Chris

Csquared, please send me an email with your address....I owe you $50. I hope today was a success. I ended up spending most of the night dealing with an unfortunate family situation...saw the sunrise... :( Chris

For arranging everything Chris. Looking forward to Friday, The Other Chris

K2 Fat Bob ~ Burton Canyon 162 ~ Sims Daytona 162 Sims Carve 161 Coiler 175 RC Coiler 172 AM Prior Split 165 Burton Fish 156 HD OSin 4807 168 2 Planks: Salomon Streetracer 9 160's Rossi B2 Bandits 176 Black Diamond Crossbows 171 CB ~ = sold

This from Osler Bluff web page this morning... "UPDATE FOR SATURDAY JANUARY 21, 2006 22 cm FRESH SNOW OVERNIGHT!" Please tell me it's true!

Just FOLLOW DIRECTIONS, as Jack says. I've done three pairs. with good luck. The one pair I had done in a shop were ruined. They told me it was a convection oven--it was not. They also set the temp. way too high and melted the cuff pretty much off one liner Real pros It good to have someone to help hold the shell open because the liner will puff up a fair amount. The idea of slipping a nylon stocking over the liner before you put your foot in the boot is very helpful. Also do the toe cap thing to give your toes room to move later, otherwise the fit will be very snug. My feet measure about 27.3 and I fit in 27's just fine. I think if you go bigger you'll find the boot will feel sloppy later. Good Luck Chris

Csquared, I haven't met any of you guys except Greg. I don't get up to MSLM--it's a long drive from London. I usually only make it to Talisman on Sundays. Not a great carving hill but okay compared to what's down here. At any rate, it'll be fantastic to ride with a bunch of other carvers. Usually I'm the "guy on the funny board" or "the old school bindings" (TD2's!) with no other alpine riders around. Looking forward to learning from some other riders. Cheers Chris Ball

This sounds great. I'll be there too. My thanks as well for organizing things. Chris PS. Thanks for the heads up on this one Greg.

Great night tonight........no crashes..... jp1, I can't imagine body surfing on a concrete track clad in lycra! Plywood is bad enough. So you guys who've spent some time riding tracks and on fixies-- steel or aluminum? My local shop bought all the Cannondale Major Taylor frames they had left. Good price with Miche hubs and Open Pro rims, cranks I'm not sure of yet. Or a steel Soma. Cheaper than the Major T's by a fair bit, definitely not as stiff, but somewhat repairable if it came to that. Any first hand advice would be really appreciated. I hate buying when I don't know exactly what I'm doing, but the rental bikes suck so I'd rather not wait too long to buy. Chris

I think the muscle extension Bob is talking about may be what your muscles get from controlling the speed of the bike on steep downhills where you do so for safety or to keep your cadence under 150rpm This is what I found after my first night. The muscles on the inside of my thighs were trashed from resisting the pedal revolutions to slow myself enough to get off the track with a little style.

Gord, Things are in flux right now, what with getting it all organized and figuring out what it really costs to keep it going....but...at the moment if you haven't ridden track before, the Tuesday night LTR is free and then after that, track time and a bike is $20. A yearly membership will be $350 and I think they have an out of town membership...check the website. Pretty cheap really. You can buy yourself a half decent brand new KHS track bike for about $600 CAN. All Seasons Sports in London is really getting into carrying a good range of bikes this type of bike. New track record tonight...8.5 seconds.

The snow's been gone for a while but we've got a great new toy up here in London. ON. CA. As far as I know, we just opened the third of three indoor Velodromes in N.A. It's modest in size, I'll be the first to say, but what a blast. Pulling G's rain or shine. It's crazy riding a track bike. They are direct drive--if the bike is moving so are the pedals. You slow down by reversing pressure on the pedals. These bikes are so simple--one gear, no suspension, and NO brakes. 138m around the track, with a 52 degree bank on the corners...17 degrees on the straightaways. When you go into those corners at 30 mph the track comes up to meet you like the Great Wall of China. Carving on plywood! It gets really interesting when you have five or six other people on the track with you. You've really got to check before changing your line or you're asking for some throbbing road rash. My son and I already have some skin loss. He was getting tired the other night and lost in the #1 turn. I was only two bike lengths behind him and all I could think of was "Don't run over your own son!" As a result I went down too. At least they were rental bikes. They've got great racing on Saturday nights by some excellent riders along with spectacular crashes once in a while. My riding is limited to "recreational" at the moment, by I'm aiming for some sport class riding by the end of the summer. Track record for one lap is 8.9 seconds. www.forestcityvelodrome.ca There is a short movie of a race on the site along with some interesting pictures of the track's construction. Chris

Putting some high mileage on the Litespeed Tuscany. I'm out to beat last year's 4500km. Also a little mountain biking to keep the handling skills sharp. Don't let those quads waste away!

