Rossignol Rocket R-149?

[Dude]

Hey guys!

My name is Jimmy, im 17 and from Jersey. 2 years ago i figured id try out some alpine snowboarding after boarding pretty much my entire life. I bought this board on ebay and tried it out a few times. Always with just ski boots and everything not setup right. Kinda decided it wasnt really my thing. I have this board and I really dont know anything about it and I was considering selling it but i have really no clue what its worth.

I believe its called the "Rocket" from seeing a similar one online with that name.

Its labeled R-149 and is 149cm

It has Sims bindings that are made of a some sort of poly something.

I guess im wondering if you guys have any more info on it and how much its worth

Thanks!!!!

Pics:

[Titan]

My brother had that in a 149 as well.....great slalom board.I rode the hell out of a 168 for a couple years.They were a nice ride in their day....don't think they'd be worth all that much $ today.

[Dave ESPI]

I have a co-worker @ Jiminy peak who is a ski instructor who rides it on the beginnerslope in teaching lessons when there are too many SKI-WEE (little bombers in the making) kids who are rocketshops and B-line down

the hill on snowboards. He rides it with (I kidd U not) 22 degrees front foot and 15 back foot with nearly 3 inches heel and toe worth of overhang! I always laugh at him and say " when are you going to finaly come to grips with being a "racist" and chance to a proper stance on that thing?

He finaly (after 2 years) admitted he was scared to "go alpine" as he had seen what it would mean if he did ( you know.... actualy ENJOY SNOWBOARDING !) because he is a "diehard skier at heart and hates us knuckle draggers".

He said it was an ancient board and not rideable anywhere on the hill.

I said gimme that board for 3 runs with U and I will show ya what its capeable of.

He was chickensheet, so I found one from a rental place that they just happened to have sitting around for 40.00!

Well, I went out and ripped around on it, and found it to really be a lot of fun as a smaller board. The side cut is not all that agressive and it was very forgiving as a skidding carver for Ice and crud, but not a speed-demon freight train that would want to lock you into turns and not break lose.

"mellow ride" id say as a description, but also "fun and snappy".

I had my bindings set at 62 front and 55 rear (riding a size Mondo 32 boot) and it was comfortable with ease in flex. Just don't get too far forward on the nose or you will rapidly see yourself going ass over teakettle as it tended to burry itself a tad too easy, but that just could have been because Im like nine feet tall.........

ok well maybe 6'2"... lol.

Saddly my board was bit deep into the base when I went over an unseen "shark" with a nasty bite and it had to be sent to the junk pile after the spring snow conditions, but it was a fun board ( luckily cheap!)

Keep it, get some good boots (check Bomber classifieds), and come ride with some of us, adjust those binding angles a bit more agressive, and be a 'digger :) If after a few days on it you dont feel it, then sell it, but give it a chance.

[RDY_2_Carve]

Dear Dude,

Where exactly are you located? What mountain do you board at near Jersey?

Perhaps instead of us giving you ideas of the value of that board we can actually get you to try a better setup and show you the joys of alpine snowboarding? I could see how you could be turned off riding a 149cm board with those old Sims bindings while being stuck with a non-flexing ski boot. You are 17 years old (probably over 5'5") so a 149cm board is going to be very short for you.

Our community is larger than you think and I'm sure some local people will be glad to help you out.

[Dude]

Thanks for all the feed back guys. Im about 5'10 and 130lbs. What i normally ride is a Burton Custom 148 for normal stuff, and I have a Fish 156 for trips out west and VT powderdays. I really like shorter boards for quick manevering and since I dont wiegh that much. I would like to get back into alpine thou. Ive always been about carvin the groomers with my normal setup and there were a few good days i had on the this board of just cruising and lockin deep into turns, i just found it awkward to have my feet angled anymore then 25 degrees forward and it ended up limiting my ability to manuever the board.

I live in Riverton NJ, right over the tacony/palmyra bridge from the philly area. When I ride PA its usually Bear creek, big boulder, blue mountain. And i usually ride them near the end of the day when there pretty beat up.

