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Soft Boot/Binding Recommendations for Carving?


barryj

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10 hours ago, barryj said:

.are you saying the "strap and ratchets are far more cushioned"...... for 2017  ??

Of course the ratchets are more cushioned, they get softer every other year or so!  

No,, actually, it's the placement of padding, or fixed gear, or stiffness in the strap.. Little tweaks yield decent results. 

Some tweaks come from those willing to swap parts/pieces and use a Dremel! 

 

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21 hours ago, barryj said:

 

Looking at the Flow sizing chart, anything above 26.5 says buy an XL binding - you guys agree?? 

You may want to revisit that size chart. There's quite a bit of overlap, so 28.5-29.5 is the ambiguity zone. My Malamutes are 29.5 so I started with the XLs but I felt the footprint - especially side-to-side - was massive. My boots migrated during the day to the outer edges of the binding, leaving 1"+ of space on the inside. I swapped the X:Ls for Ls. The back-to-front size difference from the XLs was negligible but they fit the boot shape way better. I may be in the minority here. This thread may make for useful reading:

 

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As far as sizing goes I ride Burton 10.5 size boots in the Large Flows.  I use the "shorter" mounting point for the highbacks and the boots fit just fine.  I know Burtons have a pretty short sole but feels like I could have put a size 11 Malamute in there easily.  There's plenty of strap length left as well.  XL might be an overkill for 11 size boots.

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I had XL flows with 11.5 driver X and 10.5 Maysis plus (slighly bigger then burton) and the XL were too big.
Going to give my flows another run with the 10.5 Thraxis this year.

There's no market around here for XL stuffs. Wish I could sel them and get Large ones.

My 2 cents. 

Edited by Maxlanaudiere
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Emdee406,

The plates are the same (Gecko Stealth) but the difference is that I am using two different types of bushings.

The black delrin bushings are a hard durometer (more direct and connected feel with the board) and with this setup only provide 1 cm of lift/rise.

The orange delrin bushings are a medium  durometer (slightly dampened  connection with the board) and provide 1.5 cm of lift/rise.

So both provide a different feel and response which can be useful for different snow conditions.

Cheers,

sandy

Edited by svr
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On 11/21/2016 at 10:16 PM, SnowFerret said:

Ride Insanos are a pretty stiff boot. Only 2 complaints: 1) Some ingress/egress difficulty 2) Cosmetic wear is faster than expected.

I've been riding the Insano's for a few years now, very stiff and I concur with the difficult ingress/egress, I haven't noticed durability concerns though. The BOA is quite nice too.

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2 hours ago, Johnny said:

I've been riding the Insano's for a few years now, very stiff and I concur with the difficult ingress/egress, I haven't noticed durability concerns though. The BOA is quite nice too.

Last year I did a 1:1 comparison between the Insanos and the Malamutes at the shop. Out of the box, the Malamutes were noticeably stiffer (which surprised me) and had more resistance around the toe cap (I've had a couple pairs of boots break down in the toe area from cranking the cap straps). I have no idea whether they maintain that advantage over time. The real surprise - given what I'd read - was that the Malamutes had a smaller footprint than the Insanos. That may not matter to everyone, but when you have giant-ass feet like mine, footprint factors into the equation.

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2 hours ago, erazz said:

Reviews like that is why I didn't buy the Malamutes when I had the chance (even though they felt wonderful).    I was just wondering if anyone had good results with them.  :)

Yep, I went with the Malamutes. Only got maybe 10 days on them - short of the 14 days that are required to break the stiffeners - but they performed admirably. I go about 200#s fully loaded and no one would describe me as a smooth carver, so I think they held up well under the circumstances. Way better than the ill-fated DC Status and Nike Lunarendor boots that preceded them and broke down very quickly. I think the Malamutes had a full-scale redesign a couple years ago which may have solved some problems. I can't wear Burtons because they give me nerve damage. That and Burton keeps doing stupid, inexplicable s*** like collaborating with Gwen Stefani.

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I've been riding the same pair of Malamutes since 2009 or 2010 and they've been working out great.  They certainly got softer along the way, but I've been very happy with them.  I don't like BOA, these have laces, small footprint.  FWIW, I'm planning on getting another pair once these go...

tom.

