How does anybody survive more than a couple days on an SL board?!?

[st_lupo]

Last night I finally got to take out a newly acquired Kessler 162 out for a casual spin (is that other 162 drivers I hear sniggering?).  To put it mildly I was pretty naive as to what I was expecting.  Over the past two years I've been getting pretty comfortable in the solid slice-slice-slice of my Coiler NFC.  It feels like I know to the centimeter how big my turns are going to be on the local hill and the rhythm is almost as familiar as a heartbeat; confident, powerful and solid.

This Kessler though... my first slalom board, and at a diminutive 162 cm it about had me peeing my pants (in a good way).  I felt a lot like when I first started hardbooting and experienced carrying a lot of speed while spending 50% of the time pointing at the trees at the side of the hill.  It was a rodeo from start to finish.  After the first run I was convinced I was going to chuck the board out the window of the car on the way home.  I kept spinning out, couldn't keep a straight line and went over the "handlebars" a couple of times.  I was right under the lift to and I looked the idiot.  The second run I could grudgingly say that I made a couple of ok turns and started learning the rhythm of the board.  On the third run my brain melted out of my ear-holes and I somehow wound up safe and blissed out in the lift line with a feeling like I was in high school and had actually gotten to second base with the board.  With no input other than to just try to keep up with the board, it was rocketing into the air at every single transition!  ...And it would land and carve off into the next hop.  Freaking awesome as long as I stayed in the sweet-spot.  That sweet-spot however was obviously a fraction of the size that I am used to on my Nirvanas.  It was so damned fun it was ridiculous, but... 

...I'm pretty sure this thing is going to be the death of me.  On the last run of the night I got a bit behind during the rodeo and wound up shooting off into an embankment and bonking my noggin on some snow features.  Once this board starts really biting into the turns it seems like the margin of error really diminishes.  Any other SL drivers with tips on how to approach this thing?  I read somewhere that SL boards are good for beginners, but I can't understand it, this board feels way to hyper for that?

[drschwartz]

So, you pick what is probably the most aggressively stiff slalom board out there, and want to take it for a “casual” spin? That board will spit out turns like you spit out sunflower seed shells, but it is not built for a casual ride. I think that the advice about a SL board for beginners is usually because beginners need a shorter, easier turning board to cut their teeth on. A softer SL like an old burton, or even a Renn Tiger might fit that bill, but the Kessler will crank out aggressive turns all day long.

I like riding my SL in a slalom course, of course, but also use it for a hill with tight narrow trails where I need to make quick turns to avoid the general population. It sounds to me that you got the hang of slalom turns pretty quickly, and had a hoot on your third run. Let off the gas when you get tired and it will treat you better at the end of the day.

[Beckmann AG]

No biggie.

Approach and ride as you would a horse bred for competition.

[lordmetroland]

1 hour ago, Beckmann AG said:

No biggie.

Approach and ride as you would a horse bred for competition.

Please post pictures when you get the saddle on it. Western is probably preferable to English...

[Beckmann AG]

^Just used my last roll of Kodachrome documenting another binding project, so you're out of luck on that front.

Seriously, it's the same thing. For instance, I get on from the left, as is customary. Goofies would, of course, opt to do things 'differently'.

Sudden movements and loud noises are a bad idea. Clumsy footwork might lead to unintended acceleration. Drop the reigns and you could get bucked. Don't ride through a field of gopher holes, etc.

[barryj]

So St Lupo,  you gonna do some  Bronc Busting are ya..............well,  until you get the reins of that Kessler just expect your gonna get bucked off........not a matter of if but when!

[drschwartz]

OK all this rodeo talk has got me drooling, Justin Sportsmedicine Doc that I am. Hope you were able to stay on for more than 8 seconds.... that’s all that counts anyway.

 

[jim_s]

Welcome to the fun side of the island! :-)

I can't speak for your Kessler, but as a long-time tight-radius carver (Donek 158SL, now Donek MK), I think you hit on a major part of it, which is knowing how to work the sweet spot (and determining where the edges of that sweet spot are - too far forward, and you're likely going airborne in a bad way, too far back, and you're likely headed somewhere that wasn't in the plan, with expediency). As you also note, a large part of it is just staying on top of the beast, and letting it do what its made to do. I really don't think much about turn initiation - after the board comes through underneath me, it automagically hooks up on the next edge, and is then rocketing back under me in the other direction before I have a lot of time to think about it all. For me, its a matter of pressure transition to make the best carve I can, then the little sucker is zipping back under me in the other direction. I'm mildly ashamed to admit it in public, and my skiing friends think I'm a bit of a nutcase, but I'm often giggling like a schoolgirl at the end runs.

