New Boardercross Boards

[BlueB]

I'm with Shred here. It needs to be of variable sc geometry, with substantial taper. Width needs to be enough to accomodate the lowest rear boot angle you can use and still carve. By deffinition, you wouldn't be only carving this board...

To me the "lunchtray" nose would be just penalizing myself when there is a bit of fresh around. It is the extra float - have it there, it's just there for a ride, until you need it. If we are talking about these boards as the ultimate all-arounders, they need to perform in all conditions.

Even Kessler has rounded the noses of their BXers... Cut it off and you'd still end up with a typical KST nose... but why? If anything, I would like even more on mine.

[bobdea]

yeah bob its really a one of a kind animal for the moment. AS far as I know anyway! need a bigger brother to fill out the quiver

I don't know what it is even, the description of a larger one loosely rung bells is all.

like to hear more though, sounds like a good time!

if it's similar to a oxess then it sounds like a winner, literally.

especially considering 1,490.00 CHF=1,408.32 USD

Coilers run like $800, sounds like a steal.

[Shred Gruumer]

I would agree with the nose. I guess you can add that to the decamber nose that already exists on the board.. but DR. D has riddin this thing in everthing.. he is a powder rider.. but sure the extra nose then in powder would help alot.. So that seems to maybe be a change in a good direction.. So now we have the board and changed nose in the X4.. add a little length and side cut and you got a hard boot hybrid boarder cross board for hardboots.. i guess thats what ya call it.. Still never needed the extra nose but you guys can deal with that.. haha..

Just call it .. umm maybe a midget monster..uhh.. dam... did I say that out loud..

RSS

[Buell]

yeah bob its really a one of a kind animal for the moment. AS far as I know anyway! need a bigger brother to fill out the quiver

Not totally!

This one is 154 and built for Rebecca as her softy carver. It is 240 cm wide, has a pretty soft flex, 8.5 m sidecut, metal, and decamber. Long effective edge for its length.

[John Gilmour]

My sander does OK with different level tops so no real worries there. Lots of other stuff to make decisions on first. I have a 158 but it was a later version and not an original. No butterfly on it as I tossed that out a while back during a shop clean up. However, the butterfly will have to work in conjunction with the core thickness which is now what I am trying to decide on. Can't bring myself to copy it as close as possible as I rode an original and didn't like pressuring the nose that much. The core I have looks like its about 6mm all through the middle right up to 10" of the ends and then it tapers down. Looks like they just used a 1/4" core and tapered only those last 10" as it is perfectly same thickness in the mid right up to that point.

Some of the boards I have checked out had the butterfly 6 or 7" off the nose and 4" off tail. Sound about right?

Still a long way to go and surely first one will be a bit whacky but you have to start somewhere.

While testing boards a few days ago on real hard ice under an inch or two of softer stuff, I found the boards which worked best were either:

Real short effective with tight sidecuts ( my Angrry worked best on that day)

or Longer boards with sidecuts in the 14+ range. Seems the mid length tighter sidecut models would bounce on the ice as tip and tail being longer needed more pressuring to settle them down which you could not do on the harder sections of snow/ice

So methinks short is the way to go, hell, hockey skates grip like crazy on ice and they're pretty short;)

Any idea what the preferred butterfly construction is?

BV

Well...your sander is probably a good one... but most shops just have grindrites or other older models of The wintersteigers and those feedwheels are not compliant.... so the boards you make may be flat... but the boards might not get ground flat after that. We found that using too much pressure with the older machines would leave the middle high and rails low.

If the boards are too long with too tight of a side cut the belly of the board takes too long to engage... particularly on hard snow and the boards can skip as the belly engages and disengages over choppy snow.. I think there is a maximum height that the boards' edge should be above the groom if unweighted and tilted at a 45 angle.

We made some high camber 9.5 meter side cut radius boards in 175cm or so lengths...they did not ride well at all. In fact if the belly not pre- pressured as you swapped edges..the curve of the board would run in the opposite direction you intended......sketchy.

as for core thickness.. Don't use the reissues as a basis... for instance an original Madd 158cm has far more edge hold than a reissue Madd 170cm. The 158cm reissues also have less edgehold than the original 158cms. Look at the camber profile too in the vertical axis.. particularly at the front of the board. IMHO ideally camber should not be symmetrical along a boards length- particularly as we load the nose of a board to turn. So core thickness and camber should work together in the front of the board.

Adding a little reverse camber - followed immediately by slightly steeper regular camber with slightly thicker front core might be something fun to try.

[Jack M]

With no metal in stock, you may see a 158 Madd tribute in glass by next week. Complete with carbon Bfly!!

dibs!

[Jack M]

149cm 9/16/13 side cut...

that's just crazy talk.

[bobdea]

Not totally!

