lift line comments

[CarvCanada]

I'm 18 and am the only one of all my park duck stanced friends who rides alpine. I got into it since I've been carving it up with 50 degree angles on narrow freeride boards since age 13. I LOVE being part of the minority. Ha! They think they can carve, and I just smile and dig a eurotrench around them to demonstrate. Most parkies consider turning while making a scraping noise "carving". They all thought it wasn't cool even though only 1 of them has an idea of what carving is, and they thought that me going down green runs instead of the forest somehow meant that I'm crap rider. Haha after they watch me link super aggressive turns on my 171 down a lift trail, I now no longer get comments, just stares and an acknowledged sense of inferiority from my softy friends! We'll see what they think when they watch me burn down on my soon-to-arrive blue flamed coiler 186! They will want to try and I will lend my skier friends my donek.

[C5 Golfer]

One of my Favorites is the one where the ski guy asks on the chair lift .. Tell me about that squared off tail you have. I started with " Well, I got tired of it falling down when I stood it against the wall so I cut it off square on my band saw" He looked puzzeled then I told him the correct Alpine story. Several times I had to tell skiers it is not a mono ski then they say "I had no idea" but my best one is from a fellow snowboarder but on a free ride with straps. I am an old fart at 57 and he was about 15-17 yr old. He gets on the chair with me and asks if we can race to the bottom and I say sure, lets go. He is excited and so am I since I was riding my Volkl RT 178 at the time with TD step ins and he with the 3 strap. As we got off the lift I stepped in and left, he sat down to strap up, and I went straight to the bottom and was probably half way down while he was still strapping in. Met him at the chair he had a puzzeled look on his face and he did not ask again. Treachery and old age wins again!:D

[Guest woodman]

That's a good one! I'll have to remember that for the next time I get asked:D Age has it's privileges:)

40 and counting......

Paul

[Guest dragonfly jones]

That's all I hear at our home hill. It works for us as we alway lend a hand and have befriended the patrollers, ski schoolers and the mountain management - I can be doing a hundred through a slow area - with the patrol director - and they say that's just dragonfly you ain't gonna catch him - laughs all around - now I would never advocate fast riding in slow areas ever but over time and being a good citizen has enabled the team and myself a little leeway.

One question - can you ride that backwards with the broken tail? Sure follow me....... love that love it! Jaws drop and the women swoon and the drinks are free. Yep alpine is for me...

[ARCrider]

my favourite line had to be yesterday.

while waiting for the lift I had a lady look me in the eye and simply say that I was having the most fun of anyone there. I was a lone carver yesterday.

I told her my grin factor was wrinkling my face but I didn't care.

[Skwalleur]

Is this a single ski? No it's called Skwal..... ???Squirrel???

or

No, it is a fat ski, but I am so poor, I can buy only one.

I got this from a cute 8-year old skier: "Is it hard to ride on only one ski!?"

But my favourite is one I overheard carving by some dude in the slope (about myself on the Skwal): "Check out that guy! He's only got one leg!"...

(OK, I've got a narrow stance on the thing, but seriously... one leg?)

[skipuppy]

My favorite quote came from a girl boarder: "Woah!!! How did you break your board?"

"What?"

"Your board.. its broken!!"

Oh! Thanks for letting me know!

[jdgang]

I still get alot of "Is that a snowboard?" I actually find it kinda funny

[veector]

im often the only person with hardboots at blue mountain, i usually get all sorts of questions, a bit repetetive though

[kjl]

Luckily we all have those "This is Hardbooting Snowboarding" cards we got from purchasing the Bomber Season Starter Kit, right? ;)

[adrian barr]

The most comments i get are when riding my swallowtail with plates.

"why does that board have a piece missing at the back??"

well i was going so fast that i broke a piece of the board off !!

[ak_rider]

i busted out the hardboots, I finally didn't have a lesson to teach and the Breck groomers finally came out-not that I minded the several feet of pow. I was riding up the lift and a softbooter started asking me about it, saying he'd like to try and asking what it was like, before I could utter a word the softbooter on the other side of me said,"if you want to know what it's like just turn your bindings forward."

I told the curious boarder he should try a hardboot setup, it's a lot of fun, and you can go really fast. I just left the "know-it-all" boarder alone. I figured I'd just be wasting my breathe on him. After all-he already seemed to know everything

[Guest dragonsword5]

When I tell the snowboarders in my school about Alpine boards they get this really confused look and are like....sssuuureee.....So that's when I kinda just walk away thinking about what they're missing out on.

I started this sport last season and I absolutely fell in love with it because I wasn't the type of person to do terrain parks. I'll leave all that to my brother. My uncle was the one who actually got me started and gave me his Burton Alps 157 and later his Vokel RenTiger 168.

When I ride the Vokyl I love hearing the comments. While I was waiting for the ski lift (it was going really slow) the ski attendant guy goes "I've never seen boards like that, but I am a boarder. You must go really fast on that" I'm like ya its awesome. Then he says something more and as I get on he calls it a ski-board and I yell back "It's called Alpine!" and he laughed.

Then when I came down for my last run (they were closing up unfortunately) he goes "you really go fast on that s***. I'm like yep.

But its fun to get the points and funny looks because you rarely get that on a freestyle board or even questioned about what you do on a freestyle board but on an Alpine board you open someone up to such a great sport!

