Well, Bugger this for a Lark...

[st_lupo]

Sophomore class reporting in!!!

 

Winter has finally hit Norway and I had my first day on the local hill a few weeks back...  I started with alpine snowboarding last year and had an absolute blast, and haven't been this motivated by a single sport for a long time, and not wanting to loose any traction over the spring and summer months I started cross-training with long-boarding, dropped some weight, and accumulated some (rather largish) scabs.  The whole time I was really in suspense over where I would be when I resumed riding in the '16/'17 winter season.  

 

Rewind to winter '14/'15: By the end of last season I was getting used to locking in reasonable carves and grinning at the stupid speed that develops when avoiding skidding at all costs (and how to clean out my shorts when said speed got waaay out of hand).  I also developed a expectation that when I shifted my center of mass over the edge, the board would lock in and the centripetal acceleration kept me upright.  Symbiosis...  Terror... Control... Reward...  That kind of stuff.

 

Three weeks ago - 1 day: I prepped my board as best as I could, getting ready for the first snow-board trip of the season.  I scraped the storage wax layer down, brushed the base and honed the edges with my wife's chrome-file and diamond stone.  There is a certain zen-like relaxation in tuning the edges and seeing the fine curled metal shavings collect on the table.  The final touch was checking the bindings... good and tight; 65/60 degrees.  

 

Three weeks ago: I took my daughter up to the local hill for her first race training session of the ski season and my first snowboarding trip of the season.  I had my board ready to show those skiers who really owns the carve!  I took the Poma lift up without a single complaint from the hip department and locked in my back boot.  I was cock-sure and ready to go!  First carve on a heel side and I wind up dragging butt (can I say ass?) like a dog that's eaten a pint of yogurt.  Meh...  I'm slightly embarrassed in front of these 10-year-old skiers.   Okay toe-side carve then... I wind up dragging my... (antonym of ass)... on the snow.  Now I'm red-cheeked and my daughter is also embarrassed in front of her peers.  Amazing!  I was just completely dumbfounded, and here I had even ordered a brand-spanking-new Coiler board, and this happens to me?!?! Things never got better that night and my attitude was basically "Screw you guys, I'm going home."  I'm too old and too handsome (wife made me delete that) to be humiliated like this!!!  

 

Fast Forward to this last week:  The family took a trip to a small ski area (that actually had a lot of snow!!!) for a race-training camp for my daughter.  Here I really learned my lesson!  We started the trip on the green runs on the sunny side of the valley.  Perfectly groomed hero-snow.  We finally cut the umbilical for our youngest daughter and she was skiing in really good control.  Our oldest daughter is chomping at the bit the whole time, challenging anyone to to a race and my wife... well she's as awesome as ever on skis.  I'm getting in a few good slashes in on the SilberPfeil but it's green-groomers, mind you.  

 

The next day we get our oldest daughter out of bed (hail of protests) her and I are finally are on the hill on the opposite side of the valley, the shady side.  Cold. Dark. Hard snow.  Racing snow.  My oldest daughter took off with her training group, and my wife was with our youngest daughter on the sunny-side of the valley.  I was left alone; red and black trails only... do or die.  I start off a bit tentatively and punch at the snow with my hand once or twice when I loose my balance.  That it hard stuff!!  The slope finally drops from beneath me and I pick up speed.  The lessons that I learned from last year starts kicking in.  My back knee rotates into my front leg, my stance drops and I start bending away from snow at my waist,  hot-lava!  Oh man!!! That feeling when I dropped into a heel side turn that just locked in was pure ecstasy, only matched only by transitions to  toe-side turns... fractions of a second before careening off the edge of the trail!  Continually transitioning turns by throwing my center of gravity down-hill and trusting the board would catch me was the biggest rush!   This is what I had waited all summer and spring for!  

 

The Take-away: My 10 year old daughter now officially kicks my butt and that's cool.  Regardless of age, it is great when your children kick your butt.  But... just as importantly I will never... EVER... use my 16-year-old Burton free-style board with soft-boots (regardless of the stance angles) as my initial-season rock board again.  There is no comparison to the responsiveness to the hard-boot + carving-board combination. The SilberPfeil is now the daily driver and the Coiler is for those special occasions.  I wipe-out more than enough when probing the limits of my abilities and I'm sure that the jib-bonkers are laughing at me, but when things just connect... wow!  

 

Terror, relief... repeat! 

[lowrider]

 Fantastic!