Soft Boot Carving

[John Gilmour]

this is a photo from the SES 2008.

I am riding a G-FORCE RAZOR 176 with Catek FR2 Limited (47 and 44 degrees) with burton andy Warhol soft boots.

With this set up I was able to carve just as good as I do with my hard boots.

Sean took some great photos of soft boot carving and I will post them as soon as I have them.

I remember trying to dial you in...at SES .. that was the first pair of freerides I had ever assembled (What a panic...lol)... Did it come out alright? I never got a chance to really take a run with you and see how the board was reacting to your movements.

Great photo By the way.

I actually ended up buying the same boots as you- midnight madness sale for 70% off. Like $100 bucks. They are unbelievably comfortable..actually the nicest Burton product I have ever tried. And to have nice graphics... well that was just fun... . I passed on the matching Warhol Bindings....lol.. Have you tried using the foam inserts to retain your heel in the boots? At first I put them in identically- but then I tried moving them around in the boots to more closely match what was going on inside the boots for the binding angles I was riding and ended up making them asymetrical- much better actually...mostly because your rear ankle goes into deeper flexion in your toe side turn and so they really have to be set in to hold you down better. Like all foam they will start to wear out... so as that happens I might make some inserts of my own- perhaps out of stiffer material.

The boots have started to break down pretty fast.. I am actually going to try and find a back up pair. I got them at the end of the season and they really boosted my riding ability- there are some photos which will show me in some ancient Salomon Malamutes circa 1999- but the new boots really gave me the ability to be more aggressive without fear of injuring my ankles- because they really absorb flexion on impact. Now my body can be more over the board without dropping a shoulder as opposed to the photos Whit is trying to post up. I look more like an alpine rider in the Warhols. Which is really funny since a girl came up to me after I carved a loop at the bottom...saying "Hey thats one of those racing boards with the ski boots huh?" And I said- nope it is powderboard with regular boots and bindings... she was completely baffled.. The funny thing is that I am even more comfortable- and less cramped with better circulation in my Warhols which are 1/2 a size bigger than my Salomon Malamutes- yet they certainly hold my foot better too. I think Hell just froze over... I like a Burton Product. And would buy it again.

________

DETROIT AUTOMOBILE COMPANY

[b0ardski]

JG, that is a great explination of how the set up can eliminate pain.

""Without being fit right- your gear is guaranteed to work against you can fight you at every turn and force you to make unnatural movements""

I've spent many years dialing in the right gear/set-up to minimize the pain/strain to my knees & hips. I learned long ago that a soft plastic boot & plate binder eased the strain on all leg joints & lower back as compaired to skiboot/SB race, or laces/straps.

[b0ardski]

JG,

I'll post those pics in a bit, wife is hoggin' the mac right now:freak3:

WW, I'd be divorced if we hadn't bought 2 laptops & wireless router, and I'm a hunt&pecker computer illiterate:freak3:

[boarderboy]

"I learned long ago that a soft plastic boot & plate binder eased the strain on all leg joints & lower back as compaired to skiboot/SB race, or laces/straps."

Would Scarpa Lasers, 3-buckle AT boots, with Burton (Ibex) plates fit your formula for a joint-friendly setup?

I sometimes get only a couple of days on-slope a year, which makes extensive experimentation and tweaking difficult.

Thanks

[willywhit]

I set your computer up good... didn't I?

ya, always "dialing it in"

so, since this thread is "worthless without pics" here's some pics JG sent me from Aspen today as we were tweakin my mac for "high performance" :rolleyes:

Aspen snow + proper technique, dialed in~in softies=Rippin Arcs

worth a thousand words, probably more

you get the idea

I got a few more but that's it for tonight

[b0ardski]

"I learned long ago that a soft plastic boot & plate binder eased the strain on all leg joints & lower back as compaired to skiboot/SB race, or laces/straps."

Would Scarpa Lasers, 3-buckle AT boots, with Burton (Ibex) plates fit your formula for a joint-friendly setup?

I sometimes get only a couple of days on-slope a year, which makes extensive experimentation and tweaking difficult.

Thanks

that would be a setup I'd like!!

But I found 3* +/- inward cant on my burton plates made a big difference in comfort as opposed to flat.

I'm planning on Scarpa TX boots next year and cutting in stepin heels.

The drawback to AT boots is lateral stiffness in the cuff, not so much of an issue with high angles.

[John Gilmour]

I wish I had run into him over the years. I did shares at Killington for 5 years and rarely ran into any carvers (I only did a few days/year on the hardboots myself until things started clicking and I finally eclipsed my soft carving abilities this year). I even more rarely saw decent soft carvers. I haven't been there in two years though. I'd love to see that though. I'm not much of an athlete, so I know there are people that can do what I can do, but much better... it's just statistics that are working against me running into them (ie. such a small % of boarders actually carve turns)

I think (specifically) the superstar headwall and Ovation endwall are the steepest pitches... OL is just longer more continuous pitch. I'd carve OL in softies in groomed nice snow, but not chalk - also, not as tight of a radius that I'd like.

