First ride on a SIMS burner

[Big D]

To all those who may not have ridden a SIMS burner I offer the following. For perspective I have been riding carving boards since about 92 and ride pretty aggressively and even when I don't I can give a board a workout at about 6-3 275 Lbs. I only get about 15 days on snow a year and would put myself in the mid range of general carvers in regards to ability.

On 2-20-11, I had my first true ride on the seemingly mythical, love it or hate it, SIMS Burner. This was a 188 model in great shape and I was to ride fresh early AM corduroy at Mammoth. Now I say my first "true" ride as I had about 30 minutes on it last year but was chomping at the bit to ride a brand spankin new Donek custom FC I had ordered. So I only had it out for a short couple of runs. On the first run I biffed it after a mere 50 yards ha ha, and I was immediately humbled thinking to myself this is going to be a really long day.

So that was then and this is now, back to this February. I took it up and came down slow getting the feel for it. Everything slow and methodical. It was very smooth, without chatter and as others have stated, just rock solid..."like a closet door" ha, I think is what I had read once. By the third run I opened it up a bit and laid over a couple toe-side turns. The burner exuded confidence and I tried a few heel-side turns. Both felt great and I found that with the swallow tail it does seem to ride a bit shorter than it's 188 length. It does need some room though and for me I found I really had to be pushing it all the time to get it to turn sharply. It was not a board to just cruise on and by the end of day two I was ready for something a bit more user friendly. Bottom line, after figuring it out to the best of my 15 days a season ability would allow, I said to myself, I will never sell this thing! In summary I feel that when I am fresh and on my game, this thing is a blast to ride and the whole time I felt like it was saying, "Come on dad, let me off the leash, I want to run." If you are a big guy and ride hard with a solid ability you will probably love the burner. For me it is a better board than I am a rider as I told the two dozen or so people who asked questions about it in the lift line, but after this past week, I feel I had tamed it enough to really start enjoying it and found myself thinking hmmm I wonder what the 197 would be like...

D

[scrutton]

A week ago, I had my first ride on a Burner 197. I took it out on a midweek day. I fell a couple of times trying to figure it out. It demands speed in order to come back up from a turn. You need to be 'on it' to ride it. I spent about 3 hours riding it. As you write above, the Burner does feel solid, and turns shorter than it's length. Having said that, the side-cut radius is 19m. While I didn't have any problems turning it on fairly narrow trails (East coast), I kept missing the turns to get to the trail I wanted to get to (a function of my focus and the boards side-cut radius I believe). Or maybe I was having fun and kept forgetting. I wanted to try a different board after a few hours, although I was tempted to stick it out and keep riding it. I felt like the board would be much better used on a larger mountain where you could add more speed over larger turns.

After lunch I switched to a 2003 Coiler 180cm, and was immediately back in euphoric heaven feeling like I was having a super-day on an easy turning board.

The Burner doesn't have a modern easy turning shape. But, it will turn, just seems to demand more from the rider than today's boards. That's what it felt like to me; I'm not sure I'm being fair though, as the length and side-cut of the board are way different to the 180cm I was riding.

[SnowSpeedster]

Circa 1995 after I closed my own all-used snowboard shop, I bought up whatever new alpine boards I could find from the Denver retail board shops.

Since alpine was declining, I was able to pick up carving boards extremely cheap.

I was lucky enough to find 2 NEW Sims 197 Burners at Colorado Ski n' Golf for $25 EACH!

I kept one for myself and sold the other one to Doug Dryer for a ridiculously cheap price (wonder if Doug still has it).

Am sure it was pretty funny seeing this midget with a board twice my size heading up to the ticket window.

I am only 5'3" and at that time I weighed about 135 lbs. and the 197 Burner fully handed my *ss to me.

I was able to turn her competently but it was like a retarded monkey trying to pilot a top fuel dragster.

No WAY was I man enough to get the most that she had to offer.

So, I swallowed my pride and sold her to Bola @ All Board Sports in Boulder, CO for a similarly ridiculously low price. (For good karma points)

Do I miss her,...you betchya.

[Algunderfoot]

One thing to pay attention to is the stiffness as these all came in a variety of them. Unbenounced to me when I bought a like new 197 a few years ago, truely a closet door type ride and too stiff for my tastes. Fortunately Mr. Sutherland found to be just what he was looking for. I remember seeing a rather large, black guy ripping up Loon Mountain on what must have been the Burner 197 "Noodle" back in 04-05. He had this thing bending way past what looked normal, but I never forgot how much fun he was having and would still jump on an 88 or 97 is the flex was soft like that one was. I never did get to meet him either, then or since.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

One thing to pay attention to is the stiffness as these all came in a variety of them. Unbenounced to me when I bought a like new 197 a few years ago, truely a closet door type ride and too stiff for my tastes. Fortunately Mr. Sutherland found to be just what he was looking for. I remember seeing a rather large, black guy ripping up Loon Mountain on what must have been the Burner 197 "Noodle" back in 04-05. He had this thing bending way past what looked normal, but I never forgot how much fun he was having and would still jump on an 88 or 97 is the flex was soft like that one was. I never did get to meet him either, then or since.

Hi Al, you are spot on there. The different years, different builders, different model changes even within the same year. Not to mention it is nearly impossible to build the same board twice. Allot going on in such a simple process.

PS. The Burner 197cm I got from you has succumbed to my will (and 245lbs:)