felix

What liners were you using? Race Tongue or normal tongue? I can't really imagine this happening with a thermoflex and a rather stiff boot (like Indy or 325), However I noticed that my lean mechanisms have become a bit loose due to riding in powder mode (never use walk mode). There are even some people who took off the mechanism completely for extremecarving.

They are just the normal average burton boards with a custom topsheet.

I didn't look at it in detail but the angles were usual for a raceboard. I think it was somewhere in the high 50°. Suppose his Backfoot might have had different angles (like not the simple Minus 3 or 6°) but I can't remeber.

Harald Walder got the last yellow team Rossis in 184 only as far as 4 years ago AFAIK. The last two seasons he then rode Tomahawk decals with Rossi topsheet. He allways said the Rossis were great boards.

Hmm the softboot preference seems strange to me. 2 weeks ago I've seen a hardbooter without rear leg really doing good turns. He did rapid transitions and even laid it down quite well on steeper parts. (both hands touching the snow on the frontside without bending at the waist, backside wasn't as good but pretty solid. On average slopes you couldn't tell he had only one leg. Out of about 20 alpine riders in that resort that day he was clearly the one who rode best and most secure. His rear leg is only a stump (about 15cm long) after a motorcycle accident. he used a solid knee. He skis too and scored medals at Austrian Championships for disabled but has not enough time to go for it at the Paralympics. He told me the following: 1. The skinnier the board the easier as you're closer to the edge. He rode a Hot Blast in 185cm. (He was about 185cm tall and 75kg). 2. The biggest problem he is facing is that his prosthesis allways rips out of the boots where they are screwed into. This is also the biggest challenge for him. He has used some Blax Boots and tried to fix a big Alloy plate inside the Plastic. He then uses 4 screws to lock down the prothesis (it's actually his girfriend who puts the screws in). 3. He can't bend down to the shoes therefore he uses Intec heels. This is according to him the only comfortable solution. 4. He can't accomodate to wide boards. Even in Powder he stays in hardboots and on rather skinny Swalltails. 5. In the racecours he said to have big problems because he can't drift in well, he needs straight courses to carve a clean line. If there are offset gates its difficult for him. Sorry I had no camera. It was a nice experience carving with him and really impressing for me. On flat sections and rapid edge changes he looked as good as non-disabled Europecup racers. Good wishes to everyone who overcomes disabilities and goes out into the snow. You got my sincere respect.

Contact titanalsports - I'm sure they got distributors for titanal in the States. As you probabely know titanal is a brandmark for a certain unknow type of alloy mixture sold by titanalsports from Austria. All racing skis still use glassfibre together with titanal layers. It complements each other. I don't think that Kevlar or Carbon is a good substitute for glassfibre, as it doesn't flex as easy.

Hi, really great great article and please don't take my following statements wrong, they're probabely just still misunderstanding of the concept! I mostly ride in a nice "natural position" especially on frontside no problem. Sometimes on heelside I have the flying arm problem (as on my avatar) and I slightly counterrotate. On FS its allright though. My toeside is definetly not my weak side, but I have one big problem with Frontside and Cross Over racing technique. For Cross under it's all sweet. My problem is easy to understand when looking at the first picture of the B rider group I think. 1. I'm allways well ballanced and do not bend in at the waist - so I understand and follow that step. 2. My back knee is in or directly above the snow during pretty much the whole carve if I need to get the radius down. I even moved to blocked lean position and race tongues on my Raichle 325 - nevertheless I feel that I could tilt up the board still a bit higher onto the edge - if it weren't for my knee dragging along the snow. It's even worse if I wear shinebone protectors as I'll touch the snow even earlier. a) my coach told me to drive the hip into the snow once my knee is touching the snow and from that point onwards to put some more pressure on my front leg as well. ---- Furthermore to flex the front leg more, and the back leg less, which is probabely where all goes wrong as I don't yet manage to accomplish this ---- b) If I follow "a)" I am able to tilt the board a tiny bit higher on edge, however it also means that I need to push my legs a bit and they are not as flexed any more. Following this I have the problem that I can't push strongly at the end of the turn and therefore I'm not able to accelerate out of the turn as good as when I didn't bring my hip down to the snow. Additionaly I then need more time to swith from edge to edge - which is awful in slalom races as I then really loose too much time on the transition to my backside edge. Consequently I loose much time in the race course, when I drive my hip into the snow to turn up the board even higher. My performance is allright with icy conditions but if it gets very slushy I'm simply loosing much speed on my frontside.