I saw a guy - once - popping tight hip to hip SL turns, speed perfectly controlled, down that superstar headwall in chalk, and that's what actually made me try hardbooting! I can lay one or two big S's down it, but that's not *really* carving, as I aspire to do it. Plus I'm too chicken to go that fast. :rolleyes:

Vin carves Ovation and Superstar too. You probably never saw many carvers because he had a "Sunday Morning Breakfast club" he would contact all the lifties and know which lifts opened when. We would start first chair typically to Killington peak- then to Bear- and cruise control- ending up at snowshed eventually- and almost riding untracked groom from opening lifts until 11:30- he had the place wired. And NO ONE would be on the slopes- we would hit them all first. So that is why you never saw anyone- personally I disliked Killington intensely until Vin showed me his system. I thought I was at a different resort.. if you didn't know what was opening and when the sun hit what and the snow conditions... it could be horrible with crowds and death cookies everywhere along with some hung over british skiers who couldn't ski to save their lives in your way.

Another fun carving challenge is gandalf under the witches lift at Haystack (private now)- short steep and narrow- not much room for mistakes. Jimminy Peak has one good steep run. The front 4 at stowe can be done in soft boots but not always hard boots- and gondolier is great. Stratton is no challenge - liftline is easy- and so is North American- also the lift system is slow with the exception of the silly six pack. Jay Peaks Jet chair can be fun. Attitash is pretty good lots of variety in steeper pitches, Bretton woods is for teaching your newbie GF. Cannon has a few good trails. Loon has upper walking boss and upper and lower flying fox and steeper Angel street (if not moguled), Waterville valley has no steeps even white caps is tame- sels choice is too short, if you want to blindly land on someone doing a flying carve hit Saphire at Okemo- tons of whales on that run and horrible lines of sight late season..., Sunday River has too much artificial snow to be worth the drive. Wildcat is is a living experiment of what skiing is like when all the snow is blown off the trails. Mt. Snow has no steeps other than the first 3 turns from the top. Sugarloaf has some decent runs. Sugarbush is double fall line everywhere- not a great carvers MT. the worst mountain for snowboard carving in the east has to be Bolton Valley- by far the worst snowboard experience.. Everything about it- the lodging which is like a cheap college paper walled dorm (but ridiculously expensive- all the nearby bed and breakfast places should have not replaced their mattresses since the Carter administration, miserable food that reminds you of a bad summer camp, and some of the worst grooming I have ever had the displeasure to ride. The trail layout is poor too- a skiers experience for fools.

Diamond in the rough for cruising carving??? Magic mountain. it gets twice the sun of nearby stratton and when stratton is socked in with clouds you have perfect visibility at uncrowded Magic - they have stratton days with discounted lift tickets. All lifts are visible from one central point making it ideal for families that don't want to get separated. All parking is close to the lifts. It isn't nearly as over run by slow skiing families as Bromley. No one yells at you for bombing down Magic.

Uncrowded skiing midweek? even after a snow storm...silly Sunapee in NH- and it gets good sun.

Strong Northeast winds- stripping snow off of trails?.. avoid Sugarloaf and killington and Stowe... head for Bretton woods which is protected by neighboring higher Mts. and typically gets a dusting of a few inches each night.

________

Ferrari f1 642 history

[John Gilmour]

"WW, I'd be divorced if we hadn't bought 2 laptops & wireless router, and I'm a hunt&pecker computer illiterate"

I got a super cool program for my Macbook pro- MacSpeech Dictate... you can forget having to type.. just talk- You will know when I use in the forums because typos are gone... well... wait a sec.. I'll demo it.

As if you could see. lol

But I will use it to spell things I can't spell properly other than "the" (hte, teh)

Okay I now have the headset on. It's doing voice-recognition right now. Let's try some fun words, Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Norman Schwarzkopf, Liza Minnelli, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr. Nancy Kerrigan, Michael Milken, Sir Richard Branson, Led Zeppelin,

And now let's try some of the 100 most commonly misspelled words in the English language. Bellwether, accommodate, conscience, conscientious, consensus, drunkenness, inoculate, maintenance, millennium, miniscule, misspelled, noticeable, perseverance, playwright, principal, questionnaire, referred, restaurant, supersede, vacuum,

Mercedes-Benz, Lexus, Bentley, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bugatti, Maserati, Morgan, Toyota, Land Rover, Ford, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Chrysler, Saturn, Kia, BMW, Hyundai, Suzuki, Honda, Ducati,

Rossignol, head, K2,

Mark Levinson, Sony, Panasonic, iPod, Marantz, Conrad Johnson, JVC, Altec Lansing, JBL, Tandberg, audio research, infinity, Martin Logan,

Dick Cheney, William Jefferson Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Richard Milhouse Nixon, Vladimir Putin, Alberto Gonzales, Monica Lewinsky, Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Angelina Jolie, Bette Midler, Robert Palmer, the Sultan of Brunei, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, T. Boone Pickens,

So as you can see, it's a pretty good voice recognition to text program. It is based on the Windows version for PC called Dragon naturally speaking.

