two_ravens Posted February 20, 2011 Report Share Posted February 20, 2011 me: 5'7" 120 lbs mondo 23.5 boots bindings: TD2's The board: Coiler Classic, built for 135 lb rider (I believe) 165cm 18.5 waist 9m SCR stance on this board: all the way forward on the inserts, 18.5" wide. Borrowed this board and rode it at SES for 1.5 days. The first day was a cold, sunny day on a bit of fresh over soft groom at Highlands. By afternoon things were a bit chopped up and lumpy, with plenty of deep trenches left by carvers jonesin' for some firm groom! I found this board to be super fun and easy! In the soft snow, it seemed happy at most any turn radius, felt stable at any speed I was willing to ride at and seemed to blast through the chop easily. 18.5 is slightly wider than I like, so transitions felt a bit slow, but still very doable. Had a super fun day on this board! The next morning was again cold and clear, with firmer groomers - finally! And I found I couldn't hook up a carve on this board to save my life. Toe side was challenging and heel sides kept chattering out. Probably could have improved this with some adjustment to binding placement, but finally figured out that I was just far exceeding the turn radius. This board is so much more stable at speed than my Stubette that I felt I should be able to do higher speed long radius turns, but on firmer snow it really was limited to its 9m SCR. When I finally went off by myself, slowed down and did smaller turns it behaved very nicely. I wouldn't want this particular board for firm groomer days, but think I would love one of these in a 12 or 13m SCR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-star Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 Hi there! I am really enjoying your posts as I am a first season rider (and a girl) and I agree that it is hard to find info and gear that is for the lighter female rider! I'm riding a custom Hot blast 160 with a 17cm waist and a longer side-cut(11?) it was Stacia Hokam's board in the 90's... I love this board but as I'm just starting out, I am finding that my heelside turns are chattering out more often than not. You mention it here in your post--is that because I'm trying to do too tight a carve? Why am I chattering out on my heelside? Any experience you're willing to share would be much appreciated! I'm reading the rest of your posts... Kresta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
two_ravens Posted April 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 Hi K-star, glad you're finding my little write-ups interesting. :) The heel side chatter I experienced on this board was because I was trying to do larger radius turns than the board was designed for. It has a 9m sidecut radius, and I was trying to do more like 13-14m turns. My Stub will do bigger turns than the actual sidecut without too much fuss, but the Classic would have none of that on the harder snow (it would do any radius turn in soft snow though.) So for this board, I had to slow down and do tighter turns, then all was well. I'm not a hardboot instructor (have taught plenty of skiing and kayaking though.) I just pay attention to what has worked for me while I'm learning to ride and am happy to share any info that might be of use. Just sent you an email - maybe we can sort out what's going on. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-star Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 Thanks two_ravens, I'm heading up to June Mt. tomorrow for our So.Cal version of SES so I'll have a chance to experiment more with my board. What you said makes alot of sense, I think I need to take a few more turns to figure out what it is I'm doing--couldn't really tell you right now. I have taken a lesson that was very helpful, but your suggestion to video myself is a good idea. I'll email you more after the weekend with what I've learned. The "tech-y talk" is making more and more sense to me as I go... Thanks again for your help! Girl carvers rock! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
two_ravens Posted April 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 K-star, a few more thoughts... I looked up your profile and posts - looks like you're in mondo 25's on that 17cm waist board? Binding placement and set-up might be part of the issue, as well as where your weight/center of mass is at during the turns. Do you have a BTS kit on those boots? Did you end up taking a lesson from John Gilmour? I did too, so I have a good idea of what you probably learned. I will say some of what he taught me was extremely useful, but the way he set up my bindings held me back for 2 years until I started changing things up. So.... yes, let's take this to email, and see if you can get a bit of video or a photo sequence this weekend. Have fun!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daneille Posted April 15, 2011 Report Share Posted April 15, 2011 Hi there, I'm interested on your thoughts on set up too! I'm most likely done for the season, spring yuck! but, I am going to be trying some different things when we start again. What do you feel held you back? Mine has been set in the Pureboarding style so the last couple of times up I have straightened my angles a bit. Next year my board will be narrower too. Daneille Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
