johnasmo

I've been hit twice in the last 5 days. Unlike the video, I was the lower velocity rider in both cases. Total yard sales for the skiers, but I didn't even get knocked down. Unfortunately, today's run in left me with some torn titanal to deal with on my favorite board. Ugh. Sunny days are dangerous. Situational awareness only goes so far as you can't be looking backwards the whole time and situations change quickly on sunny days.

Where your knee is doesn't matter unless it drags in the snow on toe side. The point of moving the rear knee at all from its neutral position is to pressure the boot one way or the other so as to affect the tilt of the tail. Bringing knees closer together twists the tail higher on heel edge relative to the nose. Spaying them apart twists the tail higher on toe edge. So tucking the rear knee in will help keep the tail hooked up when finishing a heel side turn. Splaying a bit will help keep the tail hooked up when finishing a toe side turn. If you add inward canting beyond what is neutral to your anatomy, you will be reducing the amount of inward pressure you can add by moving your knee. You will instead be increasing the amount of outward pressure you can add with your knee, and may find yourself exerting outward pressure against the boot all the time. You'll get more toe side tail grip, but less heel side tail grip. The only three inputs the board and snow care about are the angle of tilt at the front binding, the angle of tilt at the rear binding, and the center of gravity relative to them. Where our limbs and body parts go to generate those inputs doesn't have to look a certain way. Don't worry about the trailing knee unless you're having trouble losing the tail during heel side turns.

BB was suggesting outward cant, not inward. Outward canting will let you pressure the heel edge without needing to bring the knee in as far. That means putting the tick part to the inside of your heel. I run my rear disk rotated 5 degrees less than my binding angle, which results in just a pinch of outward cant. Forcing the knee inward with the canting means your leg is going to be pushing back against it all the time, which will be applying pressure to toe side of the board all the time. Heel side edge pressure and tilt will suffer. If your anatomy wants your knees to be splayed in order to be neutral, don't fight it. Use canting to adjust to your anatomy, not change it. I wouldn't worry about whether your knees look together or splayed as long as you cant the bindings so your inputs to the board are neutral at rest and you can pressure and tilt both edges equally from there. You can sort out much of this with carpet carving at home, but also by paying attention to what part of the board slides out first when riding. If there is asymmetry to it, where one part of the board loses grip toe side but not heel side or vice versa, then try adjusting canting to give your leg(s) more leverage against the edge that is losing grip. I'm 15 years into this and still adjusting stuff each season. Neutral and balanced can be hard to recognize at first, so we learn to compensate with contortions.

Are you sure about this conclusion? For me, the most effective way to affect whether the knees are splayed out or together on heel side is with hip rotation. While my hips are rotated into the turn ahead of my toes, the knees come together. When the hips trail the toes, knees splay out. You can try it out just standing on the floor in your riding position and then rotate your hips right and left and watch it happen. Sole pressure will roll right and left too, killing two birds with one stone. If this doesn't happen for your anatomy, then you're right above and should sort out canting to match where you knees are instead of trying to move them where they don't want to be. But if it does, and you find your rear knee is opening up during the turn, I bet it's because the board turned but your hips didn't turn with it. Happens to me all the time if I'm not concentrating on holding the carve; possibly a latent effect of so much time spent soft booting at low angles.

Every bail I've broke had a seized lug after the fact. So now when I inspect my bindings (roughly annually), I retire any that don't rotate freely. Haven't experienced a failure since. I take it as a sign that the bail is bent and a step closer to metal fatigue.

Icy or not, a suggestion. Four simple words. A mantra, if you will. "Steer with your dick." Try keeping your hips aligned slightly ahead of your toes on both toe and heel side turns. Don't let it cross back over your binding angles until you are ready to be done with that turn and are starting to transition to the next. Stand on the floor in your boarding stance. Now rotate your hips left and right. Notice what happens to your rear foot; how it rolls from one side to the other. Notice which position will twist the tail higher on edge and which will twist it lower. When you're trying to finish a heel side across the hill, don't do the one that lowers the tilt. Consider riding a motorcycle or bicycle. If you want to lean the bike to the left, you counter steer the wheels out from under you to the right and vice versa. If you don't want the turn to stand you up right away, you have to keep giving counter steering input until you are done with the turn. Same with a board that is trying to turn itself underneath you. Think of your hips as the chassis and your feet as the wheels. Once your hips are rotated to the wrong side of your toes, your body is positioned for the transition, not to stay in the turn. Start sorting things from the ground up. Bindings, hips, then shoulders/arms. Your legs are connected to you hips, not your shoulders. Use the above mantra to help with heel side body position, which will help in any conditions, including icy.

