Thumper

BTW, who did you fly for when you were out here?

Where are you staying and what do you like to do nightlife-wise?

I have a similar blue titanium cap 185 that rides exactly like your description. It was a good first true GS-style board and felt ingot-stiff compared to a Burton Speed, especially with TD1s. Totally correct about the "resisting releasing an edge," too. It's the first board I HAD to detune. (Thanks to Scott Firestone's Carvers Almanac for that tip.) One unplanned high speed excursion into the trailside flora is enough. That was my only complaint about it, though, and dulling about 1/2 inch down from the nose and, especially 1/2 from the tail definitely helped. Still I now love the controllability a tapered board gives -it's like cheating.

For general purpose, mostly on piste, all mountain riding, I prefer hardboots and softer plate bindings on an older Rad Air freeride board. Advantages: 1. If your hardboots are dialed in -foot comfort. 2. You can still carve decent turns when the opportunity presents itself. 3. You can work on technique in less than optimum snow/crowd conditions due to the generally slower speeds required and more forgiving interface. 4. It's an easy swap after charging early groomers into an afternoon cruise setup -no boot change required. Cons: 1. Don't overzealously weight the nose going into turns (Definitely self-critiqueing). 2. Even a softer hard setup can be too stiff (for me, at least) in tight, bumpy, steep trees. 3. In powder, I greatly prefer softies (and a 4807) because I want a soft touch and ankle flexion for turns and tend to overpower things when in hardboots. Some guys on hardboots use a lot of underhang to mitigate this but I just like softies for powder (even if they do hurt my feet.)

I never understood the appeal of grits either, until a friend of mine showed up to the table at a breakfast buffet (chow hall) with a bowlful of grits piled high with bacon, scrambled eggs and shredded cheese. I'm like, "WTF is that?" He's all, "Dude, TRY it, just try it." Kind of a Green Eggs and Ham thing. So I get a bowlful, pile the strange accoutrements on top, mix 'em all together and... Totally awesome. Breakfast Nirvana.

A little imagination and you can transform self indulgence into "sacrificing for the good of your children." A local place has night skiing 7 nights a week. My wife would drop my son off at the base after school. He'd do his homework on the drive up. We'd go until about 9 o'clock then he'd sleep in the car on the way back. He wound up getting straight A's because I told him we would stop going if his grades slipped. A kid that's into snowboarding transforms, "Honey I'm going snowboarding - see ya," into, "Mom, can you or Dad take us snowboarding this weekend?" "Well, gee, Honey, I guess I could, and I was so looking forward to regrouting the guest bathroom."

Sorry for the mini-threadjack.BlueB: Props x 2- I do use a 168W as my AM board. It's soo effortless and forgiving to ride and carves decently even in chopped up afternoon goo. Mine has almost no camber left though after about 60 days.

The more detail the better. Sight, sound, kinesthetics, even smell all add to the escape. Whether it's replaying a particularly satisfying run or mentally rehearsing what you're going to do next time, good daydreaming is the only way to survive marathon "mandatory" meetings or 75+ elementary school "Perfect Attendance" awardees. In pilot training they called it "chair flying." We'd mentally rehearse our aerobatic routines or tactical missions over and over. Some guys would go so far as to stick a plunger on the floor in front of the chair ("Break Left".)

Dude you're sick. She/it was at best disturbing. BTW, Let me know when you're ready to start surfing. No tib/fib worries there. Heal fast.

To not be seen by a professionally conducted IR search in a known area, the guy would either have to be in a cave or covered 180 degrees, ground to ground, with something that would completely mask his body's IR signature. (Unless, of course, he's dead. Body=Ambient) Pretty lame if he was using emergency resources, with people in "life and death" mode, while he's get'in some on the other side of town. If it was a hoax, he better have a damn good story or $1000 will be a drop in the bucket.

