David Kirk

I watched some of the video you shared and here's my take....I think for that style of carving that the 17m radius would be longer than optimal. On less steep slopes you'll spend much of the run trying to get up to the speed needed to turn the board hard and after a hard carve your speed will be too low and you'll need to let it run again to get speed for the next turn. This is a boring way to ride IMO. On steep slopes you might have trouble controlling speed because the bigger turn keeps you in the fall line longer and it can be hard to keep speed in check and not be "that guy" who rides so fast and straight down the hill that it endangers others. If I were you and I wanted to ride like in that video I'd go with a shorter radius than 17m. How short? I can't say. I chose 14.5 m but I can't say that is the right number for you. dave

Speed is relative isn't it? To one person 25 mph is slow and to someone else, on different terrain, with different skill level and different gear it's too fast. So when you say "as fast as possible" that's hard to pin down. I will say the the Oxess BX board with the 17 m radius will go very quickly and is unflappable. That said if you are not coming across the fall line at near 90° and not making big edge angles then the talk of carving performance is all moot. I get strafed at times by guys with boards 158 cm long and 8 m radius going 45mph nearly straight down the hill and the gear geometry matters little to them. They are going fast but not carving and in little control. My wife likes to say that they "change edges but not direction" and she's got that right. I think in the end you'll have to try gear and see how it works for you.

It is fairly intuitive....the board with the longer radius likes to be going faster before it will be happy carving at a high edge angle. One nice thing about the longer radius is how well it skids turns. I know that this isn't the aim of most riders here but if you ride bumps and steeps then the longer radius skids turns very nicely without being too busy or hooky. Would i spend more for the shorter radius? - yes. In fact I did. I had the Oxess BX board with a 17m radius and I liked it a lot. I just felt the radius was a bit long for the speeds I wanted to go on the trails I typically ride so I ordered a new board with the 14.5. I got to ride the 14.5m board just one day and it was very good on firm carving conditions. You can read a more in depth report on the board porn thread. dave

I'm not sure if this directly applies or not but it can't hurt - FWIW - my experience says that one should match the sidecut radius to the speed you want to go and the width of the trails you ride. Boards with a very tight radius (like the 7.9M in the OP) are not comfortable being ridden at a high speed with a high edge angle (very tight turns at a high speed try to beak the laws of physics) so they need to be ridden at either a lower speed or a lower edge angle. One thing that is almost never discussed is that the torsional rigidity of a board is paramount to its precision and stability....and of course some boards are stiffer in torsion than others. At the same time one needs to recognize how every board works, regardless of its sidecut or its inherent torsional stiffness. When a board is flat it's relatively easy to twist it. It's just the nature of a flat plane. But when you bend it into an arc the torsional stiffness goes through the roof. The arc itself makes it MUCH harder to twist. You can try this with a good old fashioned metal ruler while sitting at your desk. With the ruler flat twist it and note the resistance. Now bend it into an arc and try to twist it. It will be much harder to twist. The tighter the arc the stiffer it gets. A board is the same way. Why does this matter? Well a board will be the most stable, and have the best edge bite, when it's bent into a tight arc because the torsional stiffness is the greatest this way....in practice it means that the edge angle of the tip of the board will more closely match the edge angle under your feet (less twist) and this will make it dig hard and be more stable. With that said a board with a very tight radius can't be ridden at a high speed with a high edge angle. If the short radius board is ridden at a higher speed it will need to be at a lower edge angle which in turn means that it will be not be bent into a tight arc...which in turn means that the torsional stiffness will be low...which means that it will not be as stable. So you have a board that becomes inherently unstable at speed....higher speed, low edge angle and low torsional stiffness don't play nice together. One other thing...a short radius board can be ridden hard and deep by a very skilled rider. I can hear some here saying that they can carve their 8m board hard and I believe you. That said it takes more skill to do so. All the movements the rider needs to make to get a deep tight care to happen need to happen in a shorter time period and this is harder to do. Most will think that that is counter intuitive and that going faster is harder than going slower. I get it. But if I were advising a moderate level rider as to board choice the board would have a medium radius and never a super short one. It's just easier to ride and more rewarding most of the time. I hope that makes sense. I've not finished my morning coffee so who knows! dave

