tufty

What I was trying to say is that if you're looking for rigidity, the first thing to do is remove your snowboard boots from the equation, not blow the best part of 500 bucks on stiffer bindings. The "stepin" question for skwals is made more interesting by the fact that a good number of people ride with a ski boot up front and a snowboard boot in the rear.

It is, I am reliably informed, quite possible to superglue jelly[1] to a plate. Doing so does not, however, make the jelly any less wobbly. Simon [1] Jell-O, for those living on the other side of the Atlantic

That's some pretty stiff boots. I doubt most people would like them for boarding.

Ah, horizontally laminated cores. You'll get flamed for mentioning those around here, of course, but the results are pretty good, if the "pop" remaining in my 2003 Hot Blast is anything to go by. I was considering that approach, but to get full benefit, you really need to laminate in the camber form, which makes subsequent core machining a bugger to do unless you happen to have a 5 axis CNC "lying about" doing nothing. I'm doing "standard" vertically laminated cores that I steam-form to the camber shape before layup.

Boyle's Law, innit. Although quite what that has to do with the gif above I don't really see; it only applies to a fixed quantity of ideal gas at a constant temperature - pneumatic presses deal with varying amounts of real gas, and don't worry too much about temperature except in terms of heating the epoxy to cure it.

I'm using a screw press.

I'm forced to wear them at work, and they really don't work for me. > Width? They are supposed to be wider then Scarpas and Dynafit, right/wrong? Not sure, as I've not tried the scarpas or dynafits. They've put enough pressure on my feet by the little toe that I'm pushing bone spurs. Hooray. > Instep height? This is where I get problems with Nordica TR9s, they fit nice but not enough volume on top. This isn't a problem for me, but it wasn't with my old TR9s either. There is a problem (at least with adrenalines) that the rivet holding the second foot ratchet pushes into my insole if I use the standard footbeds (I have slightly flat feet) - the only way to fix this for me was to use personalised footbeds. > Sizing? True Mondo or slightly large? True mondo as far as I can tell, but the liners pack out fast. > Heel hold? OK at first, at least for skiing. After the liners pack out, though... > Flex? Compared to what boot? Floppy, overall, but stiffer than my old TR9s (and lighter) or my AF700s. Hideously floppy for skiing in compared to any other ski boot. Massive differences in flex when cold. I much prefer the flex pattern on my AF700s. > G-Ride vs. Adrenalin? Which one is stiffer? Which one is taller? Other differences? Can't answer that one. We have Adrenalines and Endorphines at work (depending on what year they were bought), they are all loathed by better than 50% of us. Most of us are uncomfortable in them. Otherwise, they are fragile (buckles, cant adjusters, walk/ski adjusters all break regularly). That's a problem with any light(er)weight AT boot worn regularly, though.

A bit more information. She was 9, on a very flat, but very hard (as in "hard packed", not "difficult") blue run joining the start of a drag lift and the start of a chairlift. Caught an edge and came down fairly hard on the left side, according to the witnesses. G9 Junior helmet. So far, so straightforward. At this point, one of the adults should have headed off to the nearest place where they could call a pisteur. The net result would probably be the same - i.e. a trip in the whirlybird. What actually happened, however, is slightly different, and certainly didn't help matters. The adults who were with her decided, rather than staying put and sending someone to call for help, to drag/carry/ski the stunned kid to the chairlift, queue for 15-20 minutes, get on the lift without bothering to mention the kid is semi-conscious, and go to the top. She collapsed getting off the lift, at which point one of them called me over to ask if there was a pisteur around. "She's had a fall", no more information than that. Whilst I'm radioing for a pisteur, they have taken it upon themselves to start moving her out of the line of the chairlift arrival. I'm shouting at them "don't move her" (fearing a displacement of some hypothetical broken limb), but they aren't listening. The fact she's not screaming allays my fears somewhat, until I get a response from the rescue boys and head over to tell them there's a 5 minute wait. At which point I'm told she has had a blow to the head. At the same instant, one of the adults is trying to remove her helmet. I spend 5 minutes before the pisteurs arrive and take charge making sure that the ****ing twats aren't going to remove her helmet. They try to do this 3 times. As of this morning, she is still in hospital in Albertville. I don't know any more than that. As to why she ended up with serious head trauma whilst wearing a helmet, I can't offer any real insight. It certainly appeared to be well fitted. Maybe the helmet had foam that was too hard for the accident she had. Maybe not. Maybe it had already taken a few hits. Maybe not. Maybe it was just bad luck. In all probability, she would have been worse if she was not wearing a helmet. But then again, maybe not.

