Why is the carving community so darn small?

[BlueB]

I don't think Phil is out of touch... He probably gets more days and vertical than most.

As for the 4807, it's a great board. Scooby and me ride them regularly on deeper days and when we are not intending dense trees. That's what I took to our cat trip in December and didn't regret for a second.

Sent from my SM-G900W8 using Tapatalk

[snowmatic]

philw: Good carvers, on soft boots or hard boots, can carve anything, whatever the conditions, whatever the slope / I think some people choose to use equipment which only works on easy slopes

Thats realy the point!

As I showed once here (3rd photo, entry #11), or here (entry #122) and here (entry #124) carving would give a more spectacular thing which lets younger riders and younger female riders taking interrests about hardbooting. Just because it's way more sportive as what we can see now more and more from 50-70 Years old men on tools for easy slopes which do carving down early mornings carpets of snow. But similar things on FIS-PAR racing too. They are on easy slopes since now more than a dozend of Years without any change on competition.

[slopestar]

Snomatic. It's lost in translation. I mean no offense but I have to say that your English makes your comments sound condescending. I hope you understand...

[Beckmann AG]

So when talking about what we do and love, let's not just talk about carving, as it's just one of many means of getting down the hill.  Let's talk about snowboarding, be it hardboot or softboot, clean carved turn or white room pow turns.  Henceforth, I have changed the name of this main forum from "Carving Community" to "The Bomber Snowboarding Community."  I feel it better reflects where and how we at Bomber want our sport to go and to grow.

 

Please let me know your thoughts, as I would love to hear them.  

 

 

^Merely rearranging the deck chairs.

 

Take a look at what LBO/ASC did changing 'ski school' to 'perfect turn'. Take something clean and concise and make it more complex in an attempt to affect public perception. Everyone has a concept of a ski school, whereas 'perfect turn' has no meaning without clarification. At the end of it all, the front office has to answer the phone "hello, Sugarloaf Perfect Turn Ski and Snowboard School..."

Assuming time is money, that's a complete waste of both.

 

Henceforth; 'Double-plus Ungood'.

 

Practically finally got so I could lay out a few (very few) well-linked trenches when the conditions were just right, i.e. just the right slope, snow and surface conditions. When the slope got a little steeper, the snow less than ideal and the surface a little bumpy I was unable to adapt. I went to SES 2005 and couldn't lay out a single non-skidding carve. I was really bumbed.

 

 

 

After about 30 years on snowboards mostly in hard boots I find the same thing. I'm so frustrated that I can't get that trench dug in. I went to Aspen this year 2016 and I'm pretty sure I didn't do one carve on the best equipment you can get. The point is and what leads back to the premise of this thread is that yes it is hard, yes it takes talent, yes it takes years to define and at 64 years old it's actually where I want to be when I'm 70.

 

This is a crying shame. Motivated individuals who know what they want, yet the available resources can't move them significantly closer to the goal. 

How many more, that might love to rip a turn but have no ready path to that curve of binding energy?​

 

Learning to make simple carved turns on alpine gear (or on softies, for that manner) is not and should not be a complicated process.

 

Granted, not everyone will learn at the same rate, or in exactly the same way, but the process itself is fairly straightforward. 

 

If you want to grow the sport, develop the educational resources.

The cure, if you will, rather than just the expensive treatments.

 

Handing over several thousand worth of hardware and a 'good luck, have fun' just doesn't cut it.

 

 

 

 

----

 

 

 

I think some people choose to use equipment which only works on easy slopes, and some others use technique (eg Euro Carve) which only works on easy slopes.... but those are choices they make.

 

Some people choose to use their equipment in a manner that restricts them to easy slopes, and others use technique (eg Euro Carve) which at first appears to work only on easy slopes, but has the potential to work just about anywhere, once you understand (and adapt) the mechanisms at play.

 

As if most participants have full view of all menu options, rather than the most convenient offerings du jour.

 

--

 

The potential community is probably much larger than it seems.  

There's a real possibility that, to the outsider, the actual 'carving' community may appear to be yet another bunch of condescending odd-ball elitists arguing over who does it better.

