It's not about the board

[John E]

A famous cyclist wrote a book titled "It's not about the bike".

Aside from snowboarding, my other passtime is cycling - primarily road. Cyclists tend to be equipment fiends. Always wanting the latest, lightest stuff.

I ride a 9 year old aluminum frame bike. Most of the guys I ride with at work have new carbon fiber bikes - very nice. However, I'm quite certain that the reason they are faster than me has very little to do with the bike. It's the motor. What I need to do is upgrade the motor. I've passed people with much more expensive bikes than me & have been passed by folks with lesser bikes.

So, with regard to alpine boarding - how much of it is about the board? Can an accomplished rider on older, plain-vanilla equipment out-carve a lesser rider on the latest & greatest?

I think I know the answer but I suspect that the equipment manufacturers won't like it.

[bobdea]

yeah, lets say me and Bordy decided to run a race but to make it fair he put me on a kessler and he took out a burton PJ

He'd still whip my ass

the thing is that good gear is amazing in that the new found edge hold and other niceties of newer top end gear does make you a much more confident rider and in the end a better rider

for example, these metal boards are so much easier to ride in chop I was carving over ruts that would of launched me on my older GS gear so now when I hop on one my old glass rides I try to ride over the same sort of stuff and I get the ever living hell scared out of me.

[D.T.]

I'm quite certain that the reason they are faster than me has very little to do with the bike. It's the motor.

Last year when Shelly was flying past people climbing "Big Nasty" at the Moab Century Tour, she blew past two ladies and was upshifting while they were down shifting. Shelly was riding her new Look 555, with a double on the front, they had triples. One lady asked "how's she doing that?" The other clearly stated "it's the bike." So clearly I have to disagree with you! ;)

[Jack M]

an expert level carver will be able to carve just about any board within reason well and look good doing it. But they will have more fun on the better gear. Get the best stuff you can afford.

[Mike T]

So, with regard to alpine boarding - how much of it is about the board? Can an accomplished rider on older, plain-vanilla equipment out-carve a lesser rider on the latest & greatest?

Hell yeah.

(NoSchoolRider on his Alp 1, Mike T on his metal decks 0)

I think I know the answer but I suspect that the equipment manufacturers won't like it.

Why would this bug the manufacturers? I'll wager that with the exception of Kessler, all the manufacturers earn most of their money by selling gear to people like me (and you?) are are decent riders but certainly not elite.

(Perhaps this also suggests why, to Bordy's chagrin, Catek has chosen to spend their engineering resources solving problems that were most interesting to the Masses and not those that are most interesting to the Elite)

100% agreement with Jack and Bob Dea on this... get the best you can afford (and that makes sense for your ability level and inclinations), since it will enhance your riding experience and perhaps you will feel confident enough to push yourself more.

When I got my Prior Metal last year I went from only riding slowly on ice to being less chicken. When I got the prototype AM 172 T from Bruce a month later (whivch I wound up purchasing from him), I found myself charging down the slope in ways I'd never done before.

[Bordy]

yeah, lets say me and Bordy decided to run a race but to make it fair he put me on a kessler and he took out a burton PJ

He'd still whip my ass

the thing is that good gear is amazing in that the new found edge hold and other niceties of newer top end gear does make you a much more confident rider and in the end a better rider

for example, these metal boards are so much easier to ride in chop I was carving over ruts that would of launched me on my older GS gear so now when I hop on one my old glass rides I try to ride over the same sort of stuff and I get the ever living hell scared out of me.

If I put you on my Kessler you'd win cuz I never wax my PJ (but I do still ride it)

[willywhit]

If I put you on my Kessler you'd win cuz I never wax my PJ (but I do still ride it)

Bordy,

what was that old sled you were riding on that super icey saturday at sugarloaf eces last year ? F2 Beamer ?

you were blazing on that thing on boilerplate gnar ice.

[Bordy]

Bordy,

what was that old sled you were riding on that super icey saturday at sugarloaf eces last year ? F2 Beamer ?

you were blazing on that thing on boilerplate gnar ice.