I tend to think of my SL style boards as sort of (highly) glorified stair-stepper machines - you need to be working the ups and downs throughout your carve, with both expediency and purpose - they come quickly, as you've seen for yourself. I find the activity to be pretty seriously aerobic, and despite being a fairly intense cyclist, I'm still panting for breath at the end of the best runs! (and its even harder when you can't stop cackling like an idiot...)

Stick with it, its totally worth it! Do wear your helmet, LoL. :-) (This coming from a guy who is presently sitting out for 2 weeks due to a snowboard-induced concussion - the MK doesn't suffer fools much! <:-) Hope your head gets better soon!

[Buell]

HaHa! I have been riding a 162 Kessler SL (custom for a lighter rider) for a number of years now. I have ridden a stock Kessler 162, which is too much board for me. If buying stock, I would have the 156 Kessler SL. I have also owned an SG 157 SL. The SG was more of a beast than the Kesslers. Often the SG was a blast to ride, but it would skip me right out of a turn if I weighted it incorrectly (and it hated soft groomers). Top SL boards are not cruisers, but they are incredibly rewarding and can be put in places on the slope that a bigger board will pass right by (they surf the slope contours beautifully). They can also go fast and can make bigger turns when you tell them to.

As you are seeing, true SL boards are not for beginners. However some of the specs of an SL board, like a smaller radius on a more friendly, shorter length board would be good for beginners. I think this is where the confusion comes from.

Basically, you have some of it already. It is a race board, intended to react quickly and not slow down in turns. The sweet spot is rather small and requires you to stay over the board. It will take off like a rocket in what ever direction it was last pointing if you get back seated. Because it is not meant to slow down in turns, you are going to have to actively work to control its speed at times. I personally do this by driving a spot about a foot in front of my front foot into the snow. The steeper the run, the harder I push that spot into the snow.

Enjoy!

[barryj]

31 minutes ago, Buell said:

It is a race board, intended to react quickly and not slow down in turns.

Buell said it all!   I thought my Virus UFC was fast .....until I tried a Kessler Alpine 171!      St Lupo check out the specs...the 171 has a smaller blade, waist, tail than a 162!!                  

 

38 minutes ago, Buell said:

It will take off like a rocket in what ever direction it was last pointing if you get back seated

 I was tearing up from the G-forces and thought I was gonna wet my pants!

[Buell]

4 minutes ago, barryj said:

Buell said it all!   I thought my Virus UFC was fast .....until I tried a Kessler Alpine 171!      St Lupo check out the specs...the 171 has a smaller blade, waist, tail than a 162!!                 

The stock 168 and 171 Kesslers that I have owned were super friendly boards (still very fast). Much different than their SL and full length GS boards. I would have kept the 171 Kessler, but I had a 175 SG at the time that was just amazing!

[big canuck]

Want an easy “short” board to ride? 

Coiler Angrry. 

I had a Kessler 162, SG 162, Tomahawks, Apex’s All of them. They are race boards not FC boards. I could ride my Angrry all day long. Just sayin

[BlueB]

I find my OES 162 easier to ride and more versatile then MK, for instance. From what I can remember (It's bean a while), Kessler 162 was easy to ride too. 

[Pokolikrat]

25 years. The boards under 165 work for me the best. They just fit me. Old Rossi VAS,  Trans Bastard,  old MADD, Virus Rocket, Hurricane, UFC, SoulCarver  and Coiler Angry they are all 159 to 163cm. Last spring I demoed in the absolutely same conditions Donek MK and 168 Kessler. I preferred MK in any aspect. They work great on narrow and busy slopes in steep and moguls And you can ride them fast too. Everybody has a different taste I guess.

[Corey]

Mr. Lupo, try slowing down a bit at first. If you rode at your top speed then turns will be started and over before you're done debating internally if you want to turn. 

That's one of the fun aspects of short boards - you can go surprisingly slow and still make full C-shaped carves. Or go faster and knock out turns rapid-fire. 

And LOL at your story! 