 

Edited March 22, 2016 by Beckmann AG

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

Looking at Jim's poster-pics, all I can say is "YUPP!"  .   I ride whatever, where-ever when the snow is ready...  Hell, I ride stuff from 38 years ago, and yet ride the entire mountain yet (although, modern rails/kickers are Frippin' scary now!, and a few I've just said 'NO' to; anything beyond a 50* UP departure are SKI Jumps, and kinked-gapped rails are not within my agility skill-set, even if I made the first "S" rail in '91...)  [ Ok., well, used a whole  paragraph within parentheses ,hmm, need editing, do I !?? ]. 

 

Anyhow, I defer that we, as 'go fast' riders need to put our 'style' out there a bit better. Carving is indeed the core of our riding, but is it the only goal here? When I watch Damien Sanders, Tom Burt, Mike Jacoby, Martn Freinadimetz, Peter Bauer, Mark Fawcett, or Jim Zellers, I know that much of their riding was possible because of their use of hardshells at key moments. Not that that was the ONLY boot system they used, but, maybe it was the system used were and when it mattered.  What's the performance gain then? THAT'S THE SELLING POINT!!  Hint, it isn't jibbin rails, nor tweaking a grab. BUT, those moves are SO 90's, and don't fit in with where Skateboarding has been trending this last decade. 

 

As Yetz  (a contemporary of Spiro's) said to me a quarter century ago... The skill cycle goes from tricks, to more tech tricks, to more tech and bigger tricks, too either more tech, or bigger, then re-boots when one gets to be too much...The Overlap is clear, if you step back a few decades, look back, then forward... 

Deja vu, I have said this before, again.

[nigelc]

In the end why did I get into hardbooting:

 

• I kept cranking my soft bindings up harder all day in an effort to get more response and this hurt my feet
• I found that I never jumped and rarely rode fakie
• At the mountains I ride there is often a long traverse to get to the good stuff. Much harder work on softboots, especially toeside

I certainly did not now or then figure that it was a purely on piste activity, indeed it gives me easier access to off piste. I ride hardboots not for "carving" but for better control of the edge.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Jim, Nigel, Eric: I'm with you guys. Carving perfect Cs on a groomer is one of many ways I deploy hard boots. I've always considered myself an all-mountain rider not a carver.

Slopestar: I long ago deployed the ignore button for Snomatic.

[jng]

Lots of interesting perspectives.  I wonder how representative the responses are with respect to terrain preference.

 

Anyone know how to add a poll?  I tried to use "Manage Topic Poll", but preview button never showed the poll.

 

Answers I am thinking are:

• Corduroy only
• Mostly groomers (until it gets too choppy)
• Most terrain (e.g., softboots on powder days)
• All terrain (powder, crud, bumps, the works)

[Neil Gendzwill]

You'll need to create another thread to make a poll, I believe.

[crucible]

I use my plate bindings and hardboots on EVERYTHING- from skinny carbon and titanal race boards to freeride boards to swallowtails- and on every type of snow available. Powder, cord, crust, ice, slurpee spring snow, PNW mashed potatoes, everything.

While the binding angles and the stiffness of the bootsnd bindings might change, they're still always hardboots.

As each new evolution of softboots and soft bindings have emerged, I have sampled them all, but found them lacking.

[RCrobar]

Why is the carving community so darn small?

 

 

I am going to assume you mean hardbooters that carve well, even though any boarding equipment can of course carve a great turn. 

 

Narrow stiff boards, high stance angles, stiff boots and bindings, that deliver great power and performance but are unforgiving, are sometimes blamed for a decline in the use of hard boots.

 

Check out this Burton add from 20 years ago (95/96 Season), read the Freecarve hard boot description, 'an entirely new way or riding the mountain' is how this model of hard boot is described.

 

I find it interesting that the softboots on the same page are described to 'deliver near-hard-shell carving response without loosing soft boot comfort and mobility.'  This would imply that the other hard boots (Reactors) were not as mobile as softies!  The freecarve boot was designed to be more flexible and mobile, a lower cuff with one upper strap.  

 

This could also imply that softer hard boots, lower stance angles, a softer board and softer plate binding might be better for this new way of riding the entire mountain.  It might also suggest that a softer more forgiving plate set up would be an easier initial learning curve for new snowboarders.

 

Beta vs VHS, why does one win out over the other?  So, what happened ... why did the forgiving softer hard boot idea not catch on with entry level or advance all mountain snowboarders?  The idea being that if more people had access to a forgiving and affordable hardboot set up, possibly a bigger percentage of riders would have found their way to the lure of a carved turn.  

