Gilmour bias...

[skidad62]

I can't see the image on the source site you provided...?

[jimcheen]

image attachment experiment: seems to work but I removed the image as I deemed it too radical

Edited January 6, 2015 by jimcheen

[dominic]

John,

 

Could you explain how to apply reverse Gilmour bias for narrow board?

How does it work? Couldn't find one from the forum.

 

--

dom

 

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..snip

 

If you ride  aboard that is very narrow....you might want to run reverse Gilmour bias...because if the board is very bnarrow your heels and toes can't really be far from the edges.

 

..snip

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Edited January 30, 2015 by Trench Digger

[Corey]

Just put your toes near the toe edge and your heels near the heel edge. Because the board is narrower at the waist and keeps getting wider as you go towards the tip or tail, your front foot will automatically end up being ahead of center on the binding and the rear foot behind center on the binding.

Taken another way - if you center your boots on the bindings, you'll find that there's underhang on your front toe and rear heel. Shift your boots fore-aft and you can reduce your binding angles and put your toes and heels right over the edges.

[dominic]

Just put your toes near the toe edge and your heels near the heel edge. Because the board is narrower at the waist and keeps getting wider as you go towards the tip or tail, your front foot will automatically end up being ahead of center on the binding and the rear foot behind center on the binding.

Taken another way - if you center your boots on the bindings, you'll find that there's underhang on your front toe and rear heel. Shift your boots fore-aft and you can reduce your binding angles and put your toes and heels right over the edges.

 

Thanks corey. I was wondering about word "reverse" mean, I thought it is somehow opposite way of doing normal Gilmour bias.

 

--

dom

Edited January 30, 2015 by Trench Digger

[Corey]

I do this on 22 cm wide board and 18 cm wide boards. :) I prefer having my toes and heels close to the edge.

[dominic]

I do this on 22 cm wide board and 18 cm wide boards. :) I prefer having my toes and heels close to the edge.

 

Yes. I've managed to do normal way of Gilmour bias to my 19 and 18cm wide boards and found some

problem with 15cm board to do the same, that's why I was asking. Now I can try your way to do 15 one.

 

--

dom

[dominic]

corey,

 

I applied your way to my 15cm one with 18 inch stance which I preferred

and it gave me 69 front/66 degree back lowest without overhang.

(my old setup was 70/67 with little bit of overhang)

 

After few runs, didn't change anything just try to adapt.

I think I can say I feel comfortable with this set up.

 

Thanks,

dom

Edited February 8, 2015 by Trench Digger

[John Gilmour]

Just to be clear. With "Gilmour Bias" both heels do not have the same edge overnhang (nor should they ever) and neither do the toes, typically the. Front toe is just to the edge of the board with very little overhang and the rear toe has considerably more overhang.

 

Ahem...so looking at the Toes. ...

The front toes have very little overhang if any, and the rear toes have considerable overhang.

and on the heels the front heel has considerable overhang and the rear heel has very little.

Here is why:

 

Let's say you are leaning back in a chair .... both chair legs are aligned on the axis of rotation ( the ground plane ).

 Essentially when you make a carved turn while riding  a snowboard  that edge is sort of like leaning back in a chair and balanceing.

( only in this case the chair doesn't have two points so you could pretend both legs were connected at the bottom with  a single board so you have "line contact". And if you want to imagine it to be more like a rocking chair CURVED rail you could....and paradoxically as you Bend the board with more force you have more balance.

So its DAMN TIPPY.  It is hard to control, hard to adjust your balance to exact center neutral , and hard to go back to the other side of the balance Zone . With hard boots and super stiff bindings and board  we have more direct near  instantaneous leverage , but still the reader needs great precision...not like a Chinese acrobat, but still you still must be precise in your estimates and applications or your edge waivers ( and the snow absolutely hates wishy-washy waivering  and will punish you).

