utahcarver

RB7: You are making my position even easier to defend. The 'tudes and the apparel and the skateboard gangster on the snow is being manufactured. It didn't occur naturally. Someone's idea of what snowboarding should be is driving all the park monkeys to go bananas over fashion and attitude. Think: fad, it will pass. Until the next manufactured ad campaign comes along. And the one company that started it all globally has lost its soul. And you are too young to see it. It sold out so that one family could travel the world every year and be featured in Snowboard Journal to validate the lifestyle. Where's SJ now? Lost because it didn't support all the peripherals in their ads. Mark

"There is a lot of wisdom in this one." RB7: Your post is simply echoing the point I've been trying to make. Perhaps, like you, our points are largely philosophical because one or two opinions isn't going to change, at worst an industry and at best society. But making others aware of what's going on around them may help stem the tide at least temporarily. Phil: Did you read RB7's post? The problem he sees isn't FS or park monkeys. Rich kids with 10 boarding outfits, 7 boards, sorry attitudes and wannabe gangsters (who smoke pot all day) was the comment. Are you suggesting this deserves respect? Please convince me this is not what you were saying. Respect is earned over time. Not by showing up to the hill with a bad attitude and the latest threads and kicking it once or twice. Winter is coming, Mark

My 'amusing rant' as (Chris) Karol stated above was directed more at the mass-marketing interests in snowboarding, a point I should have made clearer. The foul-mouth surfer or the 'carving' snowboarder at Wendy's serve at examples of what the marketing of snowboarding and surfing have given us. These sports are marketed to everyone as if everyone can do them. At a certain level, this might be true. But snowboarding is not for everyone. People without skills, training, knowledge, on hill etiquette potentially get riders like who post here on this board hurt or killed. How many times have any of you been put in a dangerous position on the mountain because of the negligence of other riders who were in situations above their abilities? I'm suggesting that snowboard companies along with non-related companies that market to the snowboarding public should shoulder part of this problem. Thanks for all the great comments, too! Mark

I met Dmitrie (Milovich) years ago and got to see the factory where he was making Wintersticks. I also remember seeing ads for Wintersticks in Powder Magazine during 1976 and 1977. I still remember the look of disbelief on Dmitries' face when I told him that I didn't think his 'snowsurfboard' would last. I'm glad I was wrong. At least, the sport part of it. I've heard some really great stories about Winterstick and the guys who worked and rode for Dmitri. I hope he does well with Radius Engineering. Bryan, do you know what year Wintersticks were actually available to the buying public? I figured either you or Marty would know for sure without actually contacting Milovich. Mark

Bryan, Yep, I'm hoping the 192 will fit a bit better in between the trees this season. The 200 Tanker I got from hardbooter.com floats and stings so I figured the 192 would be as good or better. I love the Tanker line. The Wasatch Mojo 181 performed well, too. I called the guy I bought it from and asked him if he was going to be pressing more. No more Mojo's. So, I told him if he changed his mind to put me down for 3 of them and I'd prepay for them. Too bad, it's a great ride on both groomers and the pow. Mark

...I did pick up a NOS 192 Tanker from RJ a few weeks ago. Mmmmmm, go to my happy place and make some turns with some tunes. There, I feel better already. Mark

