Tweaking setup

[PolyMathMan]

Greetings to the carvers!

Burton Custom x 166 with 8.4m sidecut radius, 250mm waist Burton large C14 carbon-fiber bindings, Salomon Malamute boots.

Personal: Weight 195 (88kg), 5'11" (1.80m) Size 11 1/2 (UK 11,EUR45,29CM) boots, Boots + bindings=360mm length

Several questions:

1. What's the best that can be expected from this rig - in other words, put Patrice Fivet in it, what have we got? I realize that I am limited by my sidecut radius, but conditions around here (West Virginia) are quick and nasty at best.

2. Side to side response. When I dryland the setup, should I feel equal pressure on back of legs and front of legs when I simulate riding position and side to side movements?

Discussion. Am I right is assuming that as I go down the fall line, and I move from side to side in a low centered stance, that I should feel immeidate and equal pressure on both legs from the board? This my main question, one of the proper feel or sensation. I have tried many setups (mostly 40f-35r), but when I go to a test of high angles (55f - 45r) to eliminate boot-out I find that the force is mostly generated by my leading leg, and that I have to move my rear knee into the turn to exert pressure on the board. What seems to make the most sense to me is the ability to have a small dead zone over the balance point of the board, with just a small lean into the boots to initiate a smooth, equally distributed force on the edge.

3. If equal pressure is necessary, how best to achieve it with given angles? I can tilt my rear highback foreward to equalize things, but it makes it almost impossible to get my stiff boot into the binding and my rear knee is in a very tiring crouched position. My thinking is to cant the binding to achieve this balance. I have even considered removijng the highback, as the Malumute and the C14 are very stiff, and placing canting spacers between the boot and binding.

4. Hard boots and TD2's on a Sword or Coiler would be nice, but they are financially out of reach, and the prime conditions are few and far between here in these hills. But I still dream of carving and my ultimate goal is to make the best of what I’ve got to lay down some sweet lines.

[newcarver]

Welcome to BOL. Do you ride mostly at Snowshoe? Used to go there a lot when I lived in NC. You should be able to do some decent carving with the set up you have. How wide is that board? Narrower waist helps. I have been carving with a Academy Merit 159 which has worked pretty well. You can do a search on "Gilmoore Bias", or it might be "Gilmore"?, and find a lot about softboot carving setup. But I found that riding with the heel and toe as close to the edge without booting out when you tip the board over to 75 degrees works well. I use a 20"+ stance and ended up with around 32 deg front and 15-20 rear leg worked well for me. More angle in the rear leg was too uncomfortable for me. I had to drive the board hard with the knees, especially on heelside. But I could lay the board over pretty far and so some nice high speed carves on moderately steep blues at Telluride. My snow conditions are a lot better than back east though. Think there was also a thread called "softboot carving" that was full of info.

[kumimajava]

i'm sure the more experienced guys will help you out (i'm a complete noob at this), but based on what i know, here's a few things which may help (& save the other guys some typing):

Burton Custom x 166 with 8.4m sidecut radius, Burton C14 carbon-fiber bindings, Salomon Malamute boots.

Several questions:

1. What's the best that can be expected from this rig - in other words, put Patrice Fivet in it, what have we got? I realize that I am limited by my sidecut radius, but conditions around here (West Virginia) are quick and nasty at best.

I think it would help a lot if you gave us some info about yourself - e.g. height, weight & boot-size. How the board responds & what angles you should/can choose will depend a lot on this.

2. Side to side reaponse. When I dryland the setup, should I feel equal pressure on back of legs and front of legs when I simulate riding position and side to side movements?

Discussion. Am I right is assuming that as I go down the fall line, and I move from side to side in a low centered stance, that I should feel immeidate and equal pressure on both legs from the board? I have tried many setups, but when I go to a test of high angles (55f - 45r) I find that the force is mostly generated by my leading leg, and that I have to move my rear knee into the turn to exert pressure on the board.

I've ridden softboots for ages, and i can't imagine that 55f/45r would be very comforable in softboots, irrespective of bindings. There was a recent thread on softboot carving angles - here:

http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?t=20084

3. If equal pressure is necessary, how best to achieve it with given angles? I can tilt my rear highback foreward to equalize things, but it makes it almost impossible to get my stiff boot into the binding and my rear knee is in a very tiring crouched position. My thinking is to cant the binding to achieve this balance. I have even considered removijng the highback, as the Malumute and the C14 are very stiff, and placing canting spacers between the boot and binding.

my first intuition would be to introduce heel-lift, rather than tilt the highback forward. this way you change the angle in your knee, but don't put excessive pressure on the ankle - maybe that would make your leg feel better overall.

It seems that the "conventional wisdom" (if such exists?) is that when angles get high, you will probably need to introduce some heel lift on the rear foot and (sometimes) toe on the front.

Not sure how much potential there is to introduce heel/toe lift on stanard softboot bindings (maybe there are some cant/lift wedges around?).

4. Hard boots and TD2's on a Sword or Coiler would be nice, but they are financially out of reach, and the prime conditions are few and far between here in these hills. But I still dream of carving and my ultimate goal is to make the best of what I’ve got to lay down some sweet lines.

there are a lot of good "starter" deals around - you don't need to start out on a Coiler. a while back there was a Burton Alp 7.1 with race plates on the local ebay (here in the UK), which sold for 20 USD (!!!). That is exceptionally low - but a basic carving setup might be much more affordable than you'd initially think.

i'll duck out of the way now & let the more experienced guys take over :)

[DiveBomber]

Well I bet you could pull off an HB set up for $300 bucks