NateW

That's me. I'm just about done with the really big jumps though, I broke some ribs mountain biking last summer and that changed my perspective a bit. I haven't been on this forum much in the last few years but now I'm wishing I had checked in, it would be fun to meet up with some hard booters.

I can bring a board and bindings for anyone to try out at Stevens Pass. You just need boots with Intec heels. Of course, the season is over now... I really need to check in more often.

I just bought a UPM board. Anybody got a UPM plate they want to part with? I'm mostly interested in Apex and Bomber Boiler plates, but might consider others. Thanks!

Lift operator, last week: "Cool, that's gotta be a much better way to put bindings on a monoski." Different lift operator, last Wednesday: "Whoah, that's not a monoski, that's a monoboard!" Random guy on lift, yesterday: "Can I ask you some questions? I've only seen those in slalom racing." That blew my mind. I mean, I was so completely blown away I didn't realize I should have told him how awesome and rare it is for someone to actually recognize a race board.

Walker, I can hardly wait to do business with you. Thanks for stepping up!

This is my front binding. I did a 180, under-rotated, landed on my toe edge at about 90 degrees, skidded to a stop still at 90 degrees on my toe edge, and while skidding noticed that my front foot wasn't really attached to the board. It was not a particularly hard impact so I'm guessing that the crack started on a hard landing earlier in the day and just finally let go during that 180. The heel piece is removed to show the crack better, but it's an Intec TD3.

Do you have any interest in selling something like that? I think 3 bolts would be enough, but like the idea of those shorter slots so that there's more meat between the slots. Mostly I just love the idea of a thicker plate though. I broke a TD3 plate last month.

My main board is a Donek with a decambered nose and tail, and it's my favorite board ever. It responds to subtle amounts of edge pressure. Between the bindings, the edge works like (I believe) an edge should work. Bataleon's diagram seems to show a flat cross-section between the bindings (flat, as viewed from the nose or tail), but it really did not feel that way. It felt like the edges between the bindings were completely off the snow - maybe only by a millimeter or two, but still... putting weight on my toes or heels didn't do anything until I lifted the other side of the board. Honestly it was a fun challenge. For one day. But not two. :-)

Is there anything in the market anymore with a third strap? Or do you just have to buy stiff boots if you want more support?

I have been riding hard boots exclusively for about 20 years. Except for one day (one!) in a softboot setup, about a decade ago, because I was wondering if Flow bindings would make me hate soft boots any less. (Nope, still hated soft boots.) But, since another decade has passed, another experiment was in order... Last Sunday I rented soft boots and borrowed a friend's board and bindings. I knew Bataleon sounded familiar for some reason, but couldn't remember why. And I knew it was going to take some adjustment, but OMG. WTF. We rode from the lodge to the base of a lift, he said "what do you think" and I said "the edges don't work." And he said something about "Triple Base" and I remembered why Bataleon sounded familiar... https://www.bataleon.com/3bt <=== That is some weird stuff right there. I knew soft boots would require big changes, and I knew the board would be softer too, and I knew the edges wouldn't grab the snow like they do on a nice stiff alpine board... But it hadn't occurred to me that the board would ride like a lunch tray until the edge angle was up to 2-3 degrees or so. Maybe it was less but it really felt like 5 degrees. I'd put some pressure on my heels to make a subtle correction, and... nothing... nothing happened until I lifted up my toes. So vague. So sloppy. So slippery. Strange as that was, it also was actually kind of fun. Modern soft boot/binding stuff actually doesn't suck. I had a good connection to the board, my boots didn't slide forward in the bindings, my heels stayed down in the boots, and nothing broke! And learning to cruise around on a lunch tray was actually kind of fun. But I don't think you could possibly make a snowboard more different from an alpine board. I might do soft boots again, in much less than a decade, but f**k that Triple Base noise. Never doing that again. Just thought I'd share.

Plan A: Donek Freecarve 175 Basically, a different builder's answer to the same question. Just to see how they differ. Plan B: Another board from Coiler, based on the one you have, but change one parameter. Maybe go down to 165cm for a little more low-speed maneuverability - but keep the same sidecut radius, so the high speed handling doesn't change much. You'll find out how much or how little board length really matters to you. Or maybe go longer instead. Or maybe keep the length the same, but add or subtract 10% from the sidecut radius. Do you want to carve faster? Longer sidecut. Do you want to carve at lower speeds? Shorter sidecut. Maybe keep both of those the same, but change the width 2cm. Do you want to try higher stance angles? Or lower? Maybe to 10% stiffer. Or softer. Basically, change just one thing, to really experience firsthand how that particular parameter affects how the board behaves, and how that changes the fun factor for you. I kinda did this, but not actually that scientifically - sometimes changed a couple things at a time, and half the time I went with used boards that were only kinda similar-ish to what I already had. But I found my happy place. My last board had different camber but otherwise identical specs to the one before it... which was a 2cm narrower version of the one before it... which a 13m-sidecut version of the one before it.