Warning: opinion below. A former high school friend recently told me a story about surfing in small Florida surf and being accosted by a shoulder-hopping foul-mouthed 13 year old male surfer. The young miscreant kept repeatedly dropping in on him until he took action and subdued the young pup. As soon as they both reached shore he realized where the potty-mouth came from: the boy's mother who's language would have made a sailor blush. He went on to assert that the reason for the young trash talk and the crowded conditions for even poor surfing conditions was to be blamed on marketing corpo-types who sell the surf lifestyle via clothing, shoes, attitude,etc. Typical, really, of where our society is and where it is headed. Which, frankly, scares the bejesus out of me. The marketing of the surfing lifestyle to the masses is at a sick level. It almost approaches the malignancy of the cancerous rot of snowboarding. EVERYONE I KNOW SNOWBOARDS! What small brotherhood of boarders existed in the late '70's and early '80's has been replaced by a Grand Horde of "boarders" who's foul-mouthed chain-smoking white trash minions have become like vermin at my local hill. I remember traveling on Interstate 15 down to Alta in 1982 with two Winterstick swallowtails strapped to my car and being forced off of the road by a displaced surfer dude from southern California. He wanted to know where he could get snowsurfboards like I had. I can remember being the only snowboarder on the hill for at least 2 winters at Beaver Mountain. Now look what corporate money has done to my beloved passion. Elitist I may sound but I never got asked to leave or had my ticket pulled. Burton Snowboards made a Bazillion dollars last year. Some of it was made selling snowboards. Most of it was made selling clothing to young girls in junior high and high school. The rest of it was made by selling the same clothing to their moms who were trying to fit into clothes that wouldn't fit them in high school 15 years earlier. What in the hell happened to snowboarding? The same thing that happened to surfing except on a much larger scale ("...there is in fact more earth than sea..." Genesis/Seconds Out). I recently sat across a lunch table from a man who was twice my girth and had more money than he could possibly spend in one lifetime. He claimed that he was a snowboarder. Now, it's true he had ridden a snowboard, for I myself had seen him ride one before the season closed at our local ski area. He looked like two pigs wrestling in a gunny sack but, yeah he was riding a snowboard. This poor slob with all his money and Ford Centurion pulling 10 snowmobiles on a $50,000 trailer couldn't buy any grace or style to save his life. "How do you make them fancy-carve thingy's in the the snow?" he asked while choking down a Wendy's Triple Chili Heart Attack Burger. "It's called carving. It's what a snowboard was designed to do instead of making a skidded turn." "Oh, I carve all the time. Me and my kids are always carving on the snow. We started snowboarding in 1995 when snowboarding was still new". That was it. I'd had all I could take of this gastropod. "Listen, I gotta go back to work. But, before I go I gotta tell you that I can only hope to one day be as CORE as your are at snowboarding, see ya!". "KEEP ON CARVING," he yelled as I walked out of Wendy's and threw my half-eaten hamburger away in disgust. I'm so embarrassed when someone asks me if I snowboard that I no longer say yes. It's like being a redheaded stepchild being a hardbooter: you aren't really a skier and your not really snowboarding in the park monkey sense. I have little or no connection to the marketing geniuses of Team B or their clones. I should of moved to the coast and taken up kiteboarding years ago, when kiteboarding was core. Mark

...it's not just fat and lazy people. If what Zeitgeist and others have said is true, you've got many people who aren't willing to be honest with themselves and see what is going on around them. They are not willing to admit that what they know and what they think is completely wrong regarding the history of the world. A non-popular perspective of history that challenges almost everything they've been taught in school, church and community is not very well accepted by active or lazy people. Mark

I've been studying this stuff for years and I have realized that most Americans are too fat and happy to listen or do anything about it. I'd like to think that all that it would take would be a national grassroots movement to counter this lawlessness. Sadly, like most things that are bad, it'll continue to get worse until people have to die to change anything. I've wasted a lot of time talking to people about this stuff only to realize that they aren't going to fight until it's too late. Mark

G: Funny you should mention ****fires. Those are next on my list to try before summer ends. Keep in mind that for parks I stick to hard and fast 63mm to 66mm centerset, radiused wheels. That narrows my choices down a bit. For carving hills and driveways it's a whole different wheel choice and selection. I'm just excited to share my stoke of riding SB's products. I read enough Juice and Concrete Wave mags and NCDSA.com posts to know what is ripping out there. And ****fires have good reviews going for them including yours. I can't wait to post pics of the new JS2. I'm also ordering the pig again. Mark

I've been skating their OG Pig 12 inch and Jay Smith 2 decks since April and I love'em both. The Pig has Tracker Darts (widest) and Poolside Favors (63mm) and the JS2 is hung with Indy 215's and Powell BowlBombers SPF's. Now, Skaterbuilt has re-issued both of these decks and I just picked up a couple of them. If you ride parks or pools in the off season, these are sweet rides. You need to get on this now. The Poolside favors are fast. There is a 'break-in' period for them. Mine took about 6-7 runs before they settled in and went into 'Ludicrous Speed'. Keep in mind that at 48 years old I'm not a threat to anyone at the concrete babysitter. I just carve and cruise around and sweat to the oldies with my mp3 player. The BB's have no breakin period. Fast and strong outta the gate. The wide Tracker Darts are okay. I've got some Khiro bushings ordered to settle them down a bit so that double axle grinds are smoother and finish nice. The stock bushings are good until broken in and then they seem to fade and get real mushy. In over 30-plus years of skating I've never come across ANY commercially made wheel wells that are actually worth anything. I always end up buying risers to compensate for some dum-dum with a router. In the '70's and '80's Sims Skateboards did okay with W/W placement. In modern times, Skaterbuilt comes the closest. My rear wheels still hit just a bit south of dead center of the W/W on the OG Pig. The funnest new ride has been a Rebel Skates Big Gun that I had hooked up for street carving and made it into a park longboard. I picked it up from Mile High Skates for a song this spring. Longboards in the park are a lost art and I'm glad to show the rats where their roots come from from time to time. I'll post some pics this weekend. Mark

