NateW

That video was very instructive. Those trails are about 45 minutes from my house, and I ride them almost every weekend in the summer - on a bike - so I know them well, and was thinking about working my way up to the same trails on the EUC. Suddenly I'm not sure that's in my best interest. With a bike, speed management is pretty easy because it's mostly dictated by gravity, plus a little bit of finesse for fine tuning. With an EUC, if you land with your weight forward, it "helpfully" speeds up to get itself back under you. I'md bet real money that's what led that guy to overshoot the jump at the end. He landed perfectly at 1:51 and then went into the stratosphere on the next jump. That kind of thing does not happen on a bike. If you land in the right spot on the previous jump, you're just about guaranteed to land in the right spot on the next jump - and that holds true for most of the jumps on most of the trails at that park. The EUC gave him a big dose of speed at just the wrong time. I wasn't sure he was going to walk away from that one. You and he may have just saved me a trip to a hospital. I'm going to tone it down a bit with the EUC. Me riding the trail shown in the first half of that video: https://www.facebook.com/nate.waddoups/videos/10222139695784103 Me riding the trail shown in the second half of that video: https://www.facebook.com/nate.waddoups/videos/10223713996860646

I have about 3 hours on it now and I'm almost comfortable on it... It's a lot like riding a bicycle in that I have a very limited intellectual understanding of the forces involved to steer it, but my brain stem is figuring it out anyway. No body armor yet, but helmet + wrist guards + knee pads + elbow pads for sure. No noteworthy crashes yet either though, so far I've been able to hop off and run, or maybe just have an unscheduled sit-down. Compare that to my OneWheel, which was intuitive to ride, but knocked me down hard a couple times in the first couple hours. They're great on smooth ground, but surprisingly small bumps and cracks turn into serious obstacles. Whereas the EUC just takes it all in stride. People are hitting huge jumps on these things now! It's pretty amazing.

Goals: https://www.instagram.com/p/CS9ipu2n-w_/

The first 15 minutes were just frustrating. Then I started using a fence as a crutch, and it still sucked but at least I didn't have to jump off every 5-10 seconds. Then it hit me - if keep my eyes up, looking forward, rather than looking down, I can actually do this. My hips kinda just started steering the wheel to keep it underneath me, and things progressed steadily from there. I'm still pretty wobbly at low speeds, and tight turns are a challenge, but I made it about a quarter mile out-and-back without embarrassing myself. I think I'm going to enjoy this.

Daily driver: NS Bikes, Soda Evo Air, from 2017 or 2018. 180mm travel, single-crown fork, 175mm dropper, Hope brakes... fun everywhere. 27.5" Downhill: Canfield, Jedi from 2011, 26" wheels (27.5 became a thing right after I bough it). I got all excited when my local mountain (Stevens Pass, WA) announced that they were going to do biking in the summer. They built 4 or 5 trails and stopped expanding. One of them is really fun, but after one day riding that trail all day long... meh. So I don't actually do much downhill. But, this much travel on nicely groomed trails feels a lot like riding powder, and it's just generally a fun change of pace, so I haven't given it up. Also: Morpheus Skyla slopestyle bike. I bought this where there was an indoor dirt-jump bike park not too far away. It closed. But a short-travel bike is a nice crutch for trails where I still struggle to clear the jumps on my other bikes, and it's generally a fun change of pace, so I haven't given this up either. I rode bikes a lot as a kid, and rediscovered them around 2009 or so when a new bike park opened up near me (Duthie Hill, WA) with a huge range of jump sizes to choose from. I started small and worked my way up year after year. It's not as fun as snowboarding but it's very very close. Last weekend there were a couple of people at the park taking pictures (the main man of Sound Photography and an intern), so I went out and did my best to look stylish... which is really not my forte, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.

