Gabe's First Day on hardboots

[BlueB]

Gabe,

Actually I don't need any money for the damage (luckilly it wasn't the Vampire ;) ). I'm just trying to teach you to handle the things in "adult" manner. I do expect you to put an effort into repairing, though.

[GabrielH]

Ill do everything i can to help with that but the problem is i have no idea what im doing:confused: I dont know what fibreglass or epoxy is(sry lol) mayb if we can meet on cypress il show u the board and boots n stuff ill descripe what the board looks like tho

on the side the top green paint has been scraped off and i can see the black underneath, then theres a couple lines on it that dont seem to be to deep thats all i can really say...

as for the boots... the top buckle thingy is ripped off

sry i cant be more discriptive,

gabe

[GabrielH]

Hey boris do u have msn? if so ill add u so itll be ezer to talk

my msn is tox738@hotmail.com just add me if you have one and ill accept it

[KingCrimson]

Ill do everything i can to help with that but the problem is i have no idea what im doing:confused: I dont know what fibreglass or epoxy is(sry lol) mayb if we can meet on cypress il show u the board and boots n stuff ill descripe what the board looks like tho

on the side the top green paint has been scraped off and i can see the black underneath, then theres a couple lines on it that dont seem to be to deep thats all i can really say...

as for the boots... the top buckle thingy is ripped off

sry i cant be more discriptive,

gabe

Gabe- Imagine cloth made from strings of glass. That's all that fiberglass is. Epoxy is a glue that is used to hold the cloth together to make it stiff, think of what happens when glue hardens on paper, same idea. The topsheet is very smooth, while the fiberglass will generally seem rough or at least have the texture of cloth with lots of lines. If you can see that, you know that the scratch is down to the fiberglass. That would make it necessary to apply more epoxy (glue) to the scratch to fill it and prevent water from getting in, and to prevent future damage to the fiberglass. It really is easy, all you do is squeeze 2 tubes of glue onto a piece of plastic (anything will work, sometimes I use CDs) and mix. Then slap it on and smooth it out, wait 24 hours and admire your work!

[GabrielH]

I took some more detailed pics of the dmg for you to examine maybe it will help idk..

Here they are, (theres more on the next post)

[GabrielH]

1 more since i can only do 3 at a time

[KingCrimson]

Ah, my guess about the boots was right, the flap that holds the ladder broke off. That will take some work to fix! However, Boris is a brilliant designer (those Orca boats are incredible!) and maybe a cable with another ski boot ladder will work out.

The board will need epoxy, it won't be pretty but you won't know it when it's all covered with snow!

Boards will survive after such injuries, here's my Coiler after my brother hit me in Colorado. It's still my every day board (and now somehow the edge is pulled off on the tail) and it still rides very well. Just takes some epoxy here and there every once in a while to keep it together! It's a prime example of what metal boards were doing before titanal got dialed in.

It's also a true testament to how well made Coilers are, my brother weighs 200 pounds and smacked me hard enough that he went flying and I went from being deep in a heelside to laying face down with my other edge in the snow. The Carbon fiber isn't even damaged.

[GabrielH]

Hey boris, any chance you can let me try ur raichle 24 mp when we go, because i cant buckle the top one on my boot

[BlueB]

No, I don't have MSN or any other messaging system. However, you have my email and phone no, that should be enough.

Yes, you can try the Raichles. Remind me to bring them with when we make final plans for Cypress.

Ok, cuf of the boot has gone... That's probably beyond you to repair. Do you still have the parts, or lost? Maybe they are just spare part boots now...

I still don't quite see in the pics if the fiber is showing or not. As King said, it would look as thick treads or fibers showing from the laimnate... Or if the top sheet is lifting/delaminating from the stuff under. If any of the 2 was the case, then epoxy would be needed. Easiest one to work with is the 5 minutes 1:1 Epoxy, available from any hardware store, even some supermarkets would have it.

If it's just the matter of sealing few open patches, you could do it yourself, just sand with 100 grit sand-paper a bit over the exposed fibres, mix the epoxy, smear over the prepared area and let cure.