Random beamer like a 91 non world cup green thing, some guy gave me a few days before, no tune nothing, just some not wax I borrowed from some one staying at the bomber house. It had been sitting in a garage for a decade, I had stop by a friends to say hi since I was in town told him and his neiboor about ECES and the neiboor goes ""I have one of thoose race boards went to his garage and gave it to me. Funny thing is I have a broken one at home and they are just a few serial numbers away.

I wish Jack would have been riding that day. Just cuz its an Asym...

and thank you.

[Sinecure]

I just searched Bomber's Store, Hardbooter's Store, Coiler's site, YYZCanuck.com, Prior.com, etc.

I can't find a freakin' motor upgrade anywhere. Dammit! Legend (that's what an old acura is, right?), let me know when you find a place to order a new motor. I'm in.

[jtslalom]

Can an accomplished rider on older, plain-vanilla equipment out-carve a lesser rider on the latest & greatest?

oldacura,

Ofcourse you know the answer to this question. It's all about equipment. It's a linear relationship. The more expensive the equipment you have the better you can ride. This is why I ride an old beat up K2 soft deck. I suck and can't ride to save my life and so do any other riders riding old beat up equipment. One thing is for sure though, those dudes that ride in the $2000 ski outfits, now they can ride.

[Allee]

My biggest thing with riding nice gear is that I'm terrified I'm going to come off it and ding it up. For this reason I really don't want to borrow other people's boards.

I'd really like to ride a metal board but I don't want to be the one who crashes and causes it to delam, because that would bite and I'd feel really bad.

As I've spent the money on better gear my riding has improved in leaps and bounds, but I still feel awful when I look at my nice one season old Donek and it has chunks out of it. Oh well. As D-Sub says, tools not jewels.

[Fastskiguy]

Take a big regional bike race....say the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival in Wisconsin. 1700 entrants, lots of guys hell bent for the top 100 places, a few current and ex pros thrown in for good measure. This year a guy on a single speed steel bike won it. And his brother came in 4th on a single speed steel bike. (you won't find'em in the single speed class....they ran in the open class) It's a mountain bike race but Travis Brown came in 6th on a cross bike. And Mr. and Mrs. Eppen came in 16th on a freakin' mixed tandem! I've run this thing 13 times, 3 times in the top 100 on a geared bike, 3 (of three tries) times in the top 100 on a single speed. I've run duallies, front suspension, no suspension, gears and single speed.

It boils down to the motor. In cycling, horsepower rules. Lance did not win because he was on a Trek, not even in the time trials, not even on the time trial up Alpe D'Huez.

Snowsports are different, some skis or boards are faster thru the gates than others, some are easier to carve and hold on ice better. I'm a novice rider but an experience ski racer and some skis just feel "right", some don't. You can tell on your first couple of turns if you're riding something that works or not. You might pick up a second on a 1 minute course with some dialed in stuff vs. some stuff that is not working well for you. For making nice carves down some cord it'll make less of an objective difference.

[b0ardski]

TOOLS NOT JEWELS:biggthump Love that. bling don't hold up under high stress:flamethro

[Steve Dold]

Even though expensive stuff doesn't make much of a difference in performance (it is the motor after all), good equipment is more fun to ride. You don't need to be an expert to tell the difference. This goes for snowboards and bicycles. I'm having way more fun riding my new carbon fiber bike than my old steel bikes. I feel like commuting to work now where I didn't ever feel much like doing it before. I'm not much faster (if at all) but the ride is smoother, everything shifts and works better, and it's more comfortable. Plus it's way easier to get on the roof rack. All these things make me want to ride a lot more. I think it's that way in any equipment-oriented sport.

[Steve Prokopiw]

I still like steel and ride my Bridgestone RB1 with a fixed single speed as much as my Scott Cr1 Carbon.The Bridgestone weighs 23 and the Scott weighs 16 with everyday wheels and a bit less with race day wheels.I have an old Centurion I use as a townie and as a mountainbike even though the widest tire I can fit in back is a 32c.This is all part of the fun to me.I take this same approach with boards.