This one is 154 and built for Rebecca as her softy carver. It is 240 cm wide, has a pretty soft flex, 8.5 m sidecut, metal, and decamber. Long effective edge for its length.

sexy board

[Dr D]

If I didn't have a swallowtail to switch to on deep days I would want more nose to. This one is good up to about 3-4 inches of fresh. after that the submarine shows up. Its very rideable in pow it just isnt a swallowtail powder board. It rides extremely well in slop and chop and moguls etc.

the red one is a beauty! mine is 11.5 sidecut and 158 with a 23.5 waist. so very similiar. I am thinking 168 with same profile just exponentially bigger. maybe 12.5 to 13 on the sidecut and the extra 10 cms on the length. The rocker nose is the best part of the tech and the metal makes a very short board possible to ride in the chunky due to the dampness.

X3 is pictured below guy on the left of the group is me

[Buell]

the red one is a beauty! mine is 11.5 sidecut and 158 with a 23.5 waist. so very similiar. I am thinking 168 with same profile just exponentially bigger. maybe 12.5 to 13 on the sidecut and the extra 10 cms on the length. The rocker nose is the best part of the tech and the metal makes a very short board possible to ride in the chunky due to the dampness.

If I softy carved more, I would probably get about a 160 cm / 9m sidecut / 240 waist and a little stiffer. I cannot justify it even though this thing is incredible to ride. It has proven to be incredibly versatile. With a slightly longer nose (the decamber is already a long way to being a great powder board) and a little more taper than Rebecca's it should be a great powder board as well.

There are actually three boards with this outline. A stiffer prototype that is now in Washington state, this one and one exactly like it (different topsheet) that a friend has, also for softy carving.

It is great to see Bruce getting more excited about building this type of board!

[BlueB]

Boris, I don't entirely agree. To get a production BX board with the float I'd expect from an all mountain softie ride, I'd end up with a 12m radius. In my opinion this is way too big for the "playful" behavior that I found desirable.

Playfulness can come from a lot of things, flex, taper, rebound, ability to freely switch between carving and skidding...

Too add a bit on the playfulness issue...

Other day I rode the Kessler BX 168 (~12.5m avg.) and Nidecker Proto 167 (~8.5m), back to back. Nidecker IS way more playful.

However, the correct answer is that you have to try one to believe it.

You still have to try one (Kessler)! ;)

[pokkis]

If I didn't have a swallowtail to switch to on deep days I would want more nose to. This one is good up to about 3-4 inches of fresh. after that the submarine shows up.

Here from 6:25 you see how NSR short nose works in softish snow:

[KingCrimson]

Too add a bit on the playfulness issue...

Other day I rode the Kessler BX 168 (~12.5m avg.) and Nidecker Proto 167 (~8.5m), back to back. Nidecker IS way more playful.

You still have to try one (Kessler)! ;)

I'll do the dishes for a bed for a few days.

[BlueB]

I'll do the dishes for a bed for a few days.

You might end up doing the baby sitting too, while dad is riding ;)

Serious now, my Kes is on the soft side even for me. You are well over 200, right?

[KingCrimson]

You might end up doing the baby sitting too, while dad is riding ;)

Serious now, my Kes is on the soft side even for me. You are well over 200, right?

Wouldn't be the first time..

I'm about 210 right now. Too bad!

[QReuCk]

I wish I had the opportunity to test these soft boots carving boards.

Here are some conclusions I came to using various standard freeride/freestyle boards. They may be not relevant as I'm only talking about freeride/freecarve purpose, not BX competition, and I lack experience with the high end carving boards.

In theory, you can carve hard any sidecut/flex combination but you have to consider the height of the middle of the board compared to the tips at any given angle (if laying hard is the goal, consider mainly the high angles).

Long sidecut radius with solid flex tend to keep a long decambered radius once on edge. Hence a long turn radius and the board is hard to overpower into a short carved turn: you either carve large turns or slide.

Short sidecut radius with mellow flex is not a super good idea: you will overpower the board constantly, meaning if you carve a hard turn, the radius of it will be really tight (exemple: I think when I try to lay one on my Salomon Prospect which is 8,4m SCR and really soft flex, I turn at about a 3m radius, which makes it hard to transition into the next turn without washing out). This is only possible with large stance because a tight one will cause the middle of the board being fully engaged, reducing the pressure on the tips and as a consequence, their efficiency.

Short sidecut with solid flex: I like quite well it on soft snow, but not that much on ice: only the tips are effectively griping the ice/hard packed snow during a carve with some angle. So the board tends to chatter/rebond. Case in point for me: my old Salomon Era 2004 (8m SCR with solid flex and torsion reinforcements in the tips.)

Long sidecut with soft flex: For some reason, I think this is really versatile: The pressure is distributed other all the effective edge, you can let the gravity help your turns, but still, you are able to overpower the sidecut to tighten a turn, be it by dynamically loading the entire board or by focusing on the back foot pressure.

Something else to consider with soft boots setups is the torsional flex: Between the feet and the tips, it's a no brainer: the harder it is, the better the tips will grip, which is always usefull for carving. But between the feets, you want to be able to use some twist when needed (for sliding a turn on demand, quick fixing on edge pressure repartition during a carve, etc...) but not too much otherwise you will have parasital reactions potentially leading to cause unvolontary slides in the middle of a carved turn.

Hope this makes sense. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.