Powder Riding

[philw]

Here are a couple of short videos from riding Monashees powder the other week.

Sunny:

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/18737208?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>

Not sunny:

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/18776312?byline=0&portrait=0&color=ff9933" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0"></iframe>

[kieran]

looking pretty comfy in the stratos pros.

[MR. JOHN DEERE !]

hardboots ? if you go on another heli trip would you use your hard boots again.

im heading up to the kootenay's to take some turns with the guys from snowwater heli guides in 3 weeks. ive been tossing and turning on whether or not to bring my hard boots. i have a 178 prior spearhead, that one of my buddies let me borrow. ive been carpet surfing with my softies and i cant get comfy at all with them. i would rather just bring my hardboots, but i dont want any regrets, there are no garantee's i will do this again. so i want to be dialed in. i also dont want to look like a complete ma$$hole and over pack, with a softie setup and a hardboot set up ?????

let me know !

run what ya brung !

[Guest]

i kind of hate you ....

BEAUTIFUL:1luvu:

[Sinecure]

Nice work. I like the overhead, down-looking shot.

What's the chest-pack you were wearing? Do you like it? Do they make a slightly smaller version? I assume you were carrying a ton of slr gear in there.

[dmc]

Beautiful.

Looked like a GoPro? How'd you find riding with the pole? Did it take away from the epicness of the ride?

I always find it a hard choice choosing between concentrating on shooting epic footage, or just concentrating on the epic moment. The latter seems too much like... work.

[Bora20]

I like wearing my hard boots everywhere and usually ride with them in walk mode. They feel just like softboots to me, but with more control.

[Puddy Tat]

I like wearing my hard boots everywhere and usually ride with them in walk mode. They feel just like softboots to me, but with more control.

+1. This is what I feel like when I ride my Deeluxe T225's at 50/45 in walk mode. Surfy.

[KingCrimson]

I like wearing my hard boots everywhere and usually ride with them in walk mode. They feel just like softboots to me, but with more control.

+1. This is what I feel like when I ride my Deeluxe T225's at 50/45 in walk mode. Surfy.

You're bound to break any number of things including yourself riding like that.

And I think it feels terrible when you experience chatter..

[Puddy Tat]

But I'm not sure of the problem with riding the Deeluxe T225 boot in walk mode.

Deeluxe boots (T225 and T325 anyway) have (from the documentation I got with my T225s)

1. a locked mode for positions 1-5 (where 1 is most forward and 5 is most upright).
   
2. a powder mode allowing free flex between positions 1 and 3 (which kind of blows as I'd like a more upright position for powder)
   
3. walk mode allowing free flex between positions 1 and 5.

I'm not sure of the problem associated with this. The boot is already designed to be ridden in a free floating flex (powder) mode, and even in walk mode it isn't designed to travel outside of its flex range. Even in powder mode it hits one of the extreme end stops (position 1) and a temporary stop (position 3).

We can say that it is called "walk mode" because the intent is to only to provide a position for wlking in. But the reality (from a static viewpoint anyway) is that that mode isn't actually allowing the boot to operate outside of any normal riding position (1-5).

In a dynamic sense the only difference between riding in walk mode or any other mode being that you can hit the end hard stops (position 1 or 5) with more force than you could in another mode due to the longer swing allowed in walk mode versus powder (possibly moving through 5 positions rather than 3). But the reality is most times I have some flex in my ankle so I'm living between 1 and 5, so the throw distance is shortened.

Now if you want to talk about the forces exerted in a crash versus the length of the throw all bets are off. But the reality is that even in walk mode the boot is still flexing within what are normal riding positions for its ankle joint.

Perhaps Fin (US distributor) or YYZCanuck (Can distributor) or someone from Deeluxe could chime in with an official response from Deeluxe here. Because this comes up once in awhile on the board and from looking at the boot I don't get what the problem with it is.

FWIW I only ride my UPZs in a locked down "ride" mode.

Cheers,

Dave

[Bora20]

Ditto.

[Corey]

Thread jack?

The stop at the end of travel on the Deeluxe lean adjuster can be pulled apart by hand when it's off the boot. It's not structural at all. However lots of people ride soft boots, they don't have any kind of mechanical stop.

[Puddy Tat]

Now I don't have BTS but....

Installation of BTS removes the boot hardstops at positions 1 and 5 and allows the boot to freely flex (albeit under spring tension) between some unknown positions as you ride. Therefore as you hit the end of the ankle articulation swing the springs should be slowing you down, so perhaps you don't hit the "boot limiting point" quite as hard. But a rider with weak springs installed in their BTS for their weight/riding style etc is going to hit the same range extremes I do with similar forces that I do by riding in walk mode.

As a counter-argument to this installation of BTS voids the warranty on the boots. I'd argue that this is only because no OEM is going to support a product that the end-user has modified (regardless of what Microsoft is doing right now).

Dave

[Puddy Tat]

Thread jack?

I'm thinking I didn't just jack this thread so much as hit it over the head, dragged it down a dark alley, and took everything it had.;)

[SunSurfer]

Hadn't seen this thread when I separately posted a thread linking to Phil's videos on Vimeo. Thanks King Crimson for alerting me.

Have deleted that thread, so that there is no confusion that "philw" on Bomber is the Phil Wigglesworth of these great videos.

SunSurfer

[philw]

Thread jack: no worries, I'd forgotten about it. Only just re-discovered it as JM was bitching about these.

hardboots ? if you go on another heli trip would you use your hard boots again.

I may be a little late for you, but I ride with my hard boots all the time, unless the airline is quarantining them for me. So yes, I think hard boots rock and they are the only thing to wear. That's my view: other people have other views.

I've ridden powder with a fair few hard booters over the years, and they all ride well, in my opinion. My Canuk mates say that many hard booters can ride "stiff" in the powder - that's something to try to avoid I guess.

If you have to take one set only, I'd take what you're happiest with - it will work. As per other more contradictory threads here, my view for both piste and powder is that the right board is hugely more important than your boots. my boots are perfect for piste or powder... but I use a powder or piste board depending on what I'm riding. So beg, borrow or steal a powder board for heli, the boots are much less important.

Looked like a GoPro? How'd you find riding with the pole? Did it take away from the epicness of the ride?

Yes, standard GoPro HD running in r4 mode (I'd not worked out how to change modes when I shot this). I did not really notice the pole. I don't really notice the camera either... I think you need a fairly quiet upper body, but it's not really an issue. The pole was a collapsible ski pole, so I could have packed it up and stowed it in a shovel pack at any time.

I know what you mean about photography versus just doing it. The reason I got into that in snowboarding is that, after a while, you get to ride pretty fast compared with most people, so there's going to be time to muck around whilst you wait for them. Other sports, I'm more conflicted about that.