[Dave ESPI]

Dude, I too share a kindred "love" for the short stuff. Especialy on busy hills and weekends where we get only limited moments where we can really open up and rip then have to be able to reel the speed back in and slow down very quickly without worries of creating a bowling alley effect!

seriously, keep the rocket, ditch the Sims bindings, and get a nice snowboard specific pair of boots (check bomber classifieds), and some used TD2 bindings.

You will like it, I promise ;)

[Dude]

Thanks Dave!

It always felt like something wasnt really right with the setup everytime I rode. What size boots is a 10.5?

[bobdea]

OMG the sims bindings are better than that board

unless you're tiny (like weigh 100 lbs) ditch the board, the sims binding suck but no worse than most of the crap people ride.

yeah, the td2/td3 is nice but you really won't notice a huge difference on that board the td2 may even be worse for a lightweight being stiffer the board is complete garbage, dump it.

Don't listen to dave ESPI, he's not all there.

[RDY_2_Carve]

Nothing wrong with the board and bindings for a starter setup. It will get the job done. IMHO the ski boots will hold you back more than the board and bindings. You should be able to score a pair of boots on the classifieds for around $100. Maybe less. Some people pratically give them away here.

With a 10.5 boot you're looking at overhang (boots sticking out over the edge of the board) until 50 degrees or so on your bindings. You can ride with overhang when you first start out but as you progress you'll have to eliminate it completely or you'll risk dragging your boots into the snow causing you to skid out.

Most new carvers have issues going from 5-10 degree binding angles on softies to the 50-60 degree binding angles that carvers use. What I did to overcome this is start out with 30ish degree angles and get comfortable with that then work my way up in baby steps. Start at say 35 deg front and 30 deg back. Once comfortable with that go to 40 deg front and 35 deg back. You won't notice the slight difference as much as going straight to say 60 deg front and 55 deg back. This method worked for me. YMMV

If you like to carve on softies then you'll love to carve on alpine. You can only do so much on softies and alpine will definately take you to the next level in carving. Granted there's some guys here (Billy Bordy for example) that can out carve me in softies... ;)

[tufty]

Nothing wrong with the board and bindings for a starter setup. It will get the job done. IMHO the ski boots will hold you back more than the board and bindings. You should be able to score a pair of boots on the classifieds for around $100. Maybe less.

This.

If you listen to a lot of the guys here you'll end up spending $3K on a setup, when all you need to do is drop $30-100 on a pair of boots to make your existing board fun. It's a gearhead forum, after all. I've ridden one of those boards, picked up, ironically enough, from the trash, by a colleague. It was a huge amount of fun. Keep it - it's pretty muhch worthless in market terms anyway.

FWIW, my current boots (AF700s) set me back €45 from a rental store that was dumping all its alpine gear. Unused, boxed, and I'm not an uncommon size (27.5 mondo). I probably could have gotten them for less, but I would have felt bad about taking them away :) Scrounge around the classifieds here, fleabay, and, if you have the option, second hand ski gear sales / rental stores. Picked up "new" bindings and ice knives for my AT skis for €25 at a sale last week (with 180cm skis attached - hell, they'll go towards making a bench).

As far as "what boots" goes, almost whatever you can get your hands on. Prefer 4 buckles over 3, but beyond that, almost anything goes as long as it fits. Raichle SB series are okay, if a little tight around the toes, and watch for heel lift if the liners are "getting on a bit". AF series are lovely, but a lot stiffer (not nearly as stiff as ski boots, mind). Head / Blax are good if you have wider feet. People like the Burton boots, I've never tried them.

There's a really good breakdown of what boots are what here : http://www.alpinecarving.com/

You are going to have to go to higher binding angles with big feet*, but you will get used to it, especially if you can already carve on softies. It feels weird at first (actually, scratch that, it hurts at first) but that goes away real fast as soon as you learn to stop skidding your turns.

Simon

* You know what they say 'bout guys with big feet, right?

...

They wear big shoes.