It looks like the snow was pretty good. I was there a few days earlier and found very firm and cold snow that was still edgy enough to carve hard and it looks like it warmed up for the days you were there no doubt making it even better. dave

Good morning - No....I told Marcel that I had a stock 169/17m board that I loved and that the only thing I'd change was making the radius a bit tighter and I asked for a 14.5m radius. I wanted to change as little as possible and just wanted the board to hook a tighter turn. Performance in moderate powder is easier to come by, IMHO, than making it hook up on a carved turn and I didn't want to compromise the carving performance for a small gain in soft snow. For sure this board will not be the one I grab when I wake up to see that the hill has 18" of fresh...but when there's 6" of new and the groomers are too soft to hard carve a GS/slalom board the new Oxess will be an easy choice. We have a lot of those days here and it's worth having something in the quiver for them. dave

So….a bit of a follow up - I had a chance to spend most of the day today riding the new Oxess at Big Sky. The conditions were anything but springlike with a bit of sun here and there and temps in the upper teens. The off-groomed was not good with coral reef under a few inches of fresh dust. But the groomers were pretty good if a bit firm. The board turned out awesome. The edge hold is staggering and you can dive in hard on it in nearly the same fashion as I can on my two Kesslers (slalom and GS) and it just slices and holds. The snow was super reactive and the board can be made to hook up in a big way and it just doesn’t fold up if you dive it harder than need be. It feels like a wide race board….which of course it is. I wish I could go back tomorrow but today the stars aligned and I was able to skip out on work while waiting for raw materials to show up. But I came home to them today and the rest of my week is going to be full on work. Whoever gets up to Big Sky this week will love the carving in the next few days as it warms up a bit. I really look forward to getting the new Oxess out in the fall and floating in the side pow and then digging trenches. dave

I'll keep that in mind....if the weather turns more winter-like that could be fun. If it stays springish I'll be racing my autocross car. Tough choices! dave

This began as a bit of an experiment about a year ago. I’d been riding a RadAir Tanker 187 as my everyday all terrain board and while I liked it I wanted something a little less twitchy and more damp. On deep days the 187 was really fun but with an 11m radius it really prefers to be carved on groomers at a low speed. It also isn’t stiff enough torsionally to hook up on firm groomer very well. So I went on a search fo a more damp board with a longer radius that would be happier at higher speeds, be comfortable at steep edge angles, carve steep groomers well enough to be fun and deal with a moderate powder day (leaving deep days for the Tanker 200). I started looking at the Oxess boarder cross boards and found a used 169 with the stock 17m radius here on the forum. I rode it all of this past year and it’s shockingly good. It does most everything I hoped it would do very well including 8-10” powder days. It’s so much fun to float on the fresh pow and then hit the groomer and dig some serious trenches on the same run….all at a highish speed. Really fun. Toward the end of the season I was thinking that having a board with a slightly shorter radius….say about 14.5 m….might be ideal. The 17m Oxess ran a bit long for some of the trails I frequent and carving it tight was a bit more work than need be. So I contacted Oxess and asked if they could build me the 169 boarder cross board but with a 14.5 m radius. The answer was yes and with a stimulus check in hand I placed the order. This new board is the result. I placed the order about 5 weeks before our season was to end and Marcel at Oxess said he’d need about 3 weeks to build the board. Awesome…I’d get to ride it before Bridger Bowl closed for the season. Marcel shipped the board ahead of schedule and then Fed Ex took SO long to get it here. It went from Oxess to Paris in a day and then it spent a week at the Paris airport. It then went from Paris to Indianapolis IN where it stopped again for another week. I have no idea why. In the end it was delivered 2 days after Bridger closed. So I’ve not gotten to ride it. If Big Sky gets some good conditions in the next few weeks I might head there but spring conditions are not my favorite so it might sit on the shelf until next year. It sure looks like it will be fun. Dave