two_ravens Posted April 17, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2011 Daneille, there were several things in my binding set up that weren't very beneficial. I had just started hardbooting and didn't know much - just took a shot in the dark and started with a 3 deg heel lift and flat front and a 17.25" stance. JG changed that to a 6 degree heel lift and left the front flat and no change to stance width. I left it that way for 2 years, thinking there must be some good reason he did that and I don't know anything and so shouldn't change it. 6 deg heel lift may be fine for some, but what it did for me was totally torch the quads in my front leg. So I would do maybe 4 runs and be totally done, front leg couldn't do anymore. Very limiting. I also showed up to the lesson on a relatively wide board, so he set me up with the "Gilmore Bias" which is front foot shifted to heel side and back foot shifted to toe side. This was fine, but I didn't really understand how to adjust for other boards. He suggested I get a narrower board (which turned out to be a very good idea for me) but I left my bindings set the same on the new board. Two seasons later I figure out my binding set up really isn't working. Read a lot and started changing a bunch of things one at a time until it got better - now I have my TD2's set up on my Stubbette gas pedal style with 3 deg straight lift on front toe and rear heel (no canting) with the back foot biased 1/4" toward heel side on the binding and front foot biased toward toe side nearly an inch. 18.5" stance width (28" inseam) and centered on the board. That 18.5" is center to center on the bindings. Boot center to center is just over 19.5" because of the binding bias. Angles are 57 rear and 62 front with mondo 23.5 boots on an 18.2cm waist board. Seems to be working ok for me right now, YMMV. :) Shifting my entire stance back on this board about 1/4" makes it ride faster, and by the end of the day I have a hard time controlling my speed on steeps - fun on mellow terrain though. On other boards I usually move everything forward - if the board is long or too stiff or I just don't know how it will ride I start forward and work back until it seems right. I'm not really familiar with Pureboarding binding set up - but looks like they use a little more splay, with the back foot at a pretty low angle? Curious what else is specific to their style.... I do think narrower boards make sense for smaller people with smaller feet. I just can't generate the same leverage as a larger person, which makes the wider boards feel slow and difficult, requiring too much energy to change edges - 18.5 is the very widest I want to go for a carver. I have ridden some 17cm waist boards, and that starts to feel a bit too narrow (I don't much like angles above 65 deg but seem to need to go closer to 70 to avoid boot out on 17cm boards... May be technique issues too though... OK, let me know if any of that makes sense.... :rolleyes: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabatha Posted March 13, 2012 Report Share Posted March 13, 2012 Wow - I just found these threads. I think there should be a woman's specific section so that all the information isn't hidden from us. Wish I had weighed in earlier and read your reviews before I went to ECES 2012 (will share thoughts on boards demoed at ECES 2012 later). About me: I am short (5'2) and curvy, mondo 23 with F2 bindings and Deeluxe boots (no BTS). I have just wrapped up my third season on a hardboard. I usually ride nights after work, and try to get to bigger mountains with better conditions on weekends. So I don't have as much time on the hill as I wish. Am now starting to consistently link carves and feel comfortable on tighter and steeper stuff. Quickly to the Classic. I ride one (160 custom made for someone else) and LOVE it. I started on an Oxygen Proton which was nasty, and then Andrea (YYZ Canuk) let me borrow this and it was love at first ride. I ride in Southern Ontario and our conditions are challeneging to say the best. I find this board really allows me the flexibility to ride in icy conditions and not feel like I am being kicked around. I also rode it very comfortably in slushy spring conditions on Sunday, but in powder this board SUCKS. Having said that; I do hear you about the chatter. My Coiler is very forgiving and will let me get away with stuff I probably should not be doing. My first season I demoed a Donek and it kicked my ass - too much board for me back then. The Coiler really was a nice intro to carving. I ride with a bunch of guys (we are really Club Coiler - the benifits of being Canadian) and they can really flex these boards and push them around, they have been really helpful with tips, but sometimes they just don't get that they are twice my size, and with a higher centre of gravity can do some really dynamic turns and wieght shifts that I never will be able to achieve. I agree, we need to start talking about what works for girls and sharing these thoughts with Bruce, Sean etc. Actually, at ECES, everyone seemed interested in what I had to say about the boards and what was working for me. For the first time, I felt I could actually answer and let them know how I felt about boards. Sean spent some time at our table at the banquet and asked us for feed back on boards. Promise to write up about the Donek metal FC, the Donek Salom race board and the Jasey-Jay board I demoed soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kieran Posted March 13, 2012 Report Share Posted March 13, 2012 (edited) I think there should be a woman's specific section so that all the information isn't hidden from us.maybe women don't want other women knowing their knowledge?or maybe it just isn't hidden. a feature of the upgraded forum software is tagging. i've tagged this thread with 'women'. Edited March 13, 2012 by kieran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tabatha Posted March 14, 2012 Report Share Posted March 14, 2012 Wow! Learning so much. About interesting threads, what other woman think about boards and now tagging. Lets see what mischief I can do with all this new found knowledge, espcially since it looks unlikely that snowboarding is in my future - it is raining. Lots of threads to troll over the long warm summer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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