It seems to me there is footage of Craig Kelly (et al) riding in Iran in the late '80s. There is also an article in of the now defunct Snowboard Journals' on boarding in Iran. Also, see earlier Concrete Wave magazine for an article on pool/ramp skating in Iran during the late '90s. Very cool to see alpine alive and well worldwide.

Yep, I agree that racks are going to be an invitation to dirtbags. At this point, I might consider a box. Boxes seem to come with a 'rack system' and I wanted to avoid buying a 'system' but as I've been searching the web I'm finding that's exactly what's out there. I could transport most of my boards inside the cab of the car. But, for the Tanker 192 and 200, it might be a bit more difficult if not unsafe to do. I'm not very keen on carrying boards inside the car. Wasn't there a rack mounted to a cars' window/door assy available a few years back? Anybody seen those? A note about racks: About 10 years ago our neighbor was really into mountain-biking and carried his bikes everywhere on his Yakimas mounted on a Honda Accord. One night he and his wife pulled into a fast food joint for a burger and forgot the bikes were on the racks. Splash 2 new bikes, rear window, trunk lid, both rear windows, and a week of body work on the Accord. He said he was going about 10 mph when the bikes hit the roof of the restaurant. His car insurance paid for everything (including the bikes) except for the deductibles. Mark

I've been using 30 year old Barrecrafter ski racks for the past 3 or 4 seasons to transport boards to the mountain. Before that, I had old Yakimas (K towers?) that I couldn't get parts for to keep working. Then, I found eBay and realized I could have bought parts and racks there after I had thrown the Yaks away. Duh. Anyhooo, I'm going to purchase new racks so that I can be more secure when I leave the car with boards attached. I like Yaks but, I don't need all the flexibility to carry bikes, kayaks, and totem poles. Same with Thule. Is there any other rack that will just carry snowboards (and maybe skis) and would be secure? I'm not concerned about price as much as I want my boards to be secure and aren't going to get stolen. What have you been using and why? Mark

This must be what it's like here at BOL to have a 'slow news day' like over at CNN.com or the drudgereport.com. I thought Paris Hilton and her woes were boring. Dan, we are only into the first weeks of summer, snap out of it, Man! Refrigerators? Really? Are we finally that lost? FWIW, there's a personality on Foodnetwork TV (US) named Guy who does a great show for us guy types who has a refrigerator done in racing stripes. It's orange and black, so I'm thinking number 20 Tony Stewart but, I don't think it's linked to anything NASCAR, IRL or F1. I would go over to the body shop paint supply store and buy some paint, tape, and a respirator and experiment. Hell, it's a refrig-er-ator!!!!! Good luck and lets see what you come up with. Start a poll and let the CC vote on your final paint scheme. Remember to spay and neuter your carvers, Bob Barker

Fin, I recently saw something like that in Obstetricians Monthly. It sold in packs of 3 for under 1500 lbs. and packs of 6 for weights over 1500 lbs. Made some sort of loud noise, too; like fingernails on a chalkboard. I say it's an birthing extractor for a zoo. Mark

That would go a long way in explaining my almost perfect health since I began imbibing only Chimay Belgian Ales! Jack, thank you for that fine post. I have a customer who (is from Denmark) and regularly buys Carlsberg and raves about it. I've had it ICE ICE cold and it's not bad. See, if the beer is too cold it'll always taste good. Even to a beer snob. The real test is when it has had a chance to breathe and gain some temperature. Kinda like cheese sitting out on the counter. PBR is so damn good out of a cooler after sessioning a pool or skatepark in the hot summer. But, warm PBR while listening to my MIL talk about her last gastric bypass, ewwwwwwwww! Bad beers are easy to hide when they are ice cold. They get by most beer drinkers. Let them come up in temp and WHAMMO! That's when the room starts to spin. Really good beers taste okay cold but really shine when you serve them around 45ºf to 50ºf. That's when the brain recognizes real good flavors and tells the taste buds to keep it coming. You know, what would be fun is to organize a summer BOL trip to Milwaukee or some other major American city to taste Bad Beers. Then on to Europe to taste really good beers. Like Schneider and Sohns Aventinus (a doppelbock) or their Schneider-Weisse which are both great stand alone beers. Next, the Spaten brewery for a week long beerfest. Maybe even pick up some Viruses while we are all there. Okay, maybe not (sez the look from the wife). Mark