You have to give the snow what it wants to see, which is a precisely set perfectly curved edge throughout the turn with as little waivering as possible with quick micro corrections as needed,

Soooooo....looking down at a board with "Gilmour Bias"  on the heel side you see a front heel with overhang slightly beyond the edge ( draw an imaginary line down parallel to the board , the actual board edge ( the axis of rotation) ,  and  the rear heel which  can range from a tiny bit of overhang to being just over the edge ( let's try not to be inbound because you actual heel on the rear is still technically inbound if the boot exterior is aligned ).

BUT THE ACTUAL POINTS OF BALANCE ARE---->  

Inside the boot the curved surface of your heel which is quite near to the actual edge with minor overhang or in alignment , if you had X-ray vision you could see this and this amount can vary according to your body design ..for instance I am bow legged - Good I believe for carving as it's a sort of cant and  my ankles tilt inwards because of this and are in neutral,alignment when wide as opposed to a regular person who with a wider stance would be pressuring the inner edges of his feet. So Bias changes a bit personally. When I demoed Madd boards , I used bomber bindings because I could train others to use the holes for incremental bias (I would look at the  riders boots  know the thickness of the boot and liner .. sock thickness was marginal under compression, see if they walked now legged or tilted, and then tell the board guys what numbers to use for bias on the bomber binding . Cateks at the time had tiny increments with no numbers so,I had to eyeball those which meant I had to do everyone's screws so bombers were easier for me with a demo) . I set up EVERYONE who ever demoed a Madd using our Bomber bindings with "Gilmour Bias" and never even told them.  Didn't even want to argue about it or explain it, just got them dialed and on the snow.

 

 

 

so...

Getting back to that tilting chair. With a regular set up you only have  a single line of balance which is the board edge itself. With "Gilmour Bias " it's like you are able to reach back and put a finger on the ground both ahead of and behind that "balance line of tilt" line for balance. It's cheating in a good way.

I don't ride well with my bias not set right, I lose 20-40% of my skill and aggressiveness depending on conditions. In powder it doesn't matter because you are not line balancing but floating like a boat.

 

And of course the same balance lines things thing goes for toes.

with bias instead of a single balance line on each side you end up with three on each side.,built in balance cheats.

 

Caveat:

Dont use waist width for determining "Gilmour Bias" it is more important to look at the board width at the mounting position. Also how much cutting edge occurs before the mounting position. Will the trough be deeper?

Why not use waist width?

 

 Well let's look at three madd snowboards and my own minor design mistakes. There was a time when people liked the idea of a 18cm wide carving deck. They thought it was a magic number ....so we made them that width (in actuality they should have been a bit wider as 18cm is really good for people with size 8.5M  boot (I crammed myself into a 26.5 shell even though I'm a 9.5 M and would have preferred a 27.5 mondopoint). So we had  these sizes... ALL IN 18cm waist width.

Madd 158cm 8.8 M sidecut

Madd 170 (really a 168 cm but we called it a 170 so guys could think they had a bigger stick) 10.5M sidecut

Madd 180 22M sidecut

The boards should have been sized not by waist width by by WIDTH AT THE MOUNTING POINTS ...which no one did at the time.

You had more "Gilmour bias " on the Madd 158 because with the sidecut it flared wider underfoot than the Madd 180 which had very little flare since the sidecut was not deep. So you had to run steeper for the same waist width and stance as the boards were "skinnier underfoot" at the mounting positions as the sidecut got shallower.

Also different disciplines might want you running flatter or steeper angles and here you didn't have that ability because you just were forced to run steeper as you went up the line because the shallower sidecut forced you.

This is stuff I ponder on the lift ...the faster you ride down... the more time a day you spend sitting and thinking as a proportion of your snowboard day vs actual riding time. If you ponder this stuff while riding fast you get pounded and can't ponder until you get to the hospital bed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by John Gilmour

[Carvin' Marvin]

We talking *Binding bias?  I used to ride with a lot of bias since it helped balance and turn initiation at lower speeds.  I got rid of it because I don't put around the mountain like Grandma, and it was just one more variable I don't feel like messing with.

