NateW

Same here.

I had a double-boot-out with some Burton bindings around 15 years ago. Did your leash break too? Mine did! Fortunately the board stopped quickly anyway. Had some single-boot-outs with a few other bindings. No boot-outs for the last ten+ years though - I switched to Intec, and this is why I'm not ever going back.

I'm glad you and your mom are OK, Jack. What a nightmare. I noticed many years ago that when the TV news reports on a subject that I'm familiar with, they get big fundamental things wrong. Dead wrong, every time. Like the cable broke because it was windy. No surprise there. Really. Usually things get twisted in a more sensational direction, but not always. Print journalism is not as bad, but they still get technical stuff wrong with amazing regularity. So when they're reporting on things that I'm not knowledgeable about, I just assume that they're still getting fundamentals wrong, and take everything with a very big grain of salt. Pretend that everything on the TV news actually came from the 5th person who heard about it worth-of-mouth... strip out the details, and try to guess at what the basic story started like. Your guess will probably be closer to the truth than anything you saw or heard on TV. :)

The answer probably depends on the nature of your feet. All I know for sure is that custom footbeds make my feet happy. It's worth trying some off-the-shelf footbeds too though, I use those in half of my shoes, and used them in snowboard boots with some minor modifications to lower them around the outside of my heel (due to the nature of my feet).

Congrats! I am very, very interested in hearing how the two boards compare. I might be ordering something of my own this year. Or next year, at the latest...

It will come back up, but I don't know when. I need to move all of my web stuff to a new server. It's going to take a while.

No snowboarding for six years? How did you survive?

I bought custom boards almost yearly for a while, when I felt that different dimensions would be more fun. Then I converged on something the suits me well. I'm riding a Donek 172 AX built to my specs with conventional shape and materials. And I like this board more than I can put into words. I hear good things about metal and decamber, and I'll try it eventually, and I'm sure I'll like it. But for now I just don't see much point spending a nontrivial amount of money to replace something that continues to give me so much fun. I keep hearing that new-school boards are awesome, but it's never been put into terms that actually sound more desirable than what I have now. Part of the issue is that I don't have a problem with what I ride now. My setup is comfortable, and the board does everything I ask it to. I'm not going to spend a grand for something that doesn't solve a problem, or for an unquantifiable improvement to an already kick-ass experience. Also, I typically upgrade when I break a board. That's given me a pretty regular upgrade cycle for years. :) That this board has now outlasted anything else I've owned. So it's just a matter of time. When this board breaks, I'll have a problem, and I'll solve that problem with a metal board, because why not? Maybe I'll kick myself for not upgrading sooner, but I kinda doubt it.

You misspelled "whole."

Daily driver: 170ish, 19cm waist, 13m radius Hero snow: 185ish / 19cm / 15m+ but I'm itching to try a larger sidecut. Lotsa fresh: 170-180, 21cm, sidecut doesn't matter

I found that moving my stance forward made a HUGE improvement in front quad burn. My stance is centered now, and I'm much happier. It makes me wonder why a rearward stance has been the norm for so long. The only drawback I've found is that my rear leg burns out faster on days with lots of new snow. I usually keep my spare board set up with a couple inches of setback for that reason. And if I break my regular board I can set up the spare with a centered stance quickly enough. It's pretty easy to experiment with different widths and positions, I highly recommend carrying whatever tool(s) you need and trying some different options.

Try rotating your hips and shoulders to face more forward and less sideways. I doubt it will help with shin bang but it will help with everything else. :) Reaching forward with your rear (left) hand will help pull your body into a better position in that respect.

The 15m board that I only ride mid-week is an F2 183. One of us might be wrong about the sidecut. :) It's really fun when there's room for it... after riding that for a while, my regular board (13m) feels slow. I keep hearing things about the new-style boards that I just don't understand... 14/15m, turns tight? Low speeds? For real? I'm gonna hafta try one soon.

