joecarve

I'd strap a passenger to the roof before putting my boards up there... joe...

Sounds like you're riding the tail on initiation. You want to solve that with working on centering up between your bindings, rather than locking your boot forward (I'm assuming you're referring to lean adjustment in the boot here). To help eliminate that pause to heelside and get the board on edge faster, think about coming across the board hip-first on the transition...essentially, "falling on your hip" on heelside, or similar to bumping a car door closed with your hip. If you fall or pop out of the carve on heelside, think about the last thing you were looking at...it was likely downhill, across the toeside edge, rather than the direction the board was travelling (as Jack mentions above). I went the jump-to-high-binding-angles route, while my wife eased into it by bumping in 3-degree increments. I highly recommend going the incremental way (particularly since you're carving well in softboots). Start off at your old angles on your softgear setup, but add 3 to 6 degrees to the rear. Take a run, then repeat until the rear is within 5 - 10 degrees of the front...if a 12-degree split feels comfy, go with that. Now, start bumping both the front and rear together in 3 to 6 degree increments up to 45 in the front. Then switch to the hardboot setup with 50F and a similar 5-degree bump at the rear. joe...

I've got a fixed-bucket helmet with vents on the side (a Briko). There's a slight reduction of sound transmission, but it's more of an issue hearing soft conversation on a lift than a safety hazard on a run. I haven't noticed whistling from the vents, but maybe I'm not riding fast enough :O) IMO, You want to be relying on your eyes for crash avoidance...anything you hear is often too late, I think. joe...

I bookmarked that one a long time ago: <http://www.bomberonline.com/Forums/Index.cfm?CFApp=2&Message_ID=8292> joe...

I've stood on (but wasn't able to ride) the 3DM/Banshee 36" deck - the length seemed ok, but that is one stiff deck! I'm 160lb, but bouncing on it a bit I didn't think I'd be able to de-camber it unless I was really, really hammering it. Not sure which flex model it was...could have been the super-stiff variant. I'm not bombing hills by any means - just steep enough to get some nice full turns and still be able to kick my way back up at the end of a run. My usual training hill is a 2-lane - I can't quite pull a U-turn on it with the Gravity. I've been looking at the seismics (and spring chart), actually - should I be running the 45 plate front and rear, as well as the mixed spring rate (one step lighter in front)? I'm assuming you want to follow the "longboard" category for carve-like feel. BTW, that 3DM deck I stood on had seismics with yellow springs - sure felt loose! I was wondering if it made sense to pick springs that were on the stiff side for carving...like maybe adopt a +1 approach to their weight chart . I realize you can crank them down - just want to pick something reasonable...so I'm guessing light front and medium rear steel rebounds - make sense? joe...

Hey PSR- I've been using some of the pumping motions from slalom (well, to the extent that I understand them) on a longboard to force my shoulders to correct alignment, but a slalom deck just feels too short. Are you making nice, round C-shaped turns when you're referring to carving on a slalom deck? Slalom discipline seems targeted at (oddly enough) running a line of cones, whereas simulating freecarving is more like passing through offset gates (two parallel lines of cone pairs). I actually just demoed a FibreFlex 44" pintail the other day and thought it felt even more like what I'm looking for in simulating snow with a traditional skateboard (I currently have a Gravity Hypercarve with Randal R2-150's). Maybe I just like my feet between the trucks...but I'd like to hear some convincin' to add a slalom deck - drop me a line directly... joe...