I've been testing this year's iteration a bunch lately, and my mind keeps coming back to Jack's comment about the ice skates. It's true and it's intentional and you can learn to love it. There's massive edge hold available if you just imagine your inside leg is on an ice skate and put the load right on it. On a toe side, the inside leg would be your rear foot, and a heel side, your inside leg would be your front foot. No matter what the length or radius of the Contra, focus your energies on the imaginary ice skates underfoot and ignore the rest of the board and you will be rewarded with fountains of grip. Two years ago, when trying to figure out how to improve grip, I asked Bruce for all the details on my Coiler Skinny (a Skwal, 14.5 waist) because, quoting from that email, "Feels like the downforce biting into the snow says centered, like there’s an ice skate blade down there." To satisfy me he shared the CNC programs, and my custom builds from then on took "custom" to a new level. The Contra came about in pursuit of that ice skate feeling. I've come to love that feeling. Board length disappears; you just ride the skates underfoot. There is a bit of wonkiness in low angle cruising because it comes on like a two cycle engine hitting its power band. You can feel it hitting that power band if you roll in slowly. To keep it in its power band, avoid low angle cruising. Keep it on the steep and narrow runs where it excels at holding its edge.

Note that these flex numbers are not comparable across different lengths. They are deflection under weight measurements of the specific build; longer boards can measure higher deflection than shorter even when they are stiffer.

Too late. Demo sold on Saturday.

I have it for a couple more days before it goes back to Bruce. I'll bring it up. Be riding four hole bindings if you want to try it.

KK is just a variation to the Contra sidecut theme. Playing with some of the variables a bit to see what happens. Incremental refinement experiment. There will be 3 at the MCC. Dave's, mine, and a glass prototype. "KKR" must be the Redman version. Our cores are ever so slightly different. Bruce didn't even get to test them because of the lock down in Ontario. They debut at the MCC. They won't obsolete your recent Contra purchases... until you demo one. The glass one blew me away. Wow. MCC'ers, please demo it and give feedback! @dredmanpost a picture of the Winterstick!

After taking the demos straight to the hill, I did find the thick wax a bit grabby and the cat track edging a bit wonky. So took them home and scraped the wax and gave 'em a few strokes of 0.5 base bevel. Even finished with the diamond stones. But don't expect me to shower every day...

Trivia. The section of Corkscrew in that video is where downhill racer Bill Johnson crashed in 2001. Steve @Cuban Carving Goodingwas just telling me on the lift this week about the movie, Downhill, the Bill Johnson Story. @33:22.

The K168 does return energy. The hooky tail (10m) can be felt when finishing turns. It sort of flicks the board across quickly into the next turn. That's part of the appeal; part of what keeps things happening quickly (relentlessly). It feels good, until it doesn't. If you accidentally get in the back seat, like can happen when mis-judging where the hill is in fog or flat light, it can be more energetic than you want. I've tasted it, come close, but it hasn't tossed me yet. When that's happened on the Contra, it has let me ride it out in the back seat.

I did ride to last chair today. In the fog. On the Contra. Doing Heep Steep. No night skiing on Tuesdays, though. I should have added a disclaimer with my comparison that my Contras are unique. Well, every Bruce board is unique, but my Contras are from spring of 2019. First prototypes. I know the sidecuts intimately, but Bruce evolved the core profiles and laminates since then. Mileage may vary.

