New DIABLO 180 demo a "wild ride"

[SteveInOregon]

As a beginning H-Boot'er, and a highly experienced S-Boot'er, ( riding since 88) this is my "1st Impression" of two things.

1) Hard booting > after *free carving in Burton Driver X on an old Morrow 176 * F-Carve board for years, I bought my 1st H-Boots and hard plate's

( old 2nd hand gear on E-bay of course ) last week.

&

2) Testing a brand new *Diablo brand carbon fiber laminate / composite boarder cross type carve board as I remember it was a 180cm ( a lot longer than my 176 ) with a shallow side cut , narrow width and , round tail with mild turn up in the tail, ( sorry about the lack of true measurements ) but the maker/ owner of Diablo who posts here often will give you all the particulars.

I was having my old Morrow drilled to accept the hard plates and the Owner of Diablo Eric was SUPER kind, patient & generous enough ask me if I wanted to ride a new board and volunteered to bolt my hard plates to his new long board demo and "let me loose"

1st ride Impression> WOW this is "da s*** !!!

The boots: ( clean old Reichle SBH & good condition Rossi bail style hard plates are love @ 1st ride !!!

I must have been asleep all these years !!! , the feel , the drive , the control and feed back , the snap turn-ability was 110 %` better than softies.

The Board: Man-O-man, the new long & narrow Diablo was WAY out of my league , it was much faster than mine, and it did not want to turn or even hook up unless you are going FAST ( and that was easy to do ) then all of a sudden WAM it comes alive and bites a tite line that you must drive into or it will throw you off like right now if you dont fully commit to staying in a carve at speed.

Sorry but I dont have enough H-Boot experience to give you a technical evaluation, only a newbee H-Booters 1st impression's.

The Diablo lulled me into an idiots false sense of confidence, because I love to bomb then pop up and carve a hard couple hybrid toilet butt & surf tube'er linked turns then tuck in for another 100 yards or so and do it again, but the Diablo with H-Boots made me feel , perform and look like a scared bar stool jockey on a real rodeo dull, I was just hanging on for dear life but I couldn't not stop because the sense of slick power was addicting.

This was on a just little shorty hill , LOL but in seconds flat the Diablo ate the hill and I was mesmerized so much by how knife like the Diablo was I would forget to slow down and I ended up making a few 20 yard long panic plow stops before I blasted into the lift line, because I got so into trying to handle the board that I would run out of hill, I knew I couldn't take this in the big mountain or I would end up having a 1 man yard sale , lol.

I brought the board back exhausted ( the bindings needed cant & different angles, but so what ) I told the owner/builder in the repair shack that this board is possessed it really is the Diablo the Devil and it tried to kill me all the time it was lying to me telling me I can handle it, lol , Diablo lied and I almost died, lol.

I'm HOOKED on hard boots, I now have a couple dozen night time steep intermediate bomb-carve runs on my old Morrow with the new ( 2nd hand ) hard boots and plates on it and its Sooooo much better because I know this board its not the Devil lol, its much more forgiving and "all mountain" oriented.

The Diablo is not "fancy" looking, it has a small label , plain black Ptex bottom, no racing stripes or cool color type splash just a nice modern metallic carbon fiber look, but the builder / owner agrees with that some retro 50's / 60's mucle car racing stripes or number plates would be cool to do some experiential stuff to ad visual appeal.

The Diablo seems to be made for a clean steep groom & long n real wide run's , also it seams to be made for an "advanced" carve-racer ( not me ) the Diablo is not suited to the typical ski'ed up ice chunk that I have to put up with.

Anyways with the hard boots & plates on I almost feel like a real carver, :)

That's my beginner HB'er impressions

[Steve Prokopiw]

and I'll teach you how to ride that thing.:) Of course,I get to try it out while you demo my Diablo210.

[SteveInOregon]

and I'll teach you how to ride that thing.:) Of course,I get to try it out while you demo my Diablo210.

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Is that the Red Monster / Red Devil -Diablo I saw up at the repair shack in Mnt A ?

There was a super long red one leaning up right next to the metallic silver 180 that I tried out ?

Then there was the one probably even longer I saw on You tube, I take it that was You ?

That Big Red Gun reminded me of growing up in San Diego and surfing the reef break on old long boards, lol.

UPDATE: So I have a 2 nights and one full 5 hr day on my E-bay bought hard plates & hard boots attached to my old gun and I am loving it.

You guys are right about 1) the need for cant & tilt , riding flat is not good, 2) parallel plate degrees is also not good , 3) and more forward low degree numbers front foot position is better.

[Steve Prokopiw]

Unfortunately,I haven't gotten the chance to get down to Oregon yet this season, so that wasn't my board you saw.The youtube thing is not me either although we are hoping for good video weather soon and there will be footage of it in action.