Saas Fee and St Moritz should have the same amount of sun as Italy. - you have loads of sun in the Valais. (I think about 260 sunny days per year)

The difference is that Europe is bigger. Places like Arlberg, Zermatt, (oh I forgot to add a recommendation for Saas Fee) or les Trois Vallés are way bigger than anything you can probably imagine. You have up too 400km of lift linked terrain meaning you can't even ski every slope during a one week stay. Just because of the slopes I don't think its worth it. It's the complete package that will make it unique. I'm sure its a different flair too - on www.epicski.com - one of the biggest forums for skiing - you can read what many Americans think about European ski resorts and look at the comparisons. It's mostly Americans posting there.

Well from my above mentioned resorts in Austria I think they all have around 100km of slopes. St Anton and the Arlberg region is the biggest and plays in a class of Zermatt. Zauchensee and Nassfeld will have better grooms but not the same scenery. Forget Obergurgl/Hochgurgl, its not worth it except in November, early december when they are the only non glacier region to be open in Austria. For pictures of the resorts and the slopes www.alpinforum.com is a great place where many people post fotos from their trips. It's in german but you'll get the pictures. Search = Suche

In Switzerland the Valais is a great region. Zinal is IMO one of the best resorts for hardbooting - but its small. In Austrian and Switzerland in general the best slopes are to be found in very small resorts. I neither liked Laax nor Davos in Switzerland. St. Moritz is great but very expensive. For Austria - there are great small resorts with good and steept slopes and practically noone during the week, but I wouldn't go there for a whole week. Do you want to go freeriding as well? In Austria if you wanna go racing and freeriding I would recommend St. Anton - if you don't live in Anton itself its rather cheap. (Nasserein would be good for cheap accomodation and 15minutes to town center by foot and gondola takes you up every morning without waitin). Great Scenery. Zürs and the Rendl are great bets for hardbooting. Very good snowconditions from mid January without exception, even this year. Receives snow from south and north. Lech is nice as well and doesn't sell day passes if crowded. Obergurgl is a good pre-season resort, but not very good in mid-winter. Same goes for Obertauern (too small and crowded). I wouldn't recommend other big resorts like Ischgl (crowded), Sölden (crowded), Schladming (not crowded in January but too flat, very good snowmaking) or Kitzbühl (nothing good about it at all). Other choices include: Zauchensee (pretty big actually and mostly good snow and not many people, very good snowmaking), Hintertux (crowded if bad snow conditions), Nassfeld (allways lots of snow when everywhere else is no snow, but no snow when the rest of Austria has the dumps, best snowmaking) Saalbach Hinterglemm is also not a bad choice either. All this is for end of January, in Feb if the holidays starts its different. Another great place to look at is Livigno. Italy has really catched up with Austria and this year with no single proper snowstorm from the North best snow in Europe. Last year however Austria was best with snow depth between 2 and 6 meters at end of January. My local resort Hochkar, even had a base of over 6m.

Never forget about the ceramic stone after the fine diamond. It really puts the needed finish on the edge. Also forget about that 1/1 angle. Go for 88/0.5 or 87/1 to have sharp edges. 89/1 just doesn't make it. I'm pretty sure the shop set it at 88/1 or 87/1.

I ment 2 secs on an ex-worldcup rider or average Europecup competitor (not winning time) for a 25/26seconds run. (which will be about 3-4 seconds on an average current worldcup rider, or up to 4-5 against Schochs or Grabner). On our local race tour (lower Austria, Styria, Vienna, Burgenland and some people from Salzburg, Upper Austria and Carinthia) we have sometimes up to 6-7 Europecup riders who participate and then older (ISF) big names like Gerry Ring.

Nope I'm kinda stuck to European boards. I tried a small Pen from Pokkis (172 Prior Custom with Titanal) very shortly, which I think is a great great board, but maybe not that well suited for EC - however better for racing and a Virus Boardercross with 22cm which I didn't really like at all. On top of that older snowboards, but well probabely they fall out of the game.

I have slightly bowed legs, but nevertheless I ride flat without any canting. Why no lift? I think its a remnant from the times where people would rotate on their heelside instead of pressing both knees outwards (regular: left knee into the snow, right knee needs to give strenght to left knee and pushes outward). On frontside I as well see no reason to do so. I ride my frontside by pressuring my front knee into the snow, I'ld rather try toelift on back foot and heel lift on frontfoot? Why cause it would allow me to tilt the board up higher on edge. Especially when riding with shinebone protectors its easy to feel your reer knee inside the snow on frontside. Any heel lift would further add to the problem while setting my boots straighter on back leg feels very uncomfy (I ride both 325 Raichle boots locked in neutral 3 position). Why no cant? - Well boys, get out of your intec binders into normal ones which allow much more flexing. The little comfort plus of step-ins is not worth it. I practically see no more racers with step-in. Without step-ins you can throw your weight forward or backward just as you like.