My first snowboard was a K2 Gyrator. Around 1988 or maybe 1989. It was one of the first boards to be built like a ski - proper edges, no turn fin, no swallow tail. They make a modern board under the same name now, or did a year or two ago. Watching the US Open slopestyle comp this year.... that name was really ahead of its time.

I always bring my 172 / 19cm / 13m Axxess because it is my favorite thing ever. Early and late in the season I'll also bring a 182 / 21 / 11.5 (stock shape) Axxess because I don't really care if i hit a rock with it. I'll also bring this one on heavy pow days because the stance is set back a ways. Mid-season, mid-week, if there's a chance of great snow I bring a 183 / 19 / 15m F2 Speedster instead of the 182 Axxess. For about one day, about every other season, I'll bring a pair of skis, just to remind myself that I still don't miss skiing.

I thought it meant dulling.

I had a similar break a few year ago, but in my case one of the screws was obviously loose. I figure the break was just a side-effect of the flex that the loose screw made possible, so I just check those screws more often now. SunSurfer, where were the screws installed when the break happened? I'm guessing they were right where the cracks formed, but that's just a guess... I've always wondered whether it's better to try to put one screw right at the heel piece (as close as possible), or have it supported by one screw on either side (twice as many!).

When I posted this thread, I was riding a custom Donek that was based on the Axxess 172, but with a 19cm waist and a 13m sidecut, and really stiff. The camber was basically the same as every other board from the 90s / 2000s. I loved it, but all the talk on this forum about decambered profiles was making me wonder... A couple years later I broke it, and bought another sort-of-Axxess, with all of the same dimensions except that the camber was borrowed from Donek's metal race boards (still regular wood/glass construction). I love this one even more. It rides the same, still carves great, the only difference is that (despite no detuning...) it feels completely stable and predictable when the base is flat. I don't do that very often, but I do it on jumps, and the new board gave me the confidence to hit some bigger ones.

Approximately seven years later, I am here to answer my own question. Should have answered long ago but I'd forgotten about this thread. Hooray for the "threads I've posted in" feature. :) I'm riding a Donek AX with a slightly decambered profile - cambered, but with flat sections just inside of the tip and tail, so that when standing on the center, the tip and tail lift up just a hair. It has not been detuned at all, and it feels perfectly stable and neutral when riding with the base flat. Even more so than the detuned regular-camber AX that I was riding before this. It feels the same in every other respect, caves the same, transitions the same, just way more stable when riding with the base flat, despite having a sharp edge all the way around. I'm pretty sure the edge bevel is 0/1 but I wouldn't stake my life on it. Might be 1/1 or 1/2 (base/side).

Coming from Raichle, the UPZ ramp angle looked pretty weird to me, too. In practice, all I noticed was that they're wider around the front of my foot, and the chronic ache that I couldn't track down just went away. I did however switch from +3 to +6 cant under my front foot at some point. I think that was a year or two after switching boots. Still running +6 on my back foot, no plan to change that or anything else.

> What is the point of extreme carving? Fun.

Most of the time, I lean in and the board carves and we make a turn together. But if I'm going fast enough, and the slope is steep enough, it feels more like falling in, and trusting that the board will arc around and come under me just in time to catch me and get me upright again. (And, fortunately, it almost always does.) In theory I still think that there ought to be a gradual progression between those two approaches, but in practice... it seems pretty binary. Either/or. Maybe it's a quirk of how I ride or where I ride. Maybe it's all in my head. I don't think there's much difference in how I move, other than applying the same technique to a greater degree, but there's definitely a difference in how I think about it, plan for it, commit to it, and experience it. So I wonder if you're running into something similar.

Fin, for making bindings that DON'T EVER BREAK. Unless you let a screw back out on its own, because you suck at maintenance, but I'll own that mistake. Angie and Jim for keeping the supply flowing. Sean, for making boards that last me THREE WHOLE YEARS. Often longer! Seriously, this is an achievement. Also, the mild un-camber on my current board makes it handle beautifully when pointing straight down with the base flat on the snow. Which gave me the extra confidence I needed to hit bigger jumps. Which is why I'm so sore right now, and snowshoeing this weekend instead of snowboarding, but I'll own that mistake too. Jack, for setting me straight in an argument about sidecut many years ago. Like 2001 or something. Patrice (or maybe it was Jacques?) for answering "13m" what I asked what sidecut radius he used, after I got inspired by their videos years ago. (Probably 2002ish?) I tried it for my next board it felt just right. Have tried 11.5 and 15 since then, but I'm on my third 13m board now. It's the sweet spot for me, too. The crew at Stevens Pass in WA for building nice jumps, and lots of them, and carveable groomers between them. And everybody else here, even if I haven't been around much in the last several years. It's one of the most helpful communities I've been fortunate to be part of.

