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Heard in the lift line - 09-10 Edition


nekdut

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Him> Can you only go in one direction.

Me> yeah.

:argue:

I hope that was a joke.

I loved carving, but held out on race equipment because I like riding switch, riding bumps, and doing park and pipe. One weekend I had the pleasure of riding with several hardbooters who were doing everything in the park regular and switch and doing bumps regular and switch. I was sold. The next time I was out on the slopes was on all new race gear. That was all I needed to see in order to be sold.

Sorry. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

:biggthump

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Some new hire instructors were gawking at my twin tip with the Catek Freeride bindings on it at around 51/46 after I railed a few turns past them and we all met at the rondevous point.

"how do you ride like that? those angles are not even marked on the center disk! wait... there is no centerdisk... there is like three inches of clearance on that thing!"

my reply: "Antilevitational Gee-force centrofuge bindings with cantilever balance points...."

:biggthump I got ~20 people researching this "technology" hahahah.

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Granted, this happened at Paoli Peaks in Indiana, but still...

An instructor came up to me at the top of the hill and hit me with this - "Man, that thing is awesome! I've been watching you ride that for like the past TWO WEEKS!" (This happened today, 15 Dec 2009. Paoli opened on 12 Dec 2009. That's FOUR DAYS, not TWO WEEKS.)

He then immediately followed up with - "So my buddy tells me that that thing is actually a snowboard. Is it?"

Simply amazing...

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Some new hire instructors were gawking at my twin tip with the Catek Freeride bindings on it at around 51/46 after I railed a few turns past them and we all met at the rondevous point.

"how do you ride like that? those angles are not even marked on the center disk! wait... there is no centerdisk... there is like three inches of clearance on that thing!"

my reply: "Antilevitational Gee-force centrofuge bindings with cantilever balance points...."

:biggthump I got ~20 people researching this "technology" hahahah.

Instructors can be such geeks sometimes.

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:argue:

I hope that was a joke.

I loved carving, but held out on race equipment because I like riding switch, riding bumps, and doing park and pipe. One weekend I had the pleasure of riding with several hardbooters who were doing everything in the park regular and switch and doing bumps regular and switch. I was sold. The next time I was out on the slopes was on all new race gear. That was all I needed to see in order to be sold.

Sorry. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

:biggthump

Not so much a joke, a choice. I'm not riding 55 degrees backwards anywhere, except the odd traverse..

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Gotcha. Very understandable.

I would encourage you to let them know that, while it is not your preference, an accomplished rider who rides a lot of switch will still be able to do so on hardboots. Like it did for me, that may make them more interested in trying it.

One thing that I always say is that they are still high performance setups - even when going switch.

:biggthump

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The bottom of June Mountain is very wide with two lifts on both sides. Naturally, I always use it as a vanity run to show how an edge is suppose to be used. I was mixing up cross unders and overs and by the time I got to the chair the lifty said "oh so you're the hot carving guy on ski boots." :1luvu:

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When checking out my Prior 174 4WD he said "Is that a racing board?"

When people ask what I'm riding, I usually tell them it's a race board. It's the most understandable term I can think of. People say, "oh," whereas when I say it's an alpine snowboard they usually say, "huh?"

I think the Olympics will give us all some help. When people ask, I'm going to tell them to watch the snowboarding GS event, or ask if they watched it.

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My board got a real long stare from a kid while in the lift line. The line moved and the kid didn't. Dad tells the kid to move. He grabs dad and says "look!" Dad looked unimpressed. The kid asked me what kind of board it was and I said it was an alpine board. He just said "Oh." So I gave him a BOL business card and told him to look it up.

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Not quite the lift line:

I was changing boards at my car just before lunch when an SUV pulled behind me and stopped quickly. I assumed they were hoping I was leaving so they could get my parking spot. Then the driver gets out and runs around the front of the SUV and towards me, saying: "Is that an alpine board?!?"

We had a nice discussion, turns out they had a shorter Burton for his daughter but they were struggling with setting it up and the learning process. Gave them a Bomber card and exchanged emails with pointers to Jack's articles. Hopefully we can connect to get them off on the right foot!

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When people ask what I'm riding, I usually tell them it's a race board.

I do that too. Also works to answer the boot / binding questions in one hit. They're for racing.... I get asked about my gear a fair bit whilst waiting cats & helis. Mostly people are old enough to be polite, so you don't hear any sneering. You definitely don't hear any once they have seen what race gear can do to powder through the trees ;-)

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Not really in the lift line today, but I was sitting on the side of a trail catching my breath when a skier stopped next to me and I looked up.

All he said was "Thankyou".

I blinked, and said "uhm.... for?"

He replied with that response again, and I asked if I did anything wrong or if there was a problem.

He then smiled and said "thankyou for riding a snowboard as God Intended it to be done"..... and then skies off.

the funny part......

I was in softboots :biggthump

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I was on the top of the hill with my Dad waiting for the hill to clear. I asked the older gentleman on skis if he would like to go. He said no I love watching you guys carve the hill go ahead! The same day a skier asked me if my snowboard was broken. I replied no I bought it this way. Perhaps it was the stubby nose. The day before we were riding with Bruce V. My Dad has a new VSR with a snake skin topsheet. Bruce loudly complemented my Dad on his huge snake!! Lots of funny looks in the lift line!!!:biggthump

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"What the hell do you call that thing?"

"It's a race board."

"Oh. Are those ski boots?"

"Nope, race boots."

I explained the difference between carving and skidding as we rode the chair up. He was self-taught, fairly new, and I don't think carving had even occurred to him yet.

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On the lift last night from a young snowboarder.

"Is that a single ski?"

KevinS, I'm with ya. This past Saturday morning, I got a similar comment. I also heard [from two skiers behind us] "look, it's like a ski."

***

I really do not go a day riding without at least one person asking "does that thing go fast?" Again from this past Saturday, it was two lifties who asked the question (Kessler 180 with Hangl). Nevertheless, I find that lifties are generally fired up to see alpine boards. Indeed, often lifties load ski patrol and one-man-out ski racers with us.

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This morning one of the lifties at Snow King said, "You ride that thing like it's a carving board! That's so cool!"

He expressed amazement when I said, "Well, it IS a carving board!" I'm on a brand new Coiler Schtubbette, TD2s, and Raichles with a BTS kit..... :confused::confused::confused:

Still, I guess I'll take it as a compliment, since the only other carvers he has seen are the likes of caspercarver and dredman - I'm kind of new to this carve thing so it's nice that I'm doing something that is recognizable as carving! :)

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