On the Boiler Plate with Drift HD and turnable lense

[Steve Prokopiw]

Here is some mellow riding on the Boiler Plate I modified.It takes some getting used to and I'm a little gun-shy after tweaking my back earlier in the season but, I am pleased and thrilled with the new perspective that riding with a plate is giving me.I have also incorporated a couple of other ideas into this setup;the bindings are mounted directly to the plate without the use of the stock or BP cant discs.For the small amount of lift and cant I prefer(about 2-3 degrees of each),I merely used several layers of sub-floor matting like that used under laminate floors.I made sure to cut the different layers in shapes that would make for canting and toe and heel lift while staying put by ensuring each layer of matting is held in place by at least one of the 4x4 binding bolts.To hold it down I used modified aluminum center discs from some old Blax plate bindings.This all reduces stack height by easily 3/8" ;better lift/cant pads could be made without too much difficulty,but,so far, so very good :-)

The fit of the boot in the bindings was getting slightly loose feeling so,since I can't get the toe and heel blocks any closer together,I removed the heel bails and installed a piece of bicycle inner tube over each heel bail and reinstalled them.This works fantastically well for adding a slight bit more tightness between the binding and boot.I will have to replace the inner tube periodically as it gets worn at contact points.

Still another experiment that seems to have worked very well is the addition of elastomers held in place by bolts in the unused hardware mounting holes on the plate deck.Since they add about 3cm toward each end of the board I thought it would be interesting to see if this would help reduce the feeling that I was folding the board under the leverage points of the plate hardware.It works very well and added a subtle level of performance feel and confidence to the overall package.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uUmKnk-dYCU?list=UUek4XMMUITe0y_2_57visEw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Edited March 5, 2013 by Steve Prokopiw