[BadBrad]

I'm not even sure how I would define "nice equipment". I have some newer nicer boards, but my old Burton Alp is still one of my favorites to ride. To continue the bike analogy, I used to race mountain bikes and there were a lot of guys with high dollar titanium & carbon bikes. I had a pretty good steel bike. But this one guy would show up with a cheap Trek with plastic components that weighed a ton, wearing Vans sneakers and his boxer shorts hanging out of his walking shorts, and he would proceed to kick everyone's butt. It was funny as heck.

[Steve Dold]

I still like steel and ride my Bridgestone RB1 with a fixed single speed as much as my Scott Cr1 Carbon.

I've heard a lot of good things about Bridgestones. I didn't mean to knock steel bikes, but the ones I had were not good rides. Schwinn Varsity that weighed about 40 pounds, Mercier 300 that was slightly small with really cheap parts from the factory (plastic derailleurs and steel cranks) and a Puch frame that was too large. A good steel frame that fits with good parts would made me just as happy as the carbon bike. But good means money, and it would still look (to a lot of cyclists) like I spent too much for how much I ride, which one or two times a week to work and back, 15 miles away).

I also bought the carbon bike because I'm trying to support a company that is trying to get going again after being out of business for a while (Ibis). That's part of the reason I bought my Coiler too, and the Donek years ago, I think it's great to support small builders even if you can't fully justify the need for yourself (if you have the money to spend and know what you are getting and that it will work for you).

[BadBrad]

I've always liked the feel of a lightweight steel bike. I used to race a Bridgestone MB-0 mountain bike. I thrashed it for years and eventually a chainstay developed a crack so I replaced it with a titanium frame. I like titanium for mountain bikes because there is no paint to scratch and they are usually bombproof, and they have a similar ride to steel.

My road bike is a Jamis Quest with a Reynolds 631 steel frame. It's the smoothest riding bike I've been on -- very comfortable for commuting and long rides. It was rated by Bicycling magazine as the best road bike under $1500. (My brother owns a bike shop, so it only cost me about $800.)

My triathlon bike is a Serotta Tri-colorado, another lightweight steel bike. It is probably close to 15 years old now, but I still like it.

[Guest Tool Can]

Funny,

I just posted WTB Boots. Just below user name it states SKIDDER.

So my Gear is ancient as perhaps am I.(Less new Goretex an Bionic parts}

Have not Ridden in a decade with the exception of a session last spring.

Using borrowed UPZ boots of Pain.OH The Humanity!!!

Yet Ride all day I did just the same.

After that? Well, hooked again. New Again. As one can imagine.

Found this site today because my old Raichle Concordia's {Vibraim soul}

are gone and I don't know where to.

Unlike the New boots I could Hike in them SEE

Made great steps up for all in the BC in those now old boots.

Ran Telle bindings on skined up cut short ski's that packed up light and tight

on the day pack. A perfect world.

So unless your racing at the highest levels,gate slammer,Road Toad.

What ever! It is not about the latest and greatest gear.

Its about what works for you to have a good time out there and that is it!!!

I have spoken of plate riding even while not riding for years incouraging others

to give it a try.Why? Because there is nothing else like it! Right!

So to whom ever put Skidder on me .

The Old Skidder here my have been your first instructor or the 200lb'er cranking turns so fine you gave this type of riding a closer look.

Perhaps kind,encouraging,Cool (And Smelled so Good too}

So as for me. I am with you!!!

P.S. Tech savy enough to realise that my old deck and bindings will not interface well with the newer boot shapes.So very relucantly I will have to join this century. Replace all of it at $$$$$ and sacrifice the hike ability???

If any one can give me the tech low down on boots that can hike/perform

with out,the so tired,elietist stuff that would be greatest.

Sincerly,

Tool Can Do