 

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18 hours ago, lordmetroland said:

was that the Malamutes had a smaller footprint than the Insanos. 

on a quest to eliminate boot out as well as reduce angles as much as possible, this is what swayed me towards the driver - the "shrinkage technology" purportedly drops sole length about 1 size. i haven't done any proper statistical analysis, but they are nice & compact, and certainly shorter than my previous boots. 

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2 hours ago, xy9ine said:

on a quest to eliminate boot out as well as reduce angles as much as possible, this is what swayed me towards the driver - the "shrinkage technology" purportedly drops sole length about 1 size. i haven't done any proper statistical analysis, but they are nice & compact, and certainly shorter than my previous boots. 

From what I read, the conventional wisdom from the snowboarding community was that Burton and Ride had the most advanced "shrinkage technology." A direct comparison of the Insanos and the Malamutes suggested that Salomons were somehow magically shrinkier. So I bought them. In retrospect, I was foolish to think there was anything like "snowboarding community conventional wisdom" since most snowboarders say all kinds of stupid, unsubstantiated s*** (present company excluded of course). I didn't even look at the Drivers; the nerve damage I get from Burton boots is a curious sensation, but 9 months per episode is a bit much. 

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On 11/23/2016 at 8:13 AM, slopestar said:

My custom saber has power plates. I have not used them on pow yet. Pow board is a Fullbag Diamond Blade with NX2-GT

 

 

@slopestar you have intrigued me here.  Mig's lineup is all pow boards except the diamond blade.  Did you mean a different one from the Fullbag lineup or are you running the diamond blade as your pow deck?

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10 hours ago, Duke said:

@slopestar you have intrigued me here.  Mig's lineup is all pow boards except the diamond blade.  Did you mean a different one from the Fullbag lineup or are you running the diamond blade as your pow deck?

Diamond blade as my pow deck. Got it in some deep and low pitch stuff and it worked well

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Slopestar,

Can you give some more feedback on the Diamond Blade...

I am interested in getting either a Diamond Blade or a custom Donek Flux as a shorter alternative to my Tankers for more everyday/all mountain riding and would love to hear your thoughts.

I just pulled the trigger on a lightly used Oxess BX 163 for my freecarving/ice board, but am thinking that either the Flux or Diamond Blade will fill the other gap that I need for a more freeride oriented board that I can ride with friends and their kids as the tanker 200 is not child riding friendly (too much sideslipping is a ton of work on a big board).

cheers and thanks,

sandy

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Neil,

I rode a flagship and carbon flagship two years ago and they were fun but too soft and not enough edge contact for me.  I suppose that if I was not coming from riding Tanker 200's that they would have fit the bill, but my frame of reference is very skewed because of the long EE and stiffer profiles that that the Tankers have and it makes it very difficult to find shorter boards.

I liked some of the older BX boards (Palmer channel, Santa Cruz TBX) and many of the carving boards from Tinkler and Coiler, so I tend to gravitate to race/freecarving boards.

I did try a Jones Hovercraft as well, but it was so light and soft that I felt like I was going to break the board when flexing it torsionally while riding. Unique shape and pretty good edge hold on variable conditions, but for my style of riding it felt very fragile.

cheers,

sandy

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the diamondblade is a fantastic / versatile softboot freecarver. lots of effective edge w/ the bluntness, some fore / aft decamber for slarvy forgiveness, and a bit of camber and tighter (than BX race decks) scr giving a quick, playful ride. a fairly unique set of specs - that just happened to be exactly what i was looking for. rad board / great value.  

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3 hours ago, xy9ine said:

the diamondblade is a fantastic / versatile softboot freecarver. lots of effective edge w/ the bluntness, some fore / aft decamber for slarvy forgiveness, and a bit of camber and tighter (than BX race decks) scr giving a quick, playful ride. a fairly unique set of specs - that just happened to be exactly what i was looking for. rad board / great value.  

Thanks for the feedback xy9ine. The diamond blade does sound like a unique ride and I may just have to get one to balance out my quiver.

cheers,

sandy

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