Wrong. The foam distorts, slowing the head and reducing the accelerative forces on the brain, and thus (hopefully) reducing damage. Then you break the helmet into little itty bits and throw it away. Wrong again. Puncture resistance is purely down to the strength of the shell. Thickness of foam is a tradeoff of foam rigidity (more rigid == thinner) vs how many Gs your brain is going to take in a particular "hit". The claims made in the motorcycle article were related to Snell testing against the kind of hits 99% of riders would never encounter outside of a racetrack, and which would probably kill you anyway through other injuries, leading to a foam so rigid that it does ****all good in the majority of cases. Which is why I ride with a DOT/CE helmet and not a snell one. But that's me. Had a 9-10 year old kid heli'd off the mountain today after a (not very hard) fall on a blue slope. Very expensive, top of the range, Giro helmet. Unfortunately, very obvious brain trauma. Couldn't remember her name, age, where she was, what she was doing, couldn't feel her legs or nose. Hope she pulls through.

If I wear my hockey helmet, I can't get my goggles on. The grille gets in the way.

Why does one ride a skwal? Why not? What is the point? It's the bit at the front. What is the device good at? Carving. Seriously? an excerpt of what I posted on the skwalzone forums: The skwal is pure carving. Totally committed, almost totally pure, little "backside and frontside" to consider, no wimping out. It's hard to do. It's harder to skid than to carve. It's like the switch from softboots to hardboots. Once you've tried it, you run the risk of not wanting to go back. They're pretty damn good in the powder, too.

I spent the afternoon cutting the core for my new board today. 180, 9.5-13m radius, 12cm underfoot, decambered nose. Personally, I have the "standard" 4cm between boots stance, possibly because that's what I started with (and my SK200 wasn't inserted, so I had to stick with what I had), but I have tried the widest possible stance on my Panther and didn't like it. A wider stance might be more forgiving, but if you wanted an easy ride you wouldn't be on a skwal, right? I rode for a bit with a colleague the day before yesterday, I don't think he's a fan. Roughly translated, what he said was "that thing runs like a high-speed train and carves harder than anything I've ever seen, but you still look like a spastic riding it" :) Simon

http://locallangegirl.com/all

Frickin' right you would. It's my day off, yesterday it snowed, and I had to go to the local big police station to sort out some bullcarp with my driving licence rather than go riding. On top of that, it turns out I *didn't* have to go sort out my licence, and it was all just bullcarp. Bah. Still, being at the police station did give me an excuse to practice my nazi salute. And the 90€ fine I got given for not having changed my licence got nullified, so that's a win.

You callin' me a nazi?

It's all draaaaahmmaaaaaa. Sure, we're not quite at wikipedia levels of queenyness, but it's getting there. Drama-queening is a forum disease. It usually starts off with a bit of chronic threadpissing, which results in a bit of moderator action. That's followed by a (usually brief) period of "the mods are all nazis" posts and a (failed) attempt to overturn the rules. Further slappage ensues, and is followed by (if allowed) either deleting or blanking one's posts, (again, if allowed) removing of as many innocuous threads that you created before the mods notice. The final phase is the "final post", which is usually summed up as <pause> Bastards! This is, of course, not the final phase in many cases - what follows is a bunch of tedious (for the mods) sockpuppet postings from innumerable easily-spotted new accounts.