Not knocking your methods because it definitely helped me starting out.  As my riding progressed I just didn't feel the need for it.

[John Gilmour]

50 minutes ago, Carvin' Marvin said:

We talking *Binding bias?  I used to ride with a lot of bias since it helped balance and turn initiation at lower speeds.  I got rid of it because I don't put around the mountain like Grandma, and it was just one more variable I don't feel like messing with.

Not knocking your methods because it definitely helped me starting out.  As my riding progressed I just didn't feel the need for it.

I can understand that because most people overdo the bias initially when they can't really lean the board and it helps with leverage and balance.

As you get better you reduce bias as you are edging your board angle  more ( and it is very easy to go overboard with bias initially and not realize it ...if your skill and balance is less,you tend to really like the effects so assume more bias  is 'Mo better).

I have never found no bias to be better than some bias.

 

Ever....... for a directional board going forward.

 

 ...unless you ride twin tip paper doll duck stance no rotation , and bias has a negative effect riding switch duck stance  on a twin. So if you like zero bias on a directional board  , IMHO you just went overboard for your bias and skill level,  Some people don't want this added complication of a setting to get wrong and aren't the type to try several settings and just want to ride even if it means riding st a slightly lower level than they are capable of. I get that and embrace that when I rent or borrow gear and ride with kids or people with lower skill level ...I just wanna ride not fiddle.

thanks for reading this thread, if you are on bomber you probably are looking for info to get better.

Also with bias it helps to set your forward lean on your rear boot steeper and your front boot not as aggressive. If you set  both identical you might not like bias as much. Good luck Marvin it's all fun.

 Yesterday I saw a girl on the slopes of Vail Beaver Creek, she had a custom Prior  slalom board with Burton plates. She was a top Austrailian Boardercross rider (she said number 3) and was taking a break from competition because "Snowboarding  and competing wasn't much fun anymore "

I saw her bindings and well I thought to myself  " Shit that board won't run well like that, I'd hate to ride it set up like that ...I would feel like soooo clunky" . So I asked her if she liked it and she was having a hard time, and she wasn't smiling like most girls do rocketing around in hardboots carving. She had those awful old Burton plates with that turnbuckle bar that makes mounting them an absolute pain in the ass. I remounted her board ( just a tad narrow so it would work easier than if I guessed and went too wide I knew I had one one shot at this ...we had no measuring tape just ski lift ticket lanyards) and told her how to hammer a toeside, and she was all joyous and said in her cute Aussie accent  "I can't  believe it's so easy now".  Her bindings don't allow for bias. So this was done without "Gilmour bias"  but I got a lot more right than wrong in regards to angles and stance width .. so of course a board can run well without bias, but IMHO proper bias makes every board run better. 

 

It is an itterative process. Rome wasn't built in a day but I do tend to nail it on the first try after so many years of doing this. Typically I check by changing it and making it a bit worse by going more extreme in width, angle , or bias and then going back to my initial setting at least confirming I optimized it. I hate doubt.

I would look more like grandma riding without bias than with it. (More so than you as I have long grey grandma hair) It isn't just a helpful tool for those starting out, it's a tool you refine as your skills increase and is inter related to your boots, bindings, board, boot settings and conditions (I might lessen  mine for sheer ice extreme edge angles  or use a lot of bias to trench slush  deep for fun totally trenching  up the slopes.  With some bindings like F2 titanium race or original Catek  it takes a minute  to adjust  with other bindings like Catek Olympic or bomber  it takes a bit longer and with bomber or the  Catek Olympics you may not be able to finely adjust to where you have it completely optimized without doing a kludge with duct tape or something else  to fine tune the bias.

 

I dial in people's stance over video chat . So far no one has ever mentioned that they didn't like it. Eventually Someone will , but one mistake doesn't negate the concept. But the fact  that I can't even see them ride or get a 3 D look at them and set them up and they like it says something positive about the method. 