.......

As I see it soft boot carving is one of the best ways to promote carving in general. So often people see our boots and the assumed that you cannot do anything but carve in hard boots and they assume that they are uncomfortable.

But when someone comes up to me and I am in soft boots and asks me "is that fun, that sure looks like fun, you are hooking some pretty good turns on the mountain" I reply, "yes it is fun carving around in soft boots, but the real fun happens when the snow gets harder and faster and you are in hard boots because you have so much more control and the surface is more planar. That's when soft boots usually are not as much fun, but having a hard boot lets you become a superhero on the snow when used with a plate binding and Alpine snowboard"

When they hear someone in soft boots endorsing that hard boots can be very comfortable like soft boots, and that it is even more fun and worth having both setups, they are more likely to try hard boots than if a person in hard boots was to tell them they should try hard boots.

Of course, nothing gets some people more intrigued than seeing someone hard boots going about 40 completely laid over blasting a rooster tail 20 feet in the air behind them and leaving an impossibly deep trench in their wake. The only issue with that is that some people assume incorrectly that they will never have the skill level or the muscle strength to do that, it looks just too crazy, and you can scare some people off. Just like some people who drive cars are freaked out by motorcyclists that lay out their turns. I think it's a lot easier to get someone to get a taste of carving on modern day soft boots and bindings, and then explain to them how much more intense the experience is going much faster with more control and precision using hard boots and an Alpine set up.

I am really dying to make a new all-terrain board.

________

Buy silver surfer

[willywhit]

Couple more quick pics.

Gilmour contemplating the possibilities.

Last day on snow in Aspen

2 of the rippinest, chillinest alpiners on the planet

Gilmour and Bordy

also-

Big UP to leeho730 from NZ for jump starting this thread from last MArch.

[leeho730]

I was thinking, that if I do come down to New

Zealand, it would be in the next two weeks. I

certainly could bring your board with me at that time.

I'm going to have to see where Travis, former Burton

snowboard's team member, has gone snowboarding. I know

he is going to Argentina after that -- and I might do

the same.

I'll get in touch with you soon.

Do you have Skype? Or AOL Instant Messenger, or iChat?

I'll videoconference with you and show you the snowboard.

John

Sorry, John, I've decided to spend the season in North Island this winter. I'm still going to Queenstown but I'll be gone by Wednesday the 13th. I can still give you a tour of Wanaka, sort out accomodation and transport to ski field but will not be able to snowboard with you. :(

You're still more than welcome to come down to NZ and ski in North Island; I'll pick you up from the airport (as long as it's Wellington ;)), sort out your accomodation according to your need (backpacker or hotel), and give you a tour of North Island ski fields (www.mtruapehu.com). They're as big as Treble Cone, and Turoa has got some really good wide slope, although they tend to get chopped up pretty quickly during the weekend.

But I'm more than happy to buy the snowboard from you if you come to NZ. Please let me know when you're going to come. Otherwise I'll wait for 3 years and buy a new snowboard from you.

My email address is leeho730@yahoo.com, should you wish to contact me.

also

Big UP to leeho730 from NZ for jump starting this thread from last MArch.

Thanks :) For me hardboots have been superior for carving at high speed, though... ;)

I also tried ATV on powder day at the backcountry. The board sank a bit and wasn't as floaty as wide freeride boards (waist >25cm), but still fun.

[willywhit]

because I'm jonesing......for snow

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[boostertwo]

Thanks for the vid, Willy.

We had frost last night and the willow and aspen are beginning to show the first hints of fall color.

<a href="http://tinypic.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i38.tinypic.com/jai5v7.jpg" border="0" alt="Chris 'Sando' Sandoski blasting some high performance softboot arcs on Pepi's Face, Vail, CO. "></a>

It won't be long!

Cheers,

B-2

[b0ardski]

soft hardshell stepins doitall:1luvu:

[Dave ESPI]

takes deep breath.......

4

months

four

months

fore

moths

.....:o

[BlueB]

Well, hopefully 3 months, over here...

[willywhit]

:biggthumpLH,

Thanks for the sequence of Sando. Man, that looks fun !

You use tinypic to make sequence shots ?

with the weather patterns we've been having in the NE recently, let's hope it becomes a winter full of big dumps

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