Hi, remember me? Only alpine at Whistler?

[Ondrej]

Hello Dave, no worries, it was pretty busy day so I couldn't have any ridebreak anyway...

Sorry that I am writing so late but tomorrow (Tuesday) I should be on the hill with Nigelc, hope we will have a good time, snow was slushy today but it has been freezing since sunset so we could have nice hardpack...

If anybody wants to join us, my phone number is whistler-902-7849...

Good night, Ondrej

Ondrej, I'm so sorry I didn't answer your text. I meant to push "reply" and accidentally pushed "delete" on my phone. I feel like a useless friggin' tit for that.

We were all off the hill by 3:30pm, before you were off work. We will all definitely come up in April for the world ski and snowboard festival (or sooner).

later,

Dave R.

[ur13]

Thought I'd share these photos, since they make me happy.

Two hours doing laps does this.

I felt sorry for some of the beginners falling in the trenches.

Bluebird day.

More here (along with cheesy tourist photos) if anyone cares...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/fourtwelves/

[CarvingScooby]

Two hours doing laps does this.

Whistler?

Many nice Dim Sum here in Vancvr & Lwr Main Lnd and cheap too. Now the green worth a lot more too...:rolleyes:

Cheers

Roy

[ur13]

Yes, Whistler.

[Ondrej]

Very nice, man.

I enjoyed similar turns today with Nigelc on Emerald, overall great day :)

Ondrej

[nigelc]

I enjoyed myself immensely today, and I hope thanks to you Ondrej that I improved considerably. Also that Prior board is like......cheating. I am sure its not supposed to be so easy

cheers

Nigel

[tenorman]

hi guys:

finally feeling better after having a wisdom tooth removed last monday after procrastinating for over a quarter of a century. if you ever need to convince a young person to have it done, i’m your man—it’s a painful and scary process for an old guy.

UR13:

we brought CHRIS PRIOR along to meet you at the OLYMPIC CHAIR at about 5 minutes after 10 am. when the lift attendant said no other hardbooters had shown up, i wanted to wait for you but unfortunately, neither MR_ROBOTEYE or DAVE* wanted to ride the OLYMPIC CHAIR so i got outvoted. besides it was a friday so CHRIS PRIOR was due back at his factory before noon.

sorry we didn’t get back to you until 12:30—we didn’t know you had to be off the mountain by 1pm. even though the 4 of us only had 1 run together, i was still able to learn something from you. all morning DAVE* and MR_ROBOTEYE kept asking me why you were riding the OLYMPIC CHAIR with its flat beginner terrain. had they ridden behind you and observed like i did instead of racing ahead they would have realized that you were generating speed much like a slalom snow ski racer (pre shaped skis era flicking stiff traditional skis out to the side with quick one-footed-carving-on-the-outside-ski motions) on the flatter parts of the course. it also appeared that you were drawing on your skateboarding background by pumping your board similar to both an LDP (long distance pumping) longboarder relying more on the flex in the middle of the board and a slalom skater working the ends of a much shorter skateboard and relying more on the stiffer rear truck for propulsion. I noticed that your madd 158 appeared to shoot forward during the second half of your turns due to your momentum generating style of riding. i am definitely going to consciously think more about pumping my board for speed/momentum when on flatter terrain from now on. thanks for the “passive” lesson by example.

well DAVE* and MR_ROBOTEYE, skateboarding allows you to do almost subliminal things as a snowboarder that the non-skateboarding snowboarder might only vaguely sense, but yet not be fully aware of. that’s why i think you guys were questioning why UR13 was riding the OLYMPIC CHAIR—pearls before swine lol!

Not to mention Vancouver is amazing (my GF and I spent some time there on Saturday, at Granville market and one very amazing Dim Sum place!).

FYI it is legal to skateboard on city streets in vancouver—you could have skateboarded from stanley park to granville island quicker than by driving. most bomberonline members will flame me out for saying this but YOU WILL HAVE MORE FUN SKATEBOARDING ON VANCOUVER STREETS THAN SNOWBOARDING IN WHISTLER—so be sure to bring your skateboard next time.