I rented two or three times during the 88/89 winter, so I think that's the real start for me. Not sure of the brand... maybe Snowtech? Whatever the name was, they disappeared shortly afterward. My parents bought me a K2 Gyrator not long afterward, I'm pretty sure that was in the 89/90 season. I'd been skiing and skateboarding since about 1982 (the 4th grade) and so had most of my friends, so the learning curve was tiny, just one or two days on snow until we were all competent on groomed runs and looking for challenges off-piste. I'll always be grateful to my parents for paving the way for me back then. First with ski lessons starting in 4th grade, and eventually just ski bus programs, all the way through high school. And of course my first snowboard/boots/bindings. Snow has brought me all kinds of fun every winter ever since. There were a couple years in college where I only went once or twice, but otherwise it's been 10 full days per season at least, usually 20-25, occasionally 30. So now I try to get all of my friends to put their kids into ski and snowboard schools, buy or rent gear, etc. It's not cheap but it's the ticket to a life-long joy. After college I bought hard boots, first on a freeride board (45/30 stance angles) but then slowly went progressively narrower and steeper. And expensiver. :-) Never had any interest in racing, I kept thinking I didn't want to go fully "alpine" because it wouldn't be versatile enough if it got too narrow and too steep... a totally unfounded fear. So only about 10 years with 21cm-and-narrower / 50-degrees-and-more. I also built a snowboard in shop class in 85, plus or minus a year. Back then, the state-of-the-art was turn fins near the back binding. The other kids (this was 7th or 8th grade) thought I was nuts for putting metal edges from tip to tail and grinding them flush with the base. "They don't stick out, what's the point?" or "They're too long, you'll never turn!" And the edges were made of angle iron, so flex... what flex? :) But I knew how skis worked so I thought turn fins were a terrible idea and I set out to show everybody. Except... bindings. I used eye-screws, shoelaces, and Sorels. The eye screws all pulled out after a few "runs" down an 8 foot tall hill about a block from my parents' place. I made one actual turn. And then I had no board, no budget, no driver's license, so that was the end of that. High school was when I really started. And thankfully, while turn fins weren't quite extinct yet, metal edges were starting to catch on.

Same specs as the one I ordered back in 2009, which sadly is on its deathbed now... 172cm long 19cm waist 13m sidecut quite stiff ...but this time with a modern camber profile since I've been curious about that for quite a while. And fewer inserts because 5 years later I'm pretty sure I know exactly where I want my feet to be. :)

So, two years later... And one surgery, and countless hours of physical therapy... Elbow dislocation pretty much sucks. Zero stars, would not try again. I can flex my elbow a little further than what I wrote above, probably to 120 degrees or so, but that's still pretty limited. But if I stretch for about an hour-and-a-half, I have almost my full range-of-motion, at least for a little while. It used to take 2 hours of stretching to get to where I could touch my thumb to my shoulder, so 1.5 hours counts as progress. I have been spending 2 full hours per day stretching for the last year - that's better than the 3 hours/day the first year, but still a nuisance. There's just so much other stuff I'd rather be doing for those two hours a day. But more than anything I want my range-of-motion back. But anyway, the good news, great news really, is that my doctor cleared me to go biking and boarding late last spring. I got a couple days of snowboarding, but they were shaky. Then I had all summer to work on mountain biking, and was able to get back into the groove. And after snowboarding this winter, I'm basically back to 100%, which is a huge relief. Not "like it never happened" as I spend all of my lift rides stretching my elbow, but I can almost forget about it for the ride back down. I'm just kinda terrified that I'll fall face-first, put my arms out to soften the impact, and force my elbow to flex all the way, all at once... I've had two doctors and one physical therapist tell me that there's a risk that in a fall like that my elbow just won't bend, and I'll just break my arm instead. But all three of them also told me there's a chance that a fall like that could also actually restore my range-of-motion, by tearing up the scar tissue that's interfering with my elbow. Trauma therapy, I guess you could call it. But by some miracle I haven't even had that sort of fall since the accident.

I spent all but one day this season on a custom Donek 172 AX (19cm waist, 13m SCR, very stiff). That's been my go-to board since I got it in '08. I broke it this year, which makes it my longest-lived board ever. It still rides well but there's a crack in the base under the back binding. So I'm going to order a custom Freecarve in the next couple months or so (172, 19cm waist, 13ish SCR, very stiff), and I will finally get to see what all the new-school decambered excitement is all about.