Yeah it says 25.5 to indicate that it was for 25 and 25.5 as both are the same you in effect got a 25.5 as a pure 25 doesn't exist.

Well I just got the answer from my new coach, he wrote me 153 is too short for the courses around and even more for the FIS Races, I could get a new F2 slalom for 200€ from him so I will see, we've got slalom training next Friday, I will then make up my decision. If any racer got more input please still answer.

****, no EC video, not even for Zinal participants (will there be an uneditet version at least?).;) I think you should draw you own conclusions about which board to get, but if you had been at Zinal this year and seen that nearly everyone was able to lay down fully laid carves on the Swoard, well then this should mean something. Well in my opinion the Swoard is the best board for extremecarving, well they've got the most experience for building EC board, so its no question that their board is the most advanced when it gets to ECing so that was the reason I bought one directly at Zinal. I've tried some other wide boards, but none could really convince me that much.. Lets hope that next years board assembles the good things of bost the first and second edition.

Hi, I'm searching for a slalom stick to complement my hardboot quiver. I'm currently on a Speedster GS 172 (2001 grey modell) and a Swoard 168M. However I decided to join the lower Austrian race team and pick up a bit more gates. I'm 68kg, 178cm and ride a pretty nice race technique as long as its not inside the gates themselves or on rather flat courses. Steep courses are still a bit difficult. But I think my times can still improve with a bit of training. In GS I lack about 10-15% to Europecup riders when I score a good run (same lag to old ISF heroes like Gerry Ring and others) and well Slalom I haven't had a board yet. Today I tried one run on a freestyle board which didn't work out at all, the second run on my 13m, 172 Speedster which I was able to work through the slalom gates but then crashed 2 times and arrived way late again. The really good racers were all on slalom boards around 160cm long. I wrote the race coach already asking him on what board I should get. (without falls I assume I could have got around 32 seconds in the second leg, while the winner scored two 26seconds runs.). At the moment I could get a new Hot Blast (I think its a last season one - its the typical green one) for 150€ including shipping which is a bummer price. For double that I could get a Sigi Grabner Race in 162 (with 12m radius) but I think that 1. would be too expensive) 2. I don't think I can get it through the slalom course though I might be wrong. I'm not thriving for top results, but would like to get to say 28/29 seconds when semi-professional or older worldcup riders take 26-27 seconds. About my riding technique - here are some shots that show it pretty well: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/PicturesfromFelix/ExtremecarvingSessionZinalFelix Only the shots labeled race turn 1 were taken on an not very steep slope. The pics above were taken on a very steep run (la corne in Zinal - the one you see most EC from) and didn't intend to be racing style.

Oh, Indy is way way way wider than 325 old series - so it should be easier. In case you can still blow out (You might have the bootfitter start blowing out at the heel and then front

I'ld put it at 4. You will fit in, more easy or less depending on the width of your foot. The problem with Thermoflex is that it is very thick in the front. I just cut away enough material of the Thermoflex til I fitted in. Cut the material away before heating it up! You will get to value the first buckle - only once it is properly closed you cannot slip forward with your toes against the shell anymore. For me its about the same size, if not smaller.

I'm at 0.5cm in a 325 Raichle with Thermoflex - This ment I had to cut away the front part of the liner. It's working great though now. C'ant possibly go one size smaller anymore. Whithout Thermoflex its easier to fit in.

Damn I want it:biggthump But I've never seen one on ebay in Europe - I'll keep searching.:lol:

o.k. guys - seems that I'll have to stick to my burton race plates carbon - and maybe get a replacement Ibex just in case or for my second board. Even better would be to get only the heel part of the burton race plate stepin and put it onto my plates. However they seem to be more rare than anything else. Maybe they all cracked?

So would you, those that have ridden them personally, recommend them for a 185cm or 178cm titanal SGS RAce board (they might go on top of the Hangl Race Plate from Sigi) or a 175 Swoard Soft? I won't use them for Powdering but either carving or racing PGS. As said I need a laterally rather loose but forward/backwards stiff as hell and well damped binding. Oh of course I want them to be as unbreakable like my burton race plates from 98 that still hold up without any repairs needed. (Im at 70kg only)