MR_ROBOTEYE:

had some turns with Chris. He is a really good rider, he gets quite low in the turns, and can carve a black diamond pitch with style. For all you stance queens, he rides a 22", pretty wide. He was riding one of his newest creations today: A lime green topsheeted, 2009?(secret) construction, non hammerhead, 177 WCR metal, outfitted with TD3 step-ins.

all new info above except for the part about CHRIS PRIOR being a good rider—that has always been true.

it’s funny how somebody’s stance evolves over time. i remember CHRIS PRIOR posting on bomberonline about 10 years ago that his stance angles were 58 front and 54 rear and that he wore burton reactors. his stance angles looked to have decreased slightly and he might now be sporting a slight outward cant on his back foot—one of us will have to remember to ask him to confirm this as it looked like his rear knee was twisting out toward the snow during his toeside turns much like a surfer’s rear knee grazing the water on a right hand wave (regular footed surfer.) i remember him telling me that he rode lift only (zero canting) on both his front toe and rear heel many years ago. it could have been an optical illusion and that he had no outward cant but he was strong enough to flex the cuff on his rear boot to the degree that would allow his knee to get into that position or he could have modified the cuff on his rear boot (a raichle 325) to be more flexible.

the 177cm board was a shocker as i remember that about 10 years ago CHRIS PRIOR posted on bomberonline that he rode nothing shorter than a 185cm. i’m going to have to remember to demo a 177 when we go to his demo tent during the telus festival and find out first hand what all the fuss is about with these shorter boards.

DAVE*:

Prior hooked me up with some used red spring BTS and more Ptex scraps to work with.

i’ve got a lot of KRAZY KARPETS that i bought for making skateboarding armour. i’ll bring you a couple of pieces if you want. unlike ptex it is designed to slide on snow without requiring wax. in addition it is flexible and doesn’t create a hard interface with the glove fabric that is subject to tearing like a ptex/fabric interface. if you don’t like my duct tape and/or KRAZY KARPET solutions you could try GATORBACK. BLUEB might be able to get some in small quantities through his connections at the sailing club. i remember TODD BROWN posting on bomberonline that he could send out GATORBACK samples to other bomberonline members. however, that was about 10 years ago so i doubt if he has any left. maybe you could contact him to ask where to get it if BLUEB is unable to do so.

[ur13]

tenorman - You know, it's interesting you noticed all of that. One of the reasons I decided to stay on the Olympic chair was to work on board setup and "pumping" it through turns. By the time you guys found me I had 3 solid hours on my legs of laps. I got a new stance dialed by about 11am, one that allowed me to drive my rear knee (like a slalom skateboard). After that I simply worked on turn shape (driving the nose in and "snapping" the tail on exit). It wasn't as comfortable as I wanted it to be, due to the new stance, but it was working. Regardless it really works the legs and whipes you out.

I've never been one to "let to board run", which is why I never liked long board with big sidecuts (a 170 is still HUGE to me). Not to mention, most of the terrain I ride in the east is narrow and icey, where you don't want a board dictating where you go.

I know people poo-poo plats (greens/blues) but somedays they can be more fun than anything. Maybe not on a 178... but one of the advantages of riding a 158 is it can make anything interesting. Depending on how hard you go at it.

I'm actually going up to the tiny (700ft vt) ski area I grew up riding this coming weekend to work on more things, getting 2 more days on snow this season. I'm dropping my Cateks on the Madd to play with heel/toe lift and outward canting (sometimes the total adjustability of cateks is good) to get myself more comfortable on the board so I can make the pump more effective.

Again, I wish we could have rode more...but I'll be back. If any of you gys ever come east....let me know...

Oh, I'm going to skateboard more this summer. Riding alpine got the pumping/turning bug back into me. I don't think I'll be racing slalom again (I do still have all my race boards) but pumping a flexy cambered board around the Manhattan will happen!