I've got 14 days on my K168 now. No more excuses to procrastinate. The K168 is a really really really good board. I like it a lot. My Contra 178 12m is a really really really good board too. I like it a lot. How do they compare? Background. I got a used K168 last spring after our Covid shutdown. Got it from @workshop7who I think got it from @MR. JOHN DEERE !(?). As far as I know it's a stock K168. Normal white topsheet, not p-tex topped. I wanted to find out what all the K168 hullabaloo was about. I don't like "race" boards, so I didn't expect to like it, let alone be good enough to ride it. The K168 is a traditional high-camber tight-long-med VSR, but exceptionally well executed. The flex and sidecut seem perfectly balanced for efficient carves. The board stays calm and collected no matter what's happening to it; no unwanted surprises. It's a demanding ride. Not demanding like hard to ride, but demanding like exhausting. You have to ride darn aggressively to keep your speed down. Relax a bit and it will speed you down the fall line. It can take a normal blue run and make you work it like a winch groomed black diamond. That sounds negative, but it's actually delightfully fun! Like riding steeps? Hell yes, and now the whole mountain rides like steeps! WooHoo! I think this is because of the extreme VSR and the relatively high camber. It's a 8-12-10 VSR, so it initiates turns the moment you tilt it. Roll in too slow and it won't let you get low enough to keep it turning tight. Lazy cross-over turns equal unchecked acceleration down the fall line. Quick back-to-back cross-under is the ticket. Just like riding steeps! The Contra, on the other hand, is a shortened VSR nested between longer radii tip and tail. Similar resistance to flex, but starting at a point with lower camber. It offers a different pressure distribution that is trying to optimize for low available friction surfaces (aka ice). A side-effect is that it's slower to initiate turns. That sounds negative, but it's actually delightfully fun if you run steeps all day! Instead of making blues ride like blacks, it makes blacks ride like blues. Lazy cross-over turning on that winch groomed black? No problem. The K168 responds well to traditional weight shifting. Drive the nose to turn tighter, roll back if you want to hold it longer; the usual. With a Contra, the tight bits of the sidecut are closer to your feet. You don't need to shift as much, and it doesn't do as much good if you do. It's all about the tilt; it gives you time to get as low as you want for the turn you want, then lets you stay there as long as you need. In the chalky hardpack we've had here in Whitefish, Montana lately, both have been excellent rides. But all is not bliss with the K168. The width (20.5) and the T4 metal make it a harsher ride when the runs aren't smooth. I can see why people resort to plates, but plates are not my thing. Without a plate, it's relegated to being a morning ride; switching to a narrower T3 Contra once push piles form. The first couple days I rode it, the hill was recovering from a rain event on the lower mountain. Good snow up high, progressively icier as you descended. I got a short glimpse of the K168 ice hold. It was better than I expected for such an extreme VSR, a testament to it being well balanced with the flex, but I could still hold against the fall line further down the mountain on my Contras. Unfortunately for testing, but rather fortunately for riding, those conditions were fleeting. For now I've been riding them back-to-back on high grip hardpack and they are both excellent. I can report more definitely about ice later in the season. If I could only own one, it would be my Contra 178 x 12m by virtue of it being smoother and more comfortable for all day riding. The K168 is great fun when it's good, smooth groom, but not so fun when it's not. The Contra stays comfortable over a wider range of rough snow. The K168 is demanding all the time; the Contra lets you relax and make mistakes with less consequence. I got the K168 because I was curious if it was as good as people say. Knowing the racing heritage of its family tree, I was not expecting to like it as much as I do. I went into this thinking I would flip it after decoding it (even told the wife as much). But I like it a lot; I'm going to keep it.

Wow, hot thread here. Might as well throw my story into the hat. This years setup: Size 28.5 UPZ shells, size 10 Flo liners, custom foot beds, no canting in the cuffs. TD3 Sidewinders, 6 degree disk in front, 3 decree disk in back. Around 20.5 inch stance width. Angles always fit to board, but I like narrow boards so often riding 65/60 or so. Mostly just toe and heel life, but a little off. Front disk at 10 or 15 degrees more than boot, so a tiny bit of inward cant there, but rear is almost same angle so near zero cant. Lock front cuff in high position, rear one or two down from there. I've been on my alpine journey for about 15 years now. Every year my riding progresses and my setup along with it. The more experience I get, the more I learn to notice what I'm doing wrong and how my setup is helping me do wrong. For example, I started on TD1s with 0 disk in front and 6 in back. Why? Because that's what I found used on eBay. No other reason. After years of front leg burn, I finally switched to 3 and 3 sometime in the TD2/TD3 era. Why? Because I knew 0 and 6 wasn't right for me and I knew good riders using 3 and 3. But still I was setting them at 90 to the board, so quite a bit of inward canting. Why? Emulating others, and because I still wasn't good enough to know better on my own. Contorting just seemed like part of learning to ride alpine. Last year I finally started exploring my canting, and this year I finally started exploring 6 lift in front. Conclusion? It's easy to say your stance/angles/cant/lift should be whatever it takes to feel neutral and balanced. In practice, it takes quite a bit of experience to actually recognize neutral and balanced. Fifteen years for me, and who knows what I may realize next season? If you don't have 15 years to spend on this, listen carefully to @Beckmann AG's expert advice to shorten your journey.