Just received one of the 06 Kessler 182s in the mail. The board is in great shape and the transaction was smooth and straightforward with excellent communication. If anyone doesn't recognize Justin's name - http://www.ussnowboarding.com/public/team.php?sN=2&dId=7&aId=57

A 166 Roadster was my first carving board about 5 years ago. It is F2s entry-level alpine board and was fine for a first board, but had some quirky flex characteristics and a definite speed limit once you started to push harder. I replaced it with a Burton Speed 168W which was all around a much better performing board. The Roadster's construction materials are not even close to the Speedster, nor your Volkl or Donek. It has cap constuction and a Graphite impregnated F-1000 base vs sandwich construction and an F-8000 base for the Speedster. Here's an excerpt from an old Blue Tomato ad ( I love some of the translations): F2 ROADSTER Very simply driving Freecarver for in and Umsteiger, which want to have fun beside the runway also still in the area. Level: Einsteiger&Fortgeschrittene Terrain: Hard luggage & all terrain Connection: Yield disk connection Handling characteristics: Very Carvingboard with high engine speed and well to be dosed with super edge grasp and simple kurvenverhalten. Lengths Size 166 Effective Edge > mm< 1430 Waist Width > mm< 220 Sidecut radius > m< 9 Weight > kg< 3.4 Stance > mm< 460 receiver binding angle Being thing angle>°< 50/43 Target group target group > kg< 70+ Construction: 45° Suspensioncap Triaxial laminates F-1000 graphite cousin Twin torsion core Fathead edge EURO 300. - | DM 599, - inclusive. Bdg Freecarve or connection Intec Challange I still use mine as an early season rock board

Many ISPs blacklist email senders once a certain number of users identify messages as "Junk Email." Some ISPs block all messages from entire domains. I know AOL does it pretty extensively and, once on the "blacklist" it is very difficult to prove yourself legitimate. Most ISPs will let users turn off server-based spam filtering if they request it. Again AOL is not very responsive here but it might work with .Mac.

POLR Lifts http://www.polrsports.com/page/page/3073973.htm Just wondering if they have potential or are just snake oil

I hate disseminating misinformation. Looks like a simple mod that would yield great results.

I love the BTS too , but, unless I'm mistaken, it only fits Raichle/Deeluxe boots.

That's right, mustn't mess with the Queen's chickens. As I recall, chickens and ghost crabs are all over the place. Almost hit a 15'+ giant ray in the lagoon on a windsurfer, too. Have fun while you're there and keep your head down if you're going downrange.

The guy seems so sincere in his sales pitch, even throwing in some "inside info" conspiracy theories on the demise of the Holy Asymmetric Empire. It's brilliantly dry.:D

Oh my Gawd!! Only $1000 and it even comes with 5 hole Variplate bindings. It would be a bargain at twice that price. Forget the metal Prior, I must have this board. It will make me a carving god.

Gecko, is it still 3 days in jail and a $1500 fine (1st offense) for getting caught surfing there? Definitely worth the risk when it's firing though.

Are you kidding? If you have video, look at Shaun White as he transitions across the bottom of the pipe. He's definitely carving, otherwise he wouldn't be able to maintain his energy through the transition.

Another aspect to the problem is a physiological/geometric one caused by what you and the other guy see or don't see just prior to a collision. When two airplanes (or cars, or snowboarders) are on collision vectors, there is no relative visual motion. Regardless of how the aircraft are maneuvering in 3 dimensional space, once the collision vector is established, the other aircraft stays frozen in the same position within your field of view and just keeps getting bigger until the collision occurs. We respond to relative motion, it gets our attention -stationary things do not. So the first indication a straightliner has of a conflict with a carver (or vice versa) is the carver going from a small, stationary peripheral object to a large and rapidly growing stationary object. So, following a natural instinctive response, the responsible (?) straightliner checks away from us to give us more room. This response may actually increase the likelihood of a collision occuring because, if our velocity vector is greater than his (surprise, surprise) we eat up the "buffer" he is trying to create faster than he can create it. (And then of course blame him for not following the code.) Rules of thumb: 1. Always clear your flight path 2. Work bubbles of free space between crowds. 3. Always clear your flight path. 4. If possible, leave enough space on either side of your line to allow somebody to pass you without going off into the trees 5. Always clear your flightpath

No pictures on the ebay link for me either.

Thanks Buell. Recon's right -that is INSANE:eek:. I wonder what process he went through to figure out how much/when to flare? Rocket J. Squirrel indeed.

The clip sounds cool:lurk:, we just can't get to it with the info supplied. The filename, ULTIMATE_JOURNEY_DK.wmv, would work great if the file was already located on my computer, but, since it isn't, we need at least a hint as to the file's location on the internet.