 

As the old Burton add shows, the idea of using hardboots everywhere was floated 20 years ago! I sometimes wonder why this concept died at Burton's head office?  Did Burton and other manufactures follow or create the softboot trend?  I also wonder what might have been had someone in 1995 developed a plate binding that offered a forgiving 'near-soft-boot-mobility' with the softer FreeCarve hard boots.

 

Can anyone add any insight?

Rob

Edited March 25, 2016 by RCrobar

[philw]

I think you're on the right lines there. If you want to understand "the market", then looking at "the marketing" sounds like a good place to start. Actually rather than the mass of pointless sport questionnaires from undergraduates, a sensible university project would be to analyze snowboarding marketing over time to understand how it tracked the market itself.

 

The Burton ad seems to value: (1) all mountain capability; (2) flexibility. Not speed, grace, top performance, or any of those things you may expect to be buying in your sporting gear.

 

I am going to assume you mean hardbooters that carve well, even though any boarding equipment can of course carve a great turn. 

 

...

As the old Burton add shows, the idea of using hardboots everywhere was floated 20 years ago! I sometimes wonder why this concept died at Burton's head office?  Did Burton and other manufactures follow or create the softboot trend?  I also wonder what might have been had someone in 1995 developed a plate binding that offered a forgiving 'near-soft-boot-mobility' with the softer FreeCarve hard boots.

 

Can anyone add any insight?

 

Possibly not, but that won't stop me typing. I think it's as you suggest - a crowd/ marketing issue.

 

In Europe, we were late to the game. Early US products were almost completely useless here - boards did not have edges, and wellington boots weren't likely to give the control needed for primarily on-piste activities. Once people who actually knew how to build skis (eg Atomic) produced boards and stuck hard bindings on them we could use our race ski boots => hardbooting was the natural route. Then our resorts are structured differently: most people spent most of their time on piste (of which there was a lot). So the sport developed in two tracks. In Europe I recall predominantly hard booters when we were few.

 

The marketing drive was always US based: we knew the sport came from America, and all the marketing came directly from there and was pretty skate-focused from quite early on. I don't think you need much to tip these things, but as the market exploded it exploded in the skate direction.

 

During that explosion something else happened: the US side of the sport migrated almost completely from pipe to park. I think that's another effect of the same root cause. One major difference between pipe and park is that there's a fair old learning curve to pipe, and you need skill to be able to have fun there. Park isn't like that: I often see people riding there who can barely ride to the park. It's an easy entry for new people.

 

--

So that's what I'm thinking:

• The market is mostly selling to new people getting into the sport who want a low entry effort and few restrictions.
  Kessler and Donek etc are exploiting a smaller but very different market.
   
• The Park is similarly kind to new people when compared with park or the race course.

I don't think any of this is a problem, just interesting. 

When people see me riding powder in hard boots (and maybe kicking their soft-boot behinds), they are often dumbfounded: they know, like some people here, that "soft boots are for powder", and "hard boots are for wide easy slopes". I think this perception is wrong, but it's strongly supported even here, so likely it won't die any-time soon.

 

I ride a track bike on the road here because it's the fastest machine in this city. Everyone else until recently rode "mountain bikes" - big fat American machines with tractor tyres which are no doubt "comfortable" and "easy to ride". Those people are starting to switch to more road-capable machines and marketing fashions change - "Priority Rush" and other marketing has an effect even here, it just takes a while

[st_lupo]

I wonder if the BOL community is even the right place to search for an answer to this question?  BOL'ers are already "tainted" just by knowing how cool carving (or hardbooting) is, and we are probably the last people to be able to identify fundamental reasons that prevent a larger population from joining the sport.  I'm not sure it's just marketing... Sure the mainstream marketing is failing us now, but the major fabricators had their day and they had their PR machines rolling in order to sell hardboot gear in the 90's.  For some reason that never maintained enough traction for the sport to remain profitable for them.  I think we might get a more truthful answer asking this question at a "mainstream" snowboard forum or even a skiing forum.

 

This kind of reminds me of when I was a student in Boulder in the 90's and wondering why the hell the Warlock Pinchers never became a national phenomenon.   Maybe I should have asked a Morrisey or Tiffany fan why they never listened to the band  .