I've been thinking about adding something to help keep my feet in place, but at this point, anything that might interfere with an unscheduled dismount just makes me too uncomfortable. The much-delayed electric unicycle actually got here a couple days ago, so now I have two deadly contraptions to play with! The initial learning curve on the EUC is completely different. With the OneWheel I basically just got on and went - speed control is a no brainer, and after some experimenting to figure out the "sidecut radius" I was cruising around pretty comfortably. With the EUC I spent the first 30 minutes traveling 1-3 feet and stepping off. Made it 15 feet once and it felt like an achievement. I think I need to find a wall to use like training wheels. Lateral balance requires steering which requires a bit of forward motion, and motion is hard to pick up when you have no lateral balance... Gonna take another stab at it tomorrow. Pedal unicycles were on my short-list for a long time, and I still think I should get one eventually. I've always been mediocre at riding wheelies on my bikes, and I think a unicycle would help me get (force me to get) much more comfortable and confident with fore-aft balance and steering.

I've been kinda wanting one since they came out... Started looking into it this summer, decided to get a electric unicycle instead. But the one I want (King Song S22) is still at least a month away. Figured I'd get a OneWheel to keep me occupied until it gets here. Found a used one locally at a fair price Friday, bought it Saturday. Been cruising around the neighborhood 2 or 3 miles a day ever since. The self-balancing part is MAGICAL. Throttle and brake is almost like it's just reading my mind. The carving is nice within a pretty narrow range, but I keep feeling like I'm right on the verge of falling to the inside. I kinda miss having bindings to help me lean into the turns... but then again, after a few degrees of "edge angle" it gets weirdly nonlinear anyway. But, for lazy S turns down the street it's quite nice. I'm glad I tried it, but not certain I'm going to stick with it. This is definitely it's own thing. The almost-great but also oddly limited carving feel kinda makes me want to get an electric skateboard, just to be able to lean in harder and pull more Gs. I've already ordered a different tire (TFL Enduro) just to see how that affects the turn feel. That might be what makes me commit to it or pass it on.

Well it needs to be FISS, obviously. And I look forward to the upcoming arguments about whether it's "...de ski et snowboard" or "...de snowboard et ski." I mean our S clearly belongs ahead of their S.

On a related note, I finished Stephenson's Seven Eves a couple weeks ago and it was great. It is "hard" science fiction, where everything seems compatible with known physics and technology that's on the horizon. At times, he may have worked a little too hard to explain the engineering behind some of his ideas, whereas other hard SF writers would move that kind of thing into an appendix. Still a good book though. Then I read Parable Of The Sower by Octavia Butler. It paints a bleak picture of life after an extended period of drought in the US. Yikes. Very dark. Not a complex plot, more like just an adventure that sets the scene for the sequels - which I will probably read, but I needed a change of pace for a while. So I read Three Body Problem, by Liu Cixin. It was fun to read a book that takes a lot of context from Chinese culture. Some of the alien technology seemed a bit fantastical, but it made for a good story. I bought the rest of the books in the series and they're near the top of the stack. I don't normally read books at that rate, but it was nice to binge.

Never tried one, but I'm curious. Are you interested in selling yours?

My last two Doneks have been based on the Axxess, but narrower (19cm rather than 21). I'm sure they'd be happy to make one wider, though. And they'll work with you on stiffness - mine are super stiff. I love the fact that customer builders like Donek exist... no more searching product lines for the specs I want, no more compromises. Just choose, order, and ride.

I could go up or down a little on the SCR. The stiffer the better. I'm mostly interested in boards with unconventional profiles - early-rise noses and tails, rocker / no camber, etc.

Two weeks ago I got off the lift, slid past a woman from the previous chair, stepped in, and had gone about 2 more feet when she said, very loudly, "what the ****?" I can't be 100% that my setup was actually the **** in question, but I have no idea what else it could have been. Also, last week I saw a guy on an actual monoski.

I used their "Warm" stuff last Sunday (air temp around 40F, and sunny) and yesterday (around 45F, part sun). Overall it seems like good stuff. Goes on quickly and easily, and I'm 99% sure it lasts more than a full day. Last week, by around 2pm I could feel some slowness here and there, and wasn't sure whether the snow was getting slow or the treatment was wearing off. It was still fast almost everywhere, I just felt some occasional brief moments of drag. Yesterday applied some at the start of the day, and re-applied at lunch time and still noticed some slowness in the afternoon, so I am pretty sure the problem is the snow getting wet, not the treatment wearing off. Next weekend is the last day of the season. I'll apply it in the morning and won't bother re-applying over lunch. I look forward to trying their normal-temp stuff next season.