 

I write these long winded posts so I don't have to do people's  bindings. My hands are constantly cracking and bleeding during winter  from doing it for others. Some day I'll be hit by a skier while waiting for the lift and I figure I'd pass this along before I am  a vegetable . 

 

Its the only where people see others dragged away in sleds unconscious and bleeding in sleds to ambulances and people say, to their buddy  " Wow what a shame, wanna try a different run."

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by John Gilmour

[Carvin' Marvin]

I'm just giving ya a ribbing. I actually owe quite a bit of my riding style and ability to your writings and little video clips.

  I have a chronic tinkering problem so it was just one less thing for me to obsess over. Now I run about 57/53 and just put the front heel to the edge and the rear toe to the edge which is pretty much centered on my current gear. 

Starting out, the "step left turn left" and vice-versa feeling that bias allowed really helped me learn to initiate turns and stay balanced. Now at higher speeds and g-forces I feel like I can't sense it as much so away it goes. 

[slopestar]

Hey Marvin, riding Loveland on Sunday? How about you John?!!!  I’m ready for that second lesson John. 

Edited February 3, 2018 by slopestar

[Carvin' Marvin]

1 minute ago, slopestar said:

Hey Marvin, riding Loveland in Sunday? How about you John?!!!

I'll be there. Hopefully I can find you guys before everyone hits the bar. Would like to ride with and meet JG too. 

[digger jr]

This discussion is biased. 

[Rob Stevens]

I've been riding the "reverse" of this for a bit now. To be clear, that's more toe overhang on the front foot, and more heel overhang on the back foot  

I feel like I'm getting engagement of the front half of the edge on toeside, and less bias towards the front foot on heelside carves. It seems to have had the effect of more even pressure along the whole edge. 

As a caveat, some here will know that I ride +28 and -3. That puts me into a category of stance not normally relative to carving, so take the above with a block of salt. 

 

[jim_s]

Ok, so I'll bite. I'm setting up a relatively new board (I've thus far gotten 5 days on it this season), with new bindings (I swapped my old Burton Race Plates to the new board back in December, and have been riding with those, but have just purchased a pair of F2 Titanium Race bindings, and am going to put those on the board now). SO, this is a good time for me to give some thought/consideration to my binding setup, vs just duplicating what I've got presently (which was as close to a duplication as I could get to what I had with the same Raceplates on my old Board - a Donek 158 SL board - on my new board - a Donek MK.)

I ride in size 26 UPZ RC10 boots. The MK has an 18cm waist, and is approx 18.4 cm wide at the disk center of the front binding, and approx 18.6cm wide at the disk center of the rear binding. My stance is narrow - right around 42cm. I ride with both boots leaned pretty far forward, and with a fair amount of heel lift and inward cant on the rear foot (with the old Burton Unicant, its hard to quantify the lift/cant angles, but from some measurements, and a little trig that I applied to them, I'd say its a safe bet that I'm at about 6deg of heel lift and 2 deg of inward cant.) Front bindings are dead flat on the board. Some further measurements and calculations seem to show my front stance angle is around 61-62 deg, and my rear is around 58-59 deg.

I can't claim to currently adhere to any particular binding setup approach, other than I basically sight down vertically from over the top of the board, and have things aligned so that there is really no boot overhang at toe or heel on either boot. (I guess this is closest to the Fuego Box method, LoL. :o) Having come from a skiing background long ago (I've now been hardbooting way longer than I ever skied, however...), I was used to side pressure on the boot cuffs to carve, so I suspect I've always gravitated toward steeper angles than I actually needed, just due to the familiar feeling of pressuring the sides of the cuffs, and the fact that I much prefer to face the direction that the board is headed, vs some significant angle off of that.

Now, the truth is, this all works for me - I'm comfortable on pretty much any on-trail terrain, I think I carve pretty well (I like the small, tight boards - evidence the old SL and the new MK, so I'm not attempting to drag body parts on the snow - I much prefer the faster-cadence, shorter-turn, less-relativistic-speed type of riding, on generally narrower trails. I don't feel a need to shake things up, but if there's a direction I should consider experimenting with a bit, I'd be interested in doing so, since I'm about to mess up my current setup to some degree, anyway.