James' @crackaddictJJA TCX 166 might lay claim to be the first softboot-specific Contra sold. It was farmed out to Jasey Jay last spring because Bruce couldn't do 30cm wide, but it's got a Contra sidecut. At least it does if Jasey used the CNC program we shared. We're not 100% sure he used the program as he might have tried to reverse engineer from the provided graphs back into his CAD tool (Rhino?). The rabbits are breeding down in the SB rabbit hole. Several softboot variations on the Contra sidecut profile have emerged for testing since classic Contra alpine. BX, SB, and FR flavors. They are all variations on the Contra theme, which could be described as a shortened VSR inside longer radius tip and tail. The different variations play with where exactly the tighter and longer radii are positioned, the magnitude of the differences, and the amount of progression front to back. There's also an new alpine variation that could debut at MCC, the KK. Yours will be the first of the Contra SB built. He built and tested a Contra BX before getting shut out. No FR built yet; it's for a particular customer; might be eclipsed by the SB as they are close. The SB is like a hybrid between BX and classic alpine. More carving focused than BX, but shouldn't have to tilt as high as classic Contra to initiate. It will be enlightening to get feedback on these softboot variations. The differences are small. They might not even be noticeable if it's mostly the cores accounting for the Contra feel. My fingers are crossed.

I'm with Redman here. If you have a pair of standard SW, keep them. Buy a set of step-in and then mix the pairs on two boards. Yes, their will be asymmetric flex, but it's nice to have a more forgiving binding in front when dealing with rougher snow anyway. I have several mixed sets as step-ins weren't available when the SW first came out; had to do something with the standards.

A 160 Angrry is a pretty turny board to practice getting lower. I have an early T4 prototype and its a 9/10.5/9 sidecut. It's exhausting to carve very long -- I use it when it gets too slushy and loose to carve well on my other boards but don't want to take the time to switch to softboots if off-piste is still froze up. I treat it as a carving-optional hardboot novelty; mine's too stiff to carve ice well. If you consistently lose one end or the other, like it's always the tail jack-knifing heel-side, but never toe side, you could be fighting a canting issue. Try slip sliding both toe and heel side and if one or other feels like the tail slides out more freely, sort out angles and canting until the side slipping feels balanced and natural on both sides.

Goggles that don't fog.

Aaron, Did you decide to keep your pass and risk the super-spreader bus? Snow is lousy right now. I've been hiking and it's all just ice and crust. Don't expect it to change by opening on Thursday, but it should start snowing this weekend. I might not even try for opening day. I've got a busy day anyway, and maybe it's better to let them sort out the rough edges of dealing with the flat earthers first.

Nice riding. The motor looks like a Kawi 750, but the rooster tail in the videos looks very Yamaha. Same ski?

Even before news of slowdowns broke, out in Montucky land we noticed packages taking 3 weeks that should have been delivered in under 10 days. Still eventually came though. Now at an address in Minnesota, USPS Informed Delivery showed what *should* have been delivered every day, but three days of it never make it to mailbox. Sad. Our experience with USPS package tracking has been spotty too. They are so bad with scanning, it's not much better than no tracking; the trail goes cold and then it either arrives or it doesn't. I personally wouldn't risk it with snowboards if you're the one on the hook if it doesn't arrive. Go with a carrier whose tracking system is reliable.

Dang. That reminds me... knew I was procrastinating something. At least in August I almost don't need an iron to melt the wax.