Thanks, I just ordered their combo package. Might not get a chance to test it this season, but I certainly will next season.

I think it might help to get your hips rotated more forward, and reaching forward with you right hand will help pull your lower body in that direction.

The rear binding on the Madd looks like it'll hit the snow if you get leaned in too far. The Kessler 170 GS would be my pick for getting low. I have their 174 and it's a lot of fun but it also needs a lot of speed to get leaned way in.

That gentle slope might be the only thing holding you back from getting lower. The further you want to lean in, the faster you need to be going. The steeper the slope is, the easier it is to get that speed. At my home hill, the best runs for hip-dragging carves are basically the steepest runs that get groomed. There's also an relationship between speed and sidecut radius. For me, the sweet spot is around 13m SCR. Longer sidecuts are still fun, but the necessary speed gets outside my comfort zone; shorter sidecuts allow for less speed but the turn radius gets awkwardly tight with a 10m SCR.

All good advice. FWIW, I'm 6'0" and I like my stance in the 20-21" range. I try to center my stance on the center of the edge to start with, and move it bit by bit based on which leg gets tired first when I'm carving groomed stuff. E.g. if my front leg gets tired first, it's because I'm leaning forward, so I'll move the stance forward a little to fix that. Most boards have some set-back built into the insert positions, so by bindings tend to end up somewhat forward relative to the centers of the insert hole patterns. Stance angles are the lowest I can get them without dragging toes or heels, same as other folks said earlier. 50ish sounds like a good place to start with that setup. I like 5 degrees more on my front foot but everyone's preferences vary. Hard boot riders are scarce these days, but some of us still think it's well worth the trouble and expense.

I couldn't read Quicksilver either. I made it about a quarter of the way in, and gave up. I liked where the plot was going, but the writing style was unbearable. There were roughly 1,694 adjectives per noteworthy plot point, and it was just too much to slog though. I'd still recommend trying any of his other books. You would never guess that the same guy wrote them. Gibson's Neuromancer and Stephenson's Snow Crash were icons of the cyberpunk genre back in the day. I liked Neuromancer, but not enough to read more from Gibson. Snow Crash was great though, and I've been a fan of Stephenson ever since. ...except for Quicksilver and its sequels. On one hand, kudos to him for working in a completely unrelated genre, and with a completely different writing style. And lots of people love the trilogy. On the other hand, I am absolutely not one of those people.

Factfulness, by Hans Rosling It's just full of interesting insights on culture and economics. Anathem, by Neal Stephenson. He's been mentioned before in this thread, and this book is particularly amazing. I just picked up his Seveneves a few days ago, and I'm not far in yet but it's off to a great start.

Are there any wax alternatives that actually work? The only one I've ever tried was Zardoz NotWax about 20 years ago. It was amazingly fast on wet snow, but it only lasted for a run or two. But that was 20 years ago... Are there newer ones that last as long as hot wax job? Or longer? Are they as fast?

That's beautiful.

I ran hard boots on an AM softboot board for a season or two before I started going narrower. Angles were 45/30 if I remember right. It worked fine, but I feel like everything got better as I went to progressively skinnier boards and higher angles. I had only ever seen people use hard boots for racing, and I only wanted to ride jumps and moguls, so I figured I'd go narrower until I started losing versatility. Waist width went from 25cm, 23cm, 21cm, 19cm, and it just felt better each time. Then I tried 17cm and found that was too narrow. Been riding 19cm waist boards ever since.

I rode a lift with a guy who was using Burton' new step-in bindings and he was really happy with them. Personally, I have been riding in hard boots exclusively since the mid-90s, all over the mountain, mostly in the terrain park (jumps, not jibs). If I was going to be riding with a low-speed group I might opt for something easier to maneuver at low speeds - softer flex, shorter sidecut radius (maybe 10m). On a related note... this year I got a board that is flat between the between the bindings (no camber) with an early rise tip and tail, and was surprised how much more comfortable it is at low speeds, like the high-traffic areas near the lift lines. It has a 13m sidecut, so it's still plenty fun at high speeds, so overall it was a big win for versatility.