So, with this minimal amount of information, what would be the suggested approach to biasing my setup??

[SunSurfer]

You posted that you're pretty happy with your current stance, but you're clearly thinking that with a 2017 board and new bindings it maty be time for some changes. In a thread on biasing bindings towards the edges, you may want to think of other changes first.

How tall are you, and how long are your legs? 

Currently, unless you are very short, you appear to have a very short stance and rear foot inward cant which will jam your knees together. That approach was current in the 90s, but many have moved to longer stances. As an example, I'm 182cm tall, with a 90cm inseam and ride with a 54cm stance distance at about the same binding angles as you, with no canting on either binding, just around 6 degrees of rear heel and front toe lift, wearing UPZ RC10s. I'm also an ex-skier turned snowboarder.

Find Jack Michaud's "Separate Zee Knees" tech article. A longer stance will give you a longer base of support over which to balance and a bigger sweet spot within which to ride.

Here I'm riding a Donek MK at SES 2017, with the binding setup I've described above. I like making the same kind of turns you do. You can't see the turns but you can hear them. If you turn the volume up Pow4ever critiques my riding at about 55 seconds in (there can't be too many other riders with that combination of suit & helmet!).

The F2s you've bought should have come with a series of wedges able to provide both heel/toe lift and 3 degrees of cant (lateral tilt). If you change nothing else just get rid of the inward cant on your rear binding.

Edited February 3, 2018 by SunSurfer
Additional detail, Beckmann had also replied while this edit taking place.

[Beckmann AG]

2 hours ago, jim_s said:

I don't feel a need to shake things up, but if there's a direction I should consider experimenting with a bit, I'd be interested in doing so, since I'm about to mess up my current setup to some degree, anyway.

So, with this minimal amount of information, what would be the suggested approach to biasing my setup??

Speaking as a retired profiler,  your last post just provided more than enough information to instigate trouble.

The question though, is what problem, real or imagined, would you like to resolve. Alternately, is there something about your riding that you'd like to change, or are you satisfied with your current state?

 

 

Edited February 3, 2018 by Beckmann AG

[lonbordin]

4 hours ago, jim_s said:

So, with this minimal amount of information, what would be the suggested approach to biasing my setup??

Put your setup in front of the TV and turn on Faux News. (Now I'm in trouble! )

Buy a wide board, and UPZs in your size. Mount your TD3s... Bias for days. Make sure to drink your box wine of choice.

Edited February 3, 2018 by lonbordin
I get in trouble if I dood' it. I dood' it.

[jim_s]

@SunSurfer - I feel a little like Charleston Heston - as soon as I read your advice about taking out the rear cant, my first thought was, "out of my cold, dead, hands..." :-)

I've previously tried riding wider and flat (on my 2006 era SL board), and it caused me to be all kinds of unbalanced in my turns, and also aggravated a grumpy right hip joint that I have. (I find the same thing on my slalom waterski - if my feet aren't jammed heel-to-toe, and with a few degrees of outward angle on the rear boot, the hip gets all bitchy, and then I have to take time off.) So, my assumption has been that feet closer together and less stress on the hips is the answer, and just sort of anecdotally, it seems that the inward cant helps relieve some of that stress. Anyway, I'm not putting a stake in the ground on the stance/cant, but I'm definitely a little hesitant to widen or flatten things radically, due to the aforementioned hip issues. (And while I realize its counter-intuitive, and that I'd realistically have better front/rear balance with my feet wider, I tend to center and balance myself much better on the board with the narrow stance - likely at least in part just due to what I'm used to.) I suspect I'm very 90's in my knee position - the rear isn't tucked into the front, and I move them independently, but they're definitely much closer together than it sounds like is the current thinking. I'll try to play around with at least reducing the cant little by little, and see how things feel, and if I get really brave, I'll try sliding the bindings a tiny bit farther apart, a tiny bit at a time, and see if I can find the point where the hip starts objecting (though I usually don't see the full effects on that until a day or two later...)