[queequeg]

I agree with what others have said: Lose the ski boots, keep the board and bindings, pick up a pair of used alpine hardboots used on this forum for very cheap and try again.

Hook up with somebody on the NJ ride board to get you started, people on this forum are passionate about getting people going. If you ever ride at Hunter or Windham or mtn creek I'd be more than happy to help you get started.

Ski boots and alpine snowboarding boots are very different, most people who try in ski boots have a rough time because they are on the wrong equipment. Ski boots are going to make things very hard for you.

Don't give up!!!

[tenorman]

OMG the sims bindings are better than that board

hi DUDE

i agree with the previous posters in that there isn’t anything wrong with your gear except maybe the ski boots. however, you didn’t tell us what type of ski boots you have. if you are unsure then post a pic. aside from the ubiquitous flexons there are a few other brands of ski boots that will work—especially flexier beginner models with less than 4 buckles. so maybe your boots might do in a pinch until you decide to stick with carving before spending more money on real snowboarding hardboots.

i don’t know if this is the case or not and forgive me if i am wrong but looking at the photo of your board it appears you have the bindings mounted incorrectly. for that particular sims model there is a definite FRONT and REAR binding. they are NOT interchangeable. in your photo the toe plate of the front binding appears to be lower than the toe plate of the rear binding. therefore you need to switch them around (remove both bindings and remount so the previous front binding is now in the rear and the previous rear binding is now in the front.)

don’t feel bad if this is indeed the case as both bindings look almost identical. the only way to tell is to look carefully at both bindings from the SIDE. you will notice that for the rear binding the toe piece sits flush with the sizing adjustment slider and that the heel piece sits a few millimeters higher so that you should see a thin band of lighter coloured thermoplastic underneath the heel piece. the reverse case will be true for the front binding—you will see the thin band of lighter coloured thermoplastic underneath the toe piece. since the basplate angles up at both ends it is difficult to tell whether the toe or heel is higher unless you look for the thin band of lighter coloured plastic under the higher piece (toe or heel.)

i wish i could post a picture of the side view so i could show you what i am talking about but i just gave those bindings away to my friend GEORGE (bomberonline member CRUCIBLE) on saturday. if you still need to see a picture of the side view showing how to identify the front and rear binding then let me know and i will ask him to post a photo.

on second thought here is a picture of the board i am giving to my friend STEVE it has the same sims bindings attached before i removed them when i discovered they were too small to fit a mondo 29 raichle boot and gave them to GEORGE instead. it’s just a top view which doesn’t show the difference i was talking about in the previous paragraph but at least you can tell whether or not they are the same bindings as yours. from the angle of YOUR posted photo it appears to be exactly the same set of bindings.

your bindings are pretty good and i remember them as being quite strong and stout which is why i was hoping my 200 pound friend STEVE could use them—unfortunately his feet are too big. compared to the other thermoplastic bindings at the time, the sims bindings were more like the well regarded fritschi bindings rather than the lesser regarded oxygen bindings which were prone to cracking. since your sims bindings are stiffer than burtons, f2s and snowpros (but not nearly as stiff as bombers) it could be that your bindings are too stiff to mate well with your already stiff ski boots and you need a little more flex. in that case the previous poster(s) advice to get snowboard boots (which will be flexier) will be just the thing to keep you in the alpine snowboarding brotherhood. Either that or get flexier bindings like f2 or burton but then you would still be stuck with ski boots. the only real legitimate reason to replace your bindings is if you need canting. This particular sims binding does not have integrated canting like a fritschi or oxygen. It only has lift—not everyone needs canting but almost everyone needs lift. However, you can use homemade shims to cant but do so at your own risk. bomberonline member SHRED GRUMMER maybe able to tell you more about this binding as i believe he had a similar set of first generation sims bindings back in the day also.

try to make a few adjustments and try your gear again and hopefully you will have a more positive experience with your hardbooting.

later

doug

p.s. judging by your username are you a QUINCY JONES fan by any chance?

[Erik J]

Jimmy, if you ever get to Mountain Creek in NJ during midweek, post something in the ride board and we'll make some turns.

http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=24