Years ago I knew a guy who worked for Anheuser-Busch. He would tell me how AB made beers like Michelob and Bud. One of the things that really sticks in my mind is they injected the CO2 into the beer. He said the main reason AB did this (as well as any other major beer producer in America) is to save costs. Less brewing time = bigger profits. When I drink an imported beer from Germany, Austria, or Belgium I can taste a difference not only in the overall flavor but in the quality of the bubbles. That is to say, the imports have a distinct champagne-like quality to the carbonation whereas domestic carbonation 'bites' because it isn't smooth going down. Because of this, I have all but sworn off most beers produced in the US. Does anyone else know what else US brewers do to the beer they produce? I'd rather pay a few extra cents for a beer that hasn't been tweaked just to squeeze out more profits. Mark

Buckhorn Beer .99 cents sixpacks (I bought 2 of them just to make sure)' Bought at a Safeway food store in SLC and shook for 12 WARM arduous hours in a jeep to Spokane, WA (Jeep= Short wheelbase) in August of 1982 and opened after having downed 3 Big Macs and fries and listening to Aldo Nova on a cassette tape player. The beer was higher in temperature than the McD's Cow on a Bun and what goes down must come UPPPPPPPPPPPPPP! Unibroue product: Maudite and Terrible are some of the best I've ever tasted. Spaten's Optimator is perfect with a Grilled Reuben Sandwich and Kettle Chips. Don't forget, cold beer and warm chocolate chip cookies on a Sunday afternoon. I know, I know it sounds SO disgusting, but it feels so right. Mark

Looks like tonights session is a wash unless you can slide on wet pavement. It was nice to meet Martin (Drayton) the last time our crew was down there, Skully. Nice to make some new friends and get to skate over at the Lone Pine (?) skatepark. Mark U of U isn't a bust for skating? Wow.

Getting back to Rob's reference to splaying the rear binding to get more power out of a toeside turn (and be on a wide enough board that you won't boot out). On powsticks and swallys this is an absolute delightful way to ride surf-style on deep days. I have learned to ride with my overall stance more forward on pow boards. This stops leg burn and gives more speed and control to the rider. I can ride trimmed out on most low angle powder without the usual postholing you'd get with a 152cm twin tip With riding with a lot of splay on the rear binding, you can develop a tendency to not power up the nose of the board enough. Like when you spend a few days riding powder and then the next outing is packed down groomed snow that has had the freeze/thaw cycle several times and you realize that unless you get a hold of the reins (more pressure to the nose on turn initiation) you're going to get bucked off a kicking horse, so to speak. So, save the splay for your soft days and wide boards to experiment and play in the pow with. Mark

Rob, I'm glad that you brought up the term 'splay'. As I understand it, splay refers to the difference of the angles in a binding set up. For instance, your front binding is at 60 degrees and your rear binding is at 55 degrees. The splay (difference) would then be 5 degrees. Bias, as I understand it, is the amount of offset from the centerline of the board. On my binding setups, I always mount the bindings off of the centerline of the board to begin with. It is rare that I adjust a binding closer to a toe or heel edge. It is done mainly for finesse. Which was the case for riding powder this past season. If I'm incorrect in my understanding of these terms, please help me to understand the correct meanings of splay and bias. Thanks, Mark Overheard at the Boozapalooza Store tonight: "Where are your wines?", asked a patron just entering the door and standing in front of 20 rows of racks of wine which account for almost 100 different vintners and wines ranging from chardonnay, merlot, reisling, and champagne to shiraz and mead and covers 80 percent of the floor space of the building. And I wonder why people in the liftline ask me why I'm wearing skiboots on a skiboard.