I'm 5'9 (175cm) tall, with a 31-32" inseam (~80cm), 135 lbs, and pretty narrow in the X and Y planes.

BTW, I laughed when that video started - even w/o the image, I could have immediately known you were on a MK - I've never ridden another board that sounds like like the MK. It growls through the carves - almost sounds like its sliding, w/ the noise, but its leaving a razor-thin line behind! :-)

@Beckmann AG  - You bring up a good question - from my own perspective, I really don't have any 'problems' to fix. That's not to say I'm the world's greatest carver (much less on a tight board, on tight trails, at a tiny resort in the hills of West-by-Gawd-Virginia...), but I'm very comfortable with my setup, even on the new board. I have no problems initiating turns, controlling/moderating turn radius, transitioning between turns (the MK is much easier to get out of a turn than my old SL board - the SL had very little setback and a full-width tail - the MK almost forces me to work on drawing the turns out sometimes - its impatient to move from edge to edge...), etc. I'm confident in all terrain that I encounter at my local hill, though I don't do any park, and I tend to preferentially avoid the rare big mogul field, if/when they develop  I'm sure any of you far more skilled guys could give me tons of tips and advice, and even correct some bad habits (its been said I look a bit like I'm dancing, with my arms, for instance...) but as far as glaring problems that I'm able to identify on my own, I really can't name any. I'm just recognizing that I'm unlikely to reproduce my exact stance/angles/lift/cant/etc when I switch from the Burtons w/ Unicant to the F2s with wedges, so figure if there's a time to try some things out, now might be that time. (OTOH, if its all working and comfortable, and I'm satisfied with how it all rides - even if misguided in some ways - maybe I should just leave it all alone?)

My sole problem on the MK at present is that the thing is so daggone fast, and so stable at speed - I need to rein that in better, as I'm still sitting out due to significant remaining effects of a concussion I got on the MK earlier in January. (The MK is so much more stable at speed than the old SL board, that I got into the habit of letting it a run bit too free, and paid the price at higher speed than I really needed to fall at. :-(

@lonbordin  - I don't watch TV, so no Faux News for me. :-)  My only boots are UPZs, and TD3's scare me (big, bulky, tall, stiff and expensive) - I think my scrawny butt is served just fine by lower tech approaches like the old Burtons and the F2's. (In fact, I'm of half a mind not to go to the F2's - I just worry about relying on the Burtons much longer, as they're getting long in the tooth - they're on their 3rd board over the 20-some-odd years I've had them, and one day, they're going to break and I'm going to be up the creek. Same worries about the Bombers - I tend to lean toward moving to something that I can at least go online and buy parts for. As far as wide boards, life is too short to waste time waiting to get onto the next edge - skinny is where its at! :-)

[lonbordin]

20 minutes ago, jim_s said:

As far as wide boards, life is too short to waste time waiting to get onto the next edge - skinny is where its at! :-)

I'm not funny.

-TD3's and UPZs (especially smaller size's) have inherent bias issues
-Wide boards offer more space for bias. Not really much room at all for bias on skinny decks.

Therefore my tongue in cheek suggestion of a setup that inherently leads to bias issues.

I'm going to attempt to be serious for just a second.  When were those Burtons manufactured?  You're trusting your good health and riding days to really old equipment.  They certainly weren't designed for this many duty cycles. Scrawny butt or not get yourself some F2's.  The F2 Carve RS are pretty nice (and light) for their price point. (Psssttt- You might even find pairs of them for sale on UK Ebay from time to time!)

Edited February 4, 2018 by lonbordin
Life's too short to spend serious time in the healthcare system

[jim_s]

31 minutes ago, lonbordin said:

I'm not funny.