[lordmetroland]

This kind of reminds me of when I was a student in Boulder in the 90's and wondering why the hell the Warlock Pinchers never became a national phenomenon..

Because Baldo Rex totally dominated!!!

[big mario]

 

 

This kind of reminds me of when I was a student in Boulder in the 90's and wondering why the hell the Warlock Pinchers never became a national phenomenon.   Maybe I should have asked a Morrisey or Tiffany fan why they never listened to the band  .

 

Maybe because Chrispin Glover worship is just a touch out of the mainstream?

Babihed ruled Denver! well at least the cricket on the hill....

Edited March 31, 2016 by big mario

[Jack M]

 

 Did Burton and other manufactures follow or create the softboot trend?  I also wonder what might have been had someone in 1995 developed a plate binding that offered a forgiving 'near-soft-boot-mobility' with the softer FreeCarve hard boots.

 

Can anyone add any insight?

Rob

 

 

 

Burton gave the whole Alpine/Hardboot thing a real honest try before divorcing it.  At one point they had a selection of 3 different hardboots, called Earth, Wind, and Fire, and 4 different plate bindings - Carrier, Race, Automat, Physics.  They had  4 different lines of alpine boards available at the same time, the Factory Prime, Ultra Prime, Alp, Coil.  They also had a softboot carver, the Asym-Air.  And that's not all.  So I would say Burton was dragged into this softboot/freeride-only world despite their best efforts.

 

I stopped paying attention to Transworld or any of the magazines at least 20 years ago, but I don't think Fin was doing any advertising there.  Kinda too bad if not, I think lack of marketing is a significant part of it.  A picture speaks a thousand words.

[Beckmann AG]

As the old Burton add shows, the idea of using hardboots everywhere was floated 20 years ago! I sometimes wonder why this concept died at Burton's head office?  Did Burton and other manufactures follow or create the softboot trend?

 

Somewhere around '95, I attended a PSIA-Eastern Division ETS tryout @ Killington. This was kind of a 'Great Leap Forward' (for the organization), as they were trying to assemble a more complete regional presence for snowboard instruction. At the time, there weren't many snowboard examiners, and they were spread thin due to growing demand.

(Several of the veteran ski examiners were pulling cross-over duty, but that was a non-sustainable desperation patch.)

 

All of the attendees were on alpine boards.

 

One of the topics that came up was the direction in which snowboarding was going, or should be going.

 

A suggestion was made that snowboarders would reject instruction from anyone that resembled a skier, and that the organization should look toward crafting a new image if it wanted to remain 'relevant', and latch successfully onto the revenue stream from a growing sport. 

 

At an exam later that month @ Stowe, one of the successful candidates pointed out to anyone within earshot, that he was the first softbooter to reach the status of 'Level 3 Wizard'.

 

 AASI sprang to life, and with it a new riding model that more or less condemned alpine gear to the dustbin of history, meanwhile creating the relative monoculture we have today.

There is a good possibility that this change in snowboard education had some influence on Burton and other manufacturers.

After all, Burton produced (in collaboration with the brainiacs at AASI) entry level boards that were harder to use. 

Besides, it didn't take a genius to realize that volume sales in a growing market is a better bet than lighter sales from a smaller and more mature market.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Beckmann AG

[snowboardfast]

I would agree that Burton and other companies made a lot of alpine snowboard gear years ago as I have ridden lots of it. Free demos at Copper mountain by Burton and rosignol had free demos at vail years ago. Also Burton had shops that were designated as carving centers with gear available and there were more shops selling alpine gear in Colorado than there are now.  Nitro. Kemper, Sims, Hooger booger, Avalanche, Hot, All made alpine snowboards. You could buy and demo this gear in Colorado.Hot had an extensive line of hardboot boards for all around use . You just could not get people to ride in hardboots and plate bindings. I think hardboot snowboarding is like Jazz music in that not many people have an interest in getting involved with it. Less than 1% of the US population likes to listen to Jazz Music.  There are other companies as well that made alpine snowboards too that I have mot mentioned. I have been riding hardboots since about 1988  or 1989 so I have seen a lot of things happen. You could even have a custom race board built at Cruise and Bruise in idaho Springs.