How long have you been riding hard boots?

[skywalker]

back in 1989 I haf hardly ever heard about snowboards. By shere luck I met some guys with old burtons, who lended one of them to me for one day (not longer they said). I got a nice basic instruction with some skidding around, some rotation-style instruction and finished my first turns in the afternoon. Had some beautyful crashes also, got a tiny little brain concussion, felt really awful in the t-bar and needed somebody's help to get out of my pullovers, as my shoulders and arms ached horribly. The next day I did everything to get the board borrowed again, had another day on board and was totally kicked.

Unfortunately this was in the last days of that winter, so I bought my first board the next December. This Crazy Banana is still in my quiver, as it's my first love ;) ;) Wouldn't want my starting to be different at all! Of course the first three years were on my soft old Ski boots, top buckle opened. Changed to an asymmetric IQ then and a pair of UPS boots, never had a softboot-setup ;)

[Jack M]

Originally posted by Erik J

Day one - 1989, a 14 year old and a Burton safari. It was like some sick S&M thing. The more the board beat the crap out of me, the more I wanted. ...

My first day out, it was raining, 60 deg., water runoff had carved out 2 ft. deep trenches in the slope and there were actually hidden mini crevaces' under the snow. I wore jeans, hi-top sneakers and a t-shirt. When my mom picked me up that night, I was bleeding from every limb, ripped pants and shredded t-shirt. A bloody nose and a smile from ear to ear. The rest is history, moved out west, lived at the bottom of a ski resort, moved back east, carve every possible day that I can.

Holy crap!!