[veector]

Reading some of the posts on the first page reminded me of a day at work. Some guy came in just to get his snowboard waxed and he saw me walking up to the frount counter with my alpine in my hand. He says, wow an alpine board, i never thought i'd see one here. We started talking about alpine and i gave him some tips on how to ride one and where he could get one and find out a bunch of info (bomber) He was also curious if his 10 year old was ready for it, definately. Put a smile on my face and his.

[Linus]

At least you didn't get your ticket cut off by a patroller. I did last season. I think they are trained to be dumb by Intrawest.

BTW, do you guys ride a lot at Blue? I'll be there often this season since I was forced to buy my season pass this season. Let's ride togather sometime.....I'll be upthere this thursday or friday.

peace

[C5 Golfer]

A couple of comments that come to mind that are funny is one guy asked about my Volkl 178 RT, "what the heck happened to your board?" I say "you mean the square tail?" He say "Yea" I said back with a smile " I got tired of it falling over so I cut it off square, now it stands up againt the wall" I went on to explain alpine boards. Another one was a young smart ass kid, on a soft set up with 3 strap said "Is that an alpine board? I say "yes", He says "Do you want to race to the bottom?" I look down at his board, it is about a 150 and like I say the typical 3 strap, - me I am in my Step in TDs. I say "Lets do it, sure". We get off the lift I step-in smooth as silk and I wave as I see him sit down to strap in, next time I see him is at the bottom in the lift line and he just stares at me and my board setup. :lol:

[Guest jager]

People seem to avoid me in the lift line. Hubby's kind of scary looking, I guess but I'm really tall on my board, then the helmet and goggles. And, if I have a speedsuit on (sorry, miss the course! LOL!) it's a whole other ball game cause it makes you look all muscly. LOL! He's gotten questions before.

"What's your friend DOING?"

"Well, my WIFE is snowboarding" he'll say.

"That's not really a snowboard"

"Nope! That's a REAL snowboard!" he always answers.

LOL! Married a keeper, I did! :D

[kevbo]

Here is a smart one..."Do those bindings work different?" 'Does that board ride the same?":smashfrea

kevbo:biggthump

[Gleb]

well my first time out on plates today got the comment "Is your board broken?". i had a good laugh. A guy that worked there said he's glad to see "one of these on the slopes," even though he gave up riding his alpine board. Turns out hardbooters are actually common at wachussett

[NateW]

happens all the time, out some of them stick out...

Two kids behind me are talking... I overhear one say "that's a MONOski." Could't think of anything witty so I let it slide.

Guy on the 2-seat lift, good attitude, we B.S.ed a littie bit on the way up... and then he says, "hey, have you ever tried a real snowboard?" I was on the ball that time: "hey, I was just about to ask you the same thing!" Intelligent discussion followed but I don't think I made us a convert.

More recently:

"How come you're wearing two leashes?"

"If that boot breaks loose, I want my foot to stay close to the binding, so my other knee doesn't get twisted up."

That's the only one that bothers me. But technology will advance.

[mrjamie]

I'm almost, almost unhappy when it dumps 3 feet of fresh powder, because it means I don't get to go carving and I have to dig the softies out and ride untracked powder. What kind of screwed up, sick snowboarder am I now?

hah!

[fluke]

You guys get really amusing comments. In Germany and Austria--and I guess in every european resort--you don't hear anything similar. I guess it's because a) hardboots, though scarcely spotted nowadays, are still more common here than in the US and Canada; b) of a cultural difference: usually strangers don't chat with each other in lift lines. It's not unusual to share a chair lift with somebody you don't know and not a single word is spoken.

[Gleb]

You guys get really amusing comments. In Germany and Austria--and I guess in every european resort--you don't hear anything similar. I guess it's because a) hardboots, though scarcely spotted nowadays, are still more common here than in the US and Canada; b) of a cultural difference: usually strangers don't chat with each other in lift lines. It's not unusual to share a chair lift with somebody you don't know and not a single word is spoken.

We usually have to share a lift with a stranger because the lift lines can get very long and if each person was to get their own lift, we'd be standing in line for an hour. Also, when standing in a long lift line, there is little to but talk.

[skipuppy]

Nah, in Europe its a whole different ball game. My parents took us (my little sister and I) back when we were younger. We were constantly being knocked down by "mature" adults in the lift line shoving their way through to the front with complete disregard for people who were there already. Its a cultural thing- you just gotta tough it and learn how to stand your ground. As 7 and 10 yros its a bit hard though. In addition, they also stand in line (sometimes even longer lines) and sit on the lift together. As was said earlier, they just don't TALK to each other. I personally think this is a cultural thing too and I have found that if you smile and start up a conversation there it is VERY EASY (unless it is an older "uppity" person) to get a great intellectual discussion on the ride up or joke around. It's just the first move of actually opening the mouth that isn't done all that often.

[Allee]

I had my A159 Rossi (with the totally retro fighter jet graphics) out on the weekend, parked against the garbage bin at Sunshine. A group of jibbers walked past, one of them stopped, looked, scratched his head, called his mates over, and they all scratched their heads and looked a bit confused before shrugging their shoulders and wandering off. Funny to watch looking out the window.