashuga/61689095/ http://flickr.com/photos/colourvoid/2964915011/ http://flickr.com/photos/zen/3972464/ http://flickr.com/search/?s=int&q=%22metal+shavings%22&m=text

I like the adjustability of the Cateks but they do require more preventative (and occasionally postventative) maintenance. It's a reasonable price to pay for the adjustability. If you like to try different cant/lift angles periodically, or would like to experiment to figure out what you want, then Cateks are for you. If you know exactly what you want, and/or hate making adjustments, get Bombers. My primary board has Bombers, but I own Cateks too and have no regrets about buying them.

Yeah... I'd like to think that Bomber is in the clear now.

http://webaccess.sftc.org/Scripts/Magic94/mgrqispi94.dll?APPNAME=IJS&PRGNAME=ROA22&ARGUMENTS=-ACGC05443225 Champagne time? Or were the settlement terms painful? I'd like to think that Joel simply demanded that Bomber stop carrying F2 heels and make something better, but perhaps that's optimistic of me...

What an awesome proposal. Almost makes me wish I wasn't so happy with my day job. Best of luck, Adi!

Of course. So why bother keeping the measurements secret? Already have too much business, don't want more? :)

The secrecy is silly. If Virus published specs I would have bought one by now. :p Seriously. There's just no way I'll ever buy a board without knowing the sidecut radius. Or, for boards with special shapes, the tip/waist/tail widths, so I can deduce the equivalent SCR. It has too huge an impact on the way the board rides. I'm always puzzled when manufacturers won't release specs. It definitely deters customers like me (who want to know what they're buying) and it does nothing to deter competitors, who, if they were really interested, could just buy one, measure it, and re-sell it. I'm faced with the same thing for some car parts right now too. At least it makes the buying decision easier, since it disqualifies a couple of the options right away.

Wait. What?

I use Intec heels, held in with T-nuts. I left the stock screws on the toe piece as I don't believe there's much stress up there with the Intec setup. And if they do let go (which, if it was going to happen, would have happened by now), the heel piece will still hold the boot in.