I rarely go all the way to the top, at least on my board. The slopes at the top are crappy. Still, on skis, I carve top to bottom at full chat every day unless I have slopes to close. After all, don't wanna be late home in the evening, so best scream it, right? 3000' vert or so. If I'm hanging around on the smaller slopes (around 1000' vertical), then sure, I can carve direct top to bottom all day, as long as no tourists get in the way. After about 2000' vert, the ol' legs start getting tired after a couple of runs, and stops get more frequent. Although they often happen over a "p'tit blanc" in the cabin at the top of the lift :) The main problem, though, is tourists. I am totally tourist-averse (part of which comes from riding in a resort jacket), so buzzing them is not really an option.

For starters, go with what's comfortable. That will probably end up being around the sizes quoted anyway. Generally speaking, wider stance is more stable (up to a point, obviously), but isn't as fast edge to edge. This may not hold on "modern shaped" boards, and optimum stance definitely differs between boards. For some boards, taking a super-wide or even "a bit wide" stance will stop you from being able to turn the bastarding thing (the super-giant lacroix I tried last year was like this - setting up with the same stance as I have on my slalom deck resulted in a plank I could only straightline and fall off of, pulling the stance "in" got rid of the straightlining).

I assume you've never been on a prepared slope, then? I have (the "Piste Verte" at Les Houches, just after the Kandahar). I decided "I can do that one", only to find myself on what was effectively a 45-60° ice rink. I nearly shat myself. We're opening a new slope next year, reserved for the local ski club. It was originally planned to be water injected for hardcore race training, but as it's impossible to keep the tourists off, that's been rejected. There would be deaths.

I refer people to the technical articles, but point out that the forum is full of very good snowboarders who, like the denizens of most forums, tend to follow the John Gabriel Greater Internet ****wad Theory. Far as I'm concerned, allowing editing after anything more than a few minutes, and allowing post or thread deletions by mortals after others have replied, is simply asking for draaaahmaz. If you know that your internet cocknuggetery is going to hang around and make you look like a cocknugget, you're less likely to act - well - like a cocknugget.

Yay me! I should note that the photo is not of me (I have neither the mad skillz nor the photographer in tow) but of Shama, the creator of the fall'us powder skwal http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1648. I know where that photo was taken, and it's hairy as hell. The man can ride. Still, took my panther out this morning, 20cm of dry powder over groom, and then into the scrub and trees, where there was getting on for 30cm untouched. A hoot, but cut short due to havingto get to work. At midday it was all sticky chop and tourists, but loads of fun nonetheless. Groom tomorrow.

Think not. Do.

Grow the **** up, man.

OK, I'll bite. I know I shouldn't. IHBT. A skwal *is* an alpine snowboard. The only difference is width. Its even more "pure" than an alpine board, in many senses - the *only* thing that makes sense is carving, to do anything else requires unnatural movements. Its hard to "scarve", let alone skid the ****ing thing. Technique is the same, cross over/under/through is the same, weight transfer in carves is the same. You need to be a better ride to do it right, though. Riding a skwal for the first time is like going from a soft rig to hardboots for the first time - it all feels wrong and you get ejected a lot. In the same way that I doubt there is a single rider here who couldn't ride the piss out of the average softboot rig, though, when you go back to a more "conventional" board you will find your riding has improved. You will have a calmer upper body, more precise weight transfer, and so on. There's even "modern" shaped skwals with metal construction, if you want to get all "if it's not decambered" about things. And fin makes bindings for 'em. Like I said, get out on the snow. Try a skwal, if you can. It's even more fun than "classic" alpine, but you may need to spend some time waxing your ears.

I'd suggest getting flexier bindings, or getting used to how the HSPs don't flex as much laterally. Modding your boots to get more lateral flex risks ****ing them completely.