If the top sheet is lifting around the "wounds", I should be involved.

[GabrielH]

I dont think its scratched deep enough to the fibreglass it feels smooth to me, dont have the boot part, sry i dont know how it even broke

[Arclite]

Hey Gabe!

So how old are you anyway? or did I just miss a post...as always

What got you started on alpine? Where do you go to board usually?

I take it you're in Canada since you and Boris seem to talk a lot.

If you ever make a trip to California, me and Theo will be sure to hook you up with a different board or two

Your board is prolly around a 9 meter sidecut. When you get better and you start to figure out what you're doing, I found that 13 meter sidecuts and SC's in that area are pretty nice and stable for carving. I fell in love with an Oxygen Proton 168 GS with a 13m sidecut. Beautiful at Mammoth.

My advice would be to bend your knees more, and I've got to work on it more too

gimme a shout if you got myspace

www.myspace.com/juliantallman

[GabrielH]

Thx, but i live in burnaby, BC near boris i guess

I started alpine because i love speed and i hate the screeching noise of skidding, i'm 13 btw

I guess im one of a kind lol ask ruwi, all the other people my age are wondering what the hell im doing:rolleyes:\

Also about the sidecut, whats the benifit of haveing a bigger one and the downside, i still dont completly understand it

[Arclite]

Thx, but i live in burnaby, BC near boris i guess

I started alpine because i love speed and i hate the screeching noise of skidding, i'm 13 btw

I guess im one of a kind lol ask ruwi, all the other people my age are wondering what the hell im doing:rolleyes:\

Also about the sidecut, whats the benifit of haveing a bigger one and the downside, i still dont completly understand it

Short answer: more stable at higher speeds and bigger turns. and you can make a board with a bigger sidecut make a smaller turn, but you can't make a board with a smaller sidecut make a bigger turn.

EDIT: It also makes it easier and more predictable to skid.

[tenorman]

i didnt think you would want me to say...well ill say it now;...its not really what i wanted to get since i had my heart set on another board but if you want me to i will

hi GABE

based on the many irreversible prior posts i think this should be handled on the forum and not email or msn.

it will be better for everyone concerned if you just bought the board and boots. the board can easily be fixed with epoxy. a longer buckle can be taken off an old ski boot and attached by drilling about a centimeter past the torn part of the cuff. if an extension is needed it can likely be made from an old boot tongue.

you are still growing and it is not the most financially prudent course of action to buy an expensive board and boots that you will likely grow out of in a year or so. unless you are a full grown adult, serviceable used equipment is the way to go. not every kid who just started snowboarding this january is lucky enough to have parents willing to buy him a brand new SWOARD snowboard for next christmas. even if they did you won’t have enough time remaining this season to develop your skills to the point where you can fully exploit such a high performance board. you will likely wreck it in the process. wasn’t it better to wreck a cheap board like BLUEB’s old nidecker than a brand new $1000 dollar SWOARD?

i hope you show this post to your parents and that you are not hiding this CHEAPER alternative from them because it would mean a delay of at least a year before they get you a new SWOARD. your parents will thank you for saving them a bundle of money as BLUEB’s used but serviceable stuff will cost a lot less than the brand new SWOARD/F2 BINDINGS/DEELUXE or UPZ BOOTS package that your parent were willing to buy you. plus the cost will double as soon as you grow out of it--or break it in the learning process! the salutary side benefit is you will have the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing by not taking advantage of your parents (and BLUEB.)