For conventional / single-radius boards, I think this is pretty representative: http://www.donek.com/specs_hard.html SL boards are mostly 8-12 meters (I have a hunch that the sub-10m boards are mostly for smaller riders, but it's just a hunch). GL boards are mostly 12-15 meters. For new-school boards / multi-radius boards, I got no idea. Haven't tried one yet. You can make a board with a large sidecut radius turn tight, if you lean way in, however that requires going faster than you'd go on a shorter-sidecut board. If you ride in a place with narrow or crowded runs, versus wide open runs that will factor into what's more fun. There's also the question of how fast you prefer to ride. For how and where I ride, I found 13m to be the sweet spot. 10m boards whip around too fast. I have a 15m board that's really fun, but only mid-week when there's fewer people around, and it's kind of awkward to maneuver in the slow zones. If you can buy 2-3 boards from the classifieds here, that will help you figure out what's most fun for you.

Two things I've found to make me tire out faster: - Stance too wide. Just try standing in regular shoes with your knees moderately bent and you'll notice the burn setting in when your feet are further apart. Multiply the inseam measurement of your favorite pants by 0.6, and you have a good width to start with. - Stance centered too close to the rear of the board. This forced me to lean forward (without really thinking about it) and so my front leg would burn out relatively quickly. I now keep my stance as close to the center of the board as possible. Since most boards have the inserts set back a couple inches, this means mounting the bindings a couple inches forward of the insert centers. There's other ways to tire yourself out too, I'm sure. I'm not sure how the second one (stance centering) affects new-school boards with different amounts of 'decamber' in the nose and tail, so take it with a grain of salt if that's what you're riding.

Like Mr. E said, lines and foodbeds solve different problems. Which one is more important depends on which problems are causing your feet the most trouble in your boots. I am surprised that a professional boot fitter would make such a sweeping generalization.

That is a GREAT photo. Congrats!

Reaching forward with my trailing hand did wonders for me. I'm not picky for toe-side turns, but I try to keep it forward in heelside turns (like, above my front knee). If I notice my heelsides getting sloppy, it's always because I've gotten lazy about this.

The optimum outcome is you buying a board (or small quiver) that suits the way you like to ride and the places you like to ride. But, to get there you need to learn to ride, and find out what your preferences are. So, I suggest buying a board with 'average' dimensions from the classifieds here - 170ish length, 19-20cm waist, 10-12m sidecut, more or less. Then buy a couple boards with more and less sidecut, different widths, different lengths, and something stiffer. When you know what your preferences are, have a custom board made. Those stepping-stone boards can be resold, loaned to friends or prospective carvers, or used in the early and late season where you don't want to risk damaging your best board.

I have one that I think is from 05 or so, and I really like it when conditions are great for caving. The large sidecut radius means you need to be moving pretty fast before it comes alive, but if you have a place with wide non-crowded slopes it is a ton of fun. I can carve harder and faster on rougher snow than anything else I have owned. I haven't tried and of the new-school (decambered nose) boards yet though. I just don't ride it a whole lot because it's awkward at lower speeds (as Keenan noted) and because I rarely find enough room on a slope for it mid-week. But I'm really glad to have it available for those special occasions. :)

See you there. :)

The widest thing I put plates on is 23cm at the waist. That gives me 45/40 angles without toe/heel drag. It's a twin-tip shape, very stiff, 10m sidecut. Just some data points. Your mileage may vary.

Back in 88 or 89, Burton's Cruzer had a sidecut composed of two straight lines. And a turn fin. I'm guessing we'll see those coming back in 2015, if not sooner.

Do you know the tip and tail width? I can calculate the sidecut...

I had a head injury in 1993 that freaked my whole family out. Me, I just felt half-awake and groggy for a month. The doctors told my parents that I would probably improve very slowly, possibly back to 100%, but don't expect me to wake up normal any time soon. And it took about a month. Nobody told my girlfriend, however. She was completely freaked out for weeks, thinking that her boyfriend would be a vegetable... well, maybe just crippled... well maybe just mildly retarded... and so on. I didn't find out about what she went through until about a year later. It still ticks me off that nobody told her that my recovery would be slow. I am sure that would have saved her no small amount of anguish. So, to Mike's friennds and fambily: take it one day at a time. Give his brain some exxercise and you'll probabably see little improovements every day. With a little lucck, he'll be back to 100% too! Jus like me!!1!!one!!!