Hello Jennifer - I took measurements of my two feet with thin socks on. The right foot measures an even 28.0cm and the left is 28.5cm. I'd be inclined to size to the smaller foot and punch the shell if need be to fit the larger foot. One of my least favorite things is a loose fit. With my high instep and the actual foot measurements in mind what size Mountain Slope boot should I be looking at? I look forward to your input. dave

Thanks you so very much for speaking up. Do you have any photos of how the tongue works on your boots? With the Deluxe boots the tongue can pivot fully forward and out of the way and it makes getting my silly tall instep foot very easy. I'd love to see what things look like if the tongue can pivot out of the way. Can you post a few photos? thanks again. dave

Cool - good info all. Thank you. I have a size 10.5 foot, narrow heel, skinny calves, fairly normal fore-foot and a VERY high instep. The high instep is a problem in most any foot wear I want to buy. The Deeluxe shell accommodates the instep fairly well with minor mods. The instep is so high that I can't slip my foot into a traditional overlap ski boot shell with the liner removed. Slip on casual shoes won't work because I literally can't get my feet in them. You get the idea. I used the Deeluxe 325T's with the stiffest tongues and I would not want them to be any softer and feel like a bit stiffer would be good. So the SB will work but I wish I had a bit better heel hold with less cranking of the buckles to get it. I've tried the Deeluxe 700 series and they did not even come close to working with my foot. I spent 15 minutes in them in my living room before putting them back in the box and returning them. Based on the above is it worth buying some MS boots to try on with the idea of returning them if they don't fit well or would it be a waste of time? dave

I’m Mountain Slope curious. I’ve been using Raichle/Deeluxe boots for a very long time and they work well for me and I have no real complaints. That said, I see nearly every World Cup racer using Mountain Slope boots and I wonder why? What is it about Mountain Slope boots that makes them the go-to choice of so many racers? Who here has actually used them and can relate their first hand experience? Dave

The bindings are sold and paid for. dave

For sale - Bomber TD3 Sidewinder bindings. Very limited use and in nearly new condition. I’m sure that if you look hard enough that you might find a small mark here or there but they look as new. They come fit with the yellow E-Pads and the yellow E-Rings. The base plates are 3° and 6°. Includes all hardware and some extra E-pads as shown. New these are $525 but these are offered at $285 shipped in the lower 48 states. If you are outside that area we would work out the extra shipping cost. Please PM me with your interest. Paypal payment only. Dave

They look like a lot of fun....for my taste the radius would need to be a bit longer but it still looks like low speed body dragging fun. dave

I spent a few years with a Skwal back in the day. I enjoyed it and liked it even better when I used ski poles. They can really rail turns that's for sure. I found the downside way booting out more than I'd like if really charging hard. The newer designs might be wider which would help that - i've not tried one of the newer ones and the last I rode one was 15 ish years ago. Definitely a fun tool. dave

PM sent. dave

No worries - the sizing on these boots is not the most straight forward but the boot sole length is definitive. And unfortunately I need one size larger so I won't be able to take these off your hands. Good luck with the sale. dave

I may be interested.....can you please tell me the boot sole length? It's molded into the shell just above the heel pad on the inner side of the boot. dave

I put a long day in today on mine today and the carving was as good as it gets. I've always ridden longer boards (180-195) and thought that going "so short" with a 168 would be an issue seeing as I'm 6'4" tall. I expressed this reservation when I talked with Hans and he told me in essence that it would be fine and not to worry about it. I'm in the custom bike biz and one of the tough things to deal with is a customer who feels that they know better even though I've been building frames for people for over 30 years....so I took my own advice and listened to the expert and went with the 168 and I couldn't be happier. I took Hans' advice and it paid off. The board never feels short to me and it has a surprisingly wide speed range where it's happy....it will make both tight round turns and high speed GS turns and leave you smiling. You can't go wrong with a K168. dave

Just to be 100% sure on the size can you tell me what the boot sole length is? dave

It looked like a very generous gent from Wa. was going to be able to help me out but it turns out the boots he had were one size too small....so still looking. Thank you. dave

I've tried to get in touch a few times and hope you see this and respond. thanks so much. dave

If you can get a new lugs that would be the best way to go. The bail material is very hard and would be tricky to drill without a hardened bit. dave