Seems like the recurring theme is starting with a narrow stance and then building up to a wider stance. Some of you have stayed with the narrow stance especially on shorter boards. When I started with some Burton hardboots a few years ago, I rode a 17-inch stance mainly because I couldn't flex the boots and I wanted to keep my knees together. I slowly widened my stance over the years as I improved as a rider and I got better interfacing between me and my boards. Now, I focus on keeping my butt and hands out of the snow. I keep my knees apart so that I can bend a bit deeper. Also, I lift my toes on heelside turns. I've read that when other riders do this it is like a revelation of sorts. From what I can determine, lifting my toes helps the ankles flex a bit deeper and my heels dig into the heelcups of the liners a bit more. Prior to this, it felt like my ankles and toes were fighting each other for priority. Toes pushing down, ankles pushing down and I couldn't get the edge to bite completely. Toes up, INSTA-BITE! But, working my way up to a wider stance has been an overall benefit. The problem I keep running into is knowing when to go narrow. And, we haven't even touched on bias yet. Maybe that would be a good thread for summer. I'd like to know if Bordy or anyone else has an opinion on any need for bias (bindings not in line with each other) in freeriding or racing. And, what would cause the need. I personally avoid bias but, I have found that when I use a binding bias on powder days I can crank deeper toesides. Why? Hell, I don't know. It just seems to work that way. Mark

While at WTC '07 this past February I got to see a set of Sigi plates and had them 'splained to me by Mr. Bordy and others. The reasoning for the plates is to let the bindings 'float' on the board thus minimizing the footprint of the binding on the overall flex of the board. I know that all the talk right now is about metal boards, and with good reason. But, from my vantage point as a freerider I can see THE POSSIBILITY that Sigi plates and their knock-offs are going to be the next big thing in racing and freeriding. As a snowboard consumer, I'd be more willing to shell out 2 or 3 hundred dollars on a combo plate-riser that eliminated dead spots in the flex of my board (and, I can use the same plates on multiple boards). This is certainly not going to give me the dampening and edge hold of a metal board but, hey, it's in the price range of a lot of us blue collar riders. Example: At WTC '07 Fin brought a few BTS's to sell. $75 buckaroos a pair. Or, I could buy new Deeluxe's at almost $400 dollars. Guess what I did? I bought the BTS's and love'em. Sure, I can already understand some of the limitations of the BTS (boot cuffs can only deform so much) and I know that eventually I'll fall in love with a better boot model. I got an affordable upgrade. Which is what, I think, the floating plate system might do for us working slobs who ride on weekends and a few weekdays when the boss isn't looking. Dr. D's insight into flex patterns might become unneccessary with a 'float plate' upgrade from Bomber or Catek. I sure hope Fin is reading this. Drop the suspension kit and develop a plate that will truly suspend the TD2 or OS2's and sell it as an add-on for TD2 owners and as a price point upgrade to TD2 buyers. That or keep trying to sell metal to us Joe Sixpacks. Steve: I'm with you on the wide stances but, after having tried widening my stance over several seasons it gave me so much more control over the bigger boards I was buying. When I tried to apply wider stances to shorter boards it became more difficult to control the board. I still try for the widest stance I can be comfortable with and not let the board get to tail happy or the nose to want to pearl (we haven't covered 'pearl' in snowboarding verbage yet on BOL, so I'll also use 'auger' which covers woodworkers, farmers and military types in the CC). Bryan: Yes, wider is better for stability and feel. Narrower is better for more staccato-like turns for acceleration (read: pump). A wider stance gives more stability and encourages a more powerful drawn-out turn. Great for freeriding on open slopes. Mark

This past season I added more width to my riding stance and found that I have more control, less chatter, and can flex my knees deeper and keep them more apart. Keep in mind, this stance I used on a Tanker 200 and a 181 Mojo swallowtail. When I ran my stance width (20.5 inches) on my Burton UP 162 I still felt very comfortable in my stance but, it seemed as though I was overpowering the board. So, I did some experimenting. First, I kept the same width but I moved the whole stance toward the tail. This helped immensely and let me load up the nose to initiate turns. Secondly, I moved the whole stance forward and did several Superman launches going into both heelside and toeside turns. My final experiment was to shorten my stance width (18.5 inches) and kept a centered stance in relation to the effective edge for the 162. This really helped settle the board down and I was still able to flex my knees as much as I needed to. Sidebar: At the USASA Nationals in Tahoe 2 weeks ago, I was on hill watching both the GS and Slalom events for several groups who had wider stances were running faster times and looked like they were in control. The racers who had narrower stances seemed to be fighting their boards. It was like watching someone walking a tightrope in high winds. Is there a general rule (of thumb) to shorten or widen stances in relation to board length? I've read articles and comments about widening stance to get more control while riding. And my experience with closing my stance so that I could ride my UP has opened up my mind to the aspect that there is a direct relationship between board length and stance width. Comments welcome. Mark