the buckle likely broke when you were unable to complete a heelside eurocarve turn. your riding skills haven’t progressed to that point yet. your toeside eurocarve still needs work as you are still reaching for the snow instead of letting it come to you. the last time we rode together you asked me about 20 times to start teaching you a eurocarve and each time I suggested you learn race carving first. please take the hint and don’t keep insisting. also your cajoling me about not being able to eurocarve will NOT make me show you how to do it before you learn to race carve. trust me I can eurocarve (ask RUWI, BLUEB and CRUCIBLE) i just don’t want to set a bad example for you during your learning stage. you need more practice with your racecarving before you can even think about learning a proper eurocarving technique. i think that had you kept practicing racecarving like i told you to, you would have been a LOT FURTHER ALONG WITH YOUR EUROCARVING at this point. chances are you would also have had better control over your edges and likely would have avoided the skier that damaged the board and boots. racecarving will teach you how to properly weight an edge so you can learn what I call (for lack of a better term) ANGULATED eurocarves which will then automatically lead to BANKED eurocarves. don’t asked me what an ANGULATED eurocarve is until after you learn how to racecarve. in the meantime, i’ll give you a hint—search CARVEDOG’s posts when he mentions that it is okay to touch your hands to the snow as long as you touch the downhill hand before touching down the uphill hand.

you were riding a lot better at the end of march when you were keeping your shoulders level with the horizon. i don’t know what happened to your riding form in the video. initially i thought it was the boots but judging by your subsequent posts, it was actually all the bad habits you developed by stubbornly attempting to eurocarve before you could carve with a properly weighted edge. i admire people who don’t just blindly let other people tell them what to do and if you have the determination to disregard people’s advice or even worse TO ASK FOR ADVICE AND THEN RESENT IT WHEN PEOPLE GIVE IT TO YOU then maybe it’s better to just learn by yourself. i don’t have any kids so i never developed a lot a patience so maybe you should ask RUWI who is infinitely more patient than i am to help you instead. i’m surprised BLUEB hasn’t lost his temper yet. i even remember telling him before he lent you the boots that “GABE might get lazy and undo the top buckle as i told him how i was once forced to use my rossi course kx ski boots to snowboard and i had to leave the top buckle undone on my rear boot. AND that i had to duct tape the undone buckle to my cuff to make sure it didn’t get sheared off in case of a fall. i also explicitly told him in no circumstances undo the top buckle on the FRONT boot” JUST ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE!

GABE, it doesn’t matter if the skier didn’t say sorry or who was right according to the alpine code. the important thing is to avoid dangerous situations. take DAVE ESPI’s advice to check uphill before riding—ESPECIALLY when eurocarving. remember at the end of march when you showed me your toeside eurocarve and you lost control and almost hit that little girl? that wouldn’t have happened if you had looked up before you started the turn. then a few runs later when you unpredictably hooked into a heelside turn and carved across the fall line in front of the young ski racer on the EXPO run. both times you could have avoided a dangerous situation by simply looking up and checking traffic before proceeding. you even had the nerve to tell the young ski racer to watch where he was going! maybe that skier that ran over your board was karma for your scaring that little girl when you blew your toeside eurocarve?. don’t play the blame game—it’s doesn’t matter. it’s more important to set things right and keep the scales BALANCED.. BLUEB did you a HUGE favour by offering you a cheap old board in case you crashed while learning so you wouldn’t toast an expensive new board. that’s exactly what happened

BLUEB is a typical old school European (gracious to a fault) and he will never accept your money. in that case get your parents to insist on buying the equipment. I GUARANTEE YOU THAT BLUEB (AND I) WILL MAKE SURE IT’S PROPERLY AND SAFELY REPAIRED. please, no more excuses or playing the part of the victim. even though BLUEB is willing to let you off the hook, DON’T LET YOURSELF OFF THE HOOK. Just do the right thing and you will earn the respect of everyone and most importantly your OWN.

GABE, i don’t think I can make it to grouse this weekend but i will be there next weekend for sure. please remember i will only ride with you if you delay your eurocarving attempts until after you learn racecarving. otherwise you are on your own. please take a couple of days to think about what i just wrote and you can reply or not. i’ll check this thread again on the weekend.

later

doug

[crucible]

Word up tenorman- nicely put.

Like my platoon sargeant once said to me many years ago when I was a pimply faced, newly commissioned platoon leader,

"Sir, remember that it's called mentoring for a reason."

"Point One: STUPID SHOULD HURT. Point Two: If you're gonna be stupid, then you'd better be tough".