I've heard about those new avy beacons...first picture I've seen of them. Talk about Euro style AND functionality! I guess they just point to the spot your buddy's buried?

Ron, I have a pair of X-Bones. I use them on a BX style board and on a Fish. I haven't tried them on my alpine boards. Very easy to set up in terms of boot length. If you want to use the cants, it causes a little head scratching but really no big deal. They are reasonable flexy, but for someone 145lb. I'd guess they would be okay. I'm 165lb. and they hold me down. In fact I had a great auger in--crash n' snap while wearing them. My fiblula is broken but the X-Bones are not. Get better.

especially when you attach some tassles to the back! I don't like how the iron is so cold tho'. I get frosbite on my ears:mad:

:D :D :D Just funnin' ya...

Get well Bill, broken ribs are no fun. I pulled the same entertaining move for the lift riders in late December. Fractured my fibula instead. The cast comes off Tuesday! By the way....Four broken ribs=NO SNEEZING:eek: :D

I loved the introduction...."the Stradavarius of snowboards". Great interview Bruce.

Bruce, I'll be propping my Racecarve 175 up by the radio so he can hear his daddy on the air! Have fun on the radio. It's pretty easy after you get the first sentence out of your mouth. When I had my 15 minutes of fame (many years ago) it was over all too soon. Enjoy:D

The best defense I've ever heard for doing something stupid was, "I'm not dumb, it's just a facade"....except she pronounced it "fakaid". I still laugh thinking about that.

Almost exactly what I thought when I got my AM and RaceCarve from Bruce. I haven't ridden a lot of alpine boards, but the first big impression I got was "Wow, all that jittery, 'board noise' is gone! I could just think about where I wanted to go next and do it --no distractions from board feedback. Just fast and precise. I was so excited I emailed him that night to rave about this "quiet ride". Interestingly, his reply was that Jasey Anderson had said the same thing about the boards when he started riding them.

I definitely have the good day/ bad day syndrome. Last season I would ride like a hero one day and suck big time the next. For me it is usually snow conditons. This year however, I started out with the BBB (that's the Big Bad Day). I had just bought brand new TD2's from Dave @ yyzcannuck.com and bolted them to my Coiler 175 RaceCarve. . .but I thought I'd take it easy on the first day out and leave my Coiler at home. Instead, I dusted off my Sims Daytona, and put some Raichle plates on it to go with the Raichle 123's. I'm thinking that it would be a nice forgiving ride to get my legs back, but somewhat carveable. It was a classic last run crash. I folded the Daytona, felt my front knee twist, and my ankle crunch. After sitting up and delivering a few choice words to the ***holes on the lift who thought my fall was funny, I stood up and shakily slipped down the hill. I was damned if I was going down in a toboggan. To make a long story short, I got my boot off, packed my ankle in snow, and drove to the hospital. X-rays showed an avulsion fracture of my right fibula. As I understand it, instead of the ligament tearing free of my fibula, it remained intact and fractured the bone. Sucks to be me. For another 5 weeks anyway. Sure hope I make that trip Feb. 20th.:( Moral? Take it easy first day out, and don't forget what you're riding on. I don't think the Coiler would have let me down like that. Happy New Year:D

There are several good makers of splitboards around. Prior is right there in BC (Whistler) and make a great board. They use Voile hardware which is the on the whole more reliable and trouble free than Burton's offering. I have a Prior which is a great ride and one tough board. Look at Voile as well. There is a small but growing split board section here on Bomber. You'll find it from the main page in the box on the lower right which says "Other Bomber Links. " Also ask some questions at this link below...there are many there who know more about splitting than Il ever will and you'll get more feed back than you know what to do with. :p http://www.telemarkskier.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=1 Go earn your turns!

Well, the Fish is fun in trees. I used it with hard boots and Raichle Xbones which seemed a good fit. It washes out late in a turn on groomers. The 4807 I haven't ridden much yet, but I like it better overall. Did you look Bertin's new Malolo. Less taper, and better on hardpack they say. Of course it will be many more $$$. Jake's got a big ship to float.

Coiler RaceCarve 175 Coiler AM 172 Madd 170 Volkl RT 158 Sims Daytona 162 Sims Carve 161 Osin 4807 168 Fish 156 HD Prior Split 165 Oh yeah, some BD Crossbows/fritschi freerides for AT BC