Trust me, that was pretty funny... :-)

 

32 minutes ago, lonbordin said:

-TD3's and UPZs (especially smaller size's) have inherent bias issues

What's the inherent bias issue w/ UPZs, is it the fact that the heel ledge is so far under the back of the boot? Regardless of where the rear bail holds the boot, I should still be able to adjust the bail positions on the binding bases (within reason, of course) to get neutral, toe or heel bias, shouldn't I? When I went to the UPZs, I remember having to move the bails around a bit on the Raceplates, but I was still able to get the boot centered between the edges (ie, toe side of boot lined up with toeside edge, heel side of boot lined up with heelside edge), which would be neutral bias, wouldn't it? The F2s seem (quite literally) infinitely more adjustable than the old Burtons, which relied on the two plates being moved between sets of holes for a very finite number of position possibilities. I like the fact that the F2s can be adjusted to the boot as tight as desired (for clamping and lever open/close pressure), and that the whole shebang can be moved forward/backward on the base plate with the screws - seems to be a much better system.

 

34 minutes ago, lonbordin said:

I'm going to attempt to be serious for just a second.  When were those Burtons manufactured?  You're trusting your good health and riding days to really old equipment.  They certainly weren't designed for this many duty cycles. Scrawny butt or not get yourself some F2's.

Yes, that's a large part of my reason for moving to the F2s - I have a brand new pair of F2 Titanium Race bindings just waiting to go on the board - I'm just seeking input/advice on how/where to place them. My initial goal was just to duplicate what I presently have on the Burtons, but as I got to thinking about it, it seemed that this might be a good opportunity to make sure that's the sensible thing to do, or not. That having been said, I've been warned that the F2 Titaniums may be a bit stiff for my scrawny self, which does make me wonder if just staying on the Burtons might be better, from a flex perspective, but as you note (and as I alluded to in a prior entry in this thread), the day is going to come that the old Burtons are going to give up the ghost, and I don't want to be searching for parts (binding parts or body parts) when that happens. I bought the Burtons back in probably the mid-90's - I think they were new at that point, but ICRC for sure. But, bottom line, they need replacing, thus the shiny new F2's sitting here on the floor beside me, waiting to go on to the board, once I determine how I'm going to set them up. (Your concern on the age/state of the Burtons is noted and appreciated!)

39 minutes ago, lonbordin said:

Scrawny butt or not get yourself some F2's.  The F2 Carve RS are pretty nice (and light) for their price point. (Psssttt- You might even find pairs of them for sale on UK Ebay from time to time!)

Searched high and low for a pair of Carve RS bindings, just couldn't find any anywhere (even on eBay) - everyone seems to be out of stock, but my concern w/ the Burtons was enough that I went ahead and got a pair of the Titanium Race. They're going on the board - if I then find that they're too stiff, I'll start searching anew for something more flexy. I'm hopeful that they'll be Ok for me, though.

[Beckmann AG]

1 hour ago, jim_s said:

(OTOH, if its all working and comfortable, and I'm satisfied with how it all rides - even if misguided in some ways - maybe I should just leave it all alone?)

Sometimes happy is good.

Aren't those Burton plates still available under the Ibex name?  If so, just get a new pair of what you have, and ride toward the nearest sunset.

On the other hand: As described, your stance and binding configuration lends itself to starting turns, but not so much to finishing them. And this might account for some of your statements regarding speed control.

And on the other other hand: If you have 'jazz hands' in rough terrain, your feet are probably too close together.

Regarding bias and boot shells:

It's not so much the toe and heel edges of the boot that matters, it's the transposed contact point at your heel bone and metatarsal heads that count. Those are the load bearing parts of your foot, and 'a' means of transmitting inputs to the board, so they should be located similarly with regard to the edges. When in doubt, bias toward the toes.

 

[SunSurfer]

Jim, a stance that is comfortable is a good thing. Maybe just print yourself a set of wedges to replicate the stance of your old bindings, and work on technique to get the board more steeply angled to make shorter radius turns. In the Intermediate Clinic video from 2013 SES Corey talks about and demonstrates engaging the downhill edge as you traverse and carving round and through the fall line to the next traverse as a strategy to shorter turns on steeper slopes.