Geo

[GabrielH]

Thanks for the post doug, you opened my eyes quite a bit, i didnt really think i was doing any of that stuff you stated until you told it to me strait, for that i thank you. However i dont agree with everything you have been saying

such as

"you are still growing and it is not the most financially prudent course of action to buy an expensive board and boots that you will likely grow out of in a year or so. unless you are a full grown adult, serviceable used equipment is the way to go. not every kid who just started snowboarding this january is lucky enough to have parents willing to buy him a brand new SWOARD snowboard for next christmas. even if they did you won’t have enough time remaining this season to develop your skills to the point where you can fully exploit such a high performance board. you will likely wreck it in the process. wasn’t it better to wreck a cheap board like BLUEB’s old nidecker than a brand new $1000 dollar SWOARD?"

i never said i was getting a swoard, i said i always wanted one and that i will get one later, my plan was getting the 600$ donek package(pilot,f2 bindings) or some better board used The reason i didnt really want the nidecker was cuz the edges were really thin.. will they last at least 2 seasons Blueb? if so i might jsut get that board:) also btw smallest swoard would be 161 and thats waaay to big for me:mad: i guess not many people as small as me are intrested in Ec:eek: lol

"also your cajoling me about not being able to eurocarve will NOT make me show you how to do it before you learn to race carve. trust me I can eurocarve (ask RUWI, BLUEB and CRUCIBLE) i just don’t want to set a bad example for you during your learning stage

umm i never did that, i saw your eurocarves and they were really awesome:) sorry if mayb i pushed you into doing it even though you did not want to but i did not at ANY point say that you couldnt do one, or at least i wasnt trying to:cool:

From now on i will try to learn Racecarveing and resist the huge temptations of trying to learn EC lol

anyways sorry for making you guys get frustrated, i guess i am pretty stubborn:p you guys are really cool for helping me out like this, i just really hope i didn't get a bad first impression from you guys, as for the board my parents said they will make the decision next year so later ill talk them into buying the nidecker ;)

also i would like to thank you guys for your Phenomenal Patience like i said i can be pretty annoying:ices_ange

later,

gabe

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr></tr><tr><td> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr> <td>

</td> <td style="border-left: medium none; padding-left: 1px;" class="alt_pickbutton">

</td> </tr><tr><td valign="top">

</td><td valign="top">

</td></tr> </tbody></table>

</td></tr></tbody></table>

[KingCrimson]

Gabe, while it's good you posted back, you did not need to defend yourself or counter-argue anything said.

You're riding with a great group of guys, I'm sure there was no harm done by any of your actions. Maybe some short-term frustration on their part, but in the end, they want nothing more than to help you advance to the top of the sport. BigCanuck pointed out something to me in an email, all the old guys are jealous of the young carvers, and I'm sure anything they say is only to make sure that you avoid mistakes they made early in the game. You're hard pressed (to the point of it being impossible) to find a hardbooter who won't lend some tips on the chair, and your chances of finding multiple hardbooters who will spend hours upon hours helping you with your trench digging are astronomical.

[GabrielH]

BigCanuck pointed out something to me in an email, all the old guys are jealous of the young carvers.

They arn't old:)

[crazyTKDsquirrel]

But they're still jealous :D

[GabrielH]

Who likes my new sig

[mr_roboteye]

Who likes my new sig

If you're 19 or older (21 in USA) mines a bit better.

[GabrielH]

im 13 but its still good

another one is

Homer:How is education supposed to make me feel smarter? Besides, every time I learn something new, it pushes some old stuff out of my brain. Remember when I took that home winemaking course, and I forgot how to drive?

Marge:Thats because you were drunk

[Arclite]

How bout my sig? Thought about it one day in english...

[KingCrimson]

If you're 19 or older (21 in USA) mines a bit better.

Too politically correct.

The other day, I was offered "Some awesome stale matzoh"

My response was "No thanks, I'll passover on that offer"

I'm getting worse and worse..

[GabrielH]

I have no idea what your talking about...