[philw]

18 hours ago, st_lupo said:

Last night I finally got to take out a newly acquired Kessler 162 ...   ... my first slalom board, and at a diminutive 162 cm it about had me peeing my pants (in a good way).  ...   Freaking awesome as long as I stayed in the sweet-spot.  That sweet-spot however was obviously a fraction of the size that I am used to ... It was so damned fun it was ridiculous, but... 

...  read somewhere that SL boards are good for beginners, but I can't understand it, this board feels way to hyper for that?

I have a 156SL as my standard piste board, the right size for my weight. It feels very friendly, probably because of the metal and the de-cambering.

It's a Porsche. The trick is learning to control the speed, of which there's plenty. The good news is that unlike larger boards, these can rip everything.

[bigwavedave]

I've had both SG163 and Kessler162 SL boards. Insanely fun to ride, they will do anything, and I found them very forgiving, as I think they are designed to be able to recover from extreme situations. Of course, you can get into extreme situations faster than you can think, so you have to stay on top of it, which is a bit more work than riding a Nirvana.

My newest custom board is a Coiler based off of Bruce's race SL design, a 165, but with a near radial side cut  (9-10m). I can ride it all day, whereas the SG and Kessler SL were a lot of work to keep reined in. I don't know if it's any different from an Angrry, but I love it.

[Chouinard]

I survive by not riding one.

[jim_s]

5 hours ago, Chouinard said:

I survive by not riding one.

As Ahnold once said, "For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer." :-)

Life is short, turn hard, and as often as you possibly can! :-)

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

My YEARS on things like a Stat-5, Nitro EFT 156, "Small" Rad-Air Souls [I had 2 148's!], my 2 Madds 158's, a few Hot's that were no longer than 163cm... I've come to this conclusion; YOU ride the Board, not Vice-Versa. So, RELAX every so often! If you don't, you'll kill leg nerves you never Knew existed! My 156 Reto (a Free-ride board, fat, slow, etc .. NOT) burned my legs today in about 5 runs (made me almost wish for an automatic tranny! yikes!). So, it's all in Your Riding Choices, and CONDITIONING. I'm a tad out-of-practice? [eek]

[Chouinard]

11 hours ago, jim_s said:

As Ahnold once said, "For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer." :-)

Life is short, turn hard, and as often as you possibly can! :-)

I got my hands full already trying to transition from an expert beginner to a beginner intermediate on a 200’ mound full of tunnel visioned fellow snow sport participants.  The last thing I need is a bottle of nitrous with a hair trigger discharge.

[BlueB]

On a hill of that size, all the one needs is a slalom board... or a shot AM. 

[Corey]

33 minutes ago, Chouinard said:

The last thing I need is a bottle of nitrous with a hair trigger discharge.

Haha, too funny!  True for some boards, not for others.  I wouldn't put a newbie on something high-strung and nervous like an MK either.  

The reason I love shorter/turn-ier boards for new carvers is that you don't need to tip them as high to make a reasonable carve at a medium speed.  Put a new hardbooter on a GS board and they're going to hate life.  I had that discussion with someone a few weeks ago, where their 'friend' put them on some mega-stiff 185 GS board for their first hardboot experience.  Result?  They said that race boards are scary and they never wanted to do that again.  

Some people ride REALLY fast on softboots, then switch to hardboots and go just as fast with fall-line skidded turns.  This was exactly me when I switched.  It took me a while to learn to slow down and hook the edge.   Cue the Norm article: http://www.bomberonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Norm-Part-I.pdf

[Jack M]

I bought the last stock Kessler 168 from Bomber this past fall.  I don't know what the differences are between that and the 162 other than the obvious length and the 1m difference in nose radius according to their specs.  (162 = 7-12m, 168 = 8-12m)  It's an outstanding freecarver and race board.  I got first and second in a USASA SL double header a couple weeks ago at Sunday River on this board.

I think there is definitely something special about the clothoid sidecut.  It's very smooth and versatile.  The board can be driven hard or you can surf it out.  It's like it has the comfort of a long board with the turn size of a short board on tap when you want.  It's been my go-to board so far this season.  It's a work out for sure, and you just have to get conditioned for it.  But it's not nearly as much of a workout as the MK I had before.  Exhilarating, but too many turns in one run for me at this point.

[jim_s]

I actually started out on a GS board (Checkered Pig - something like a G6 or G7 - haven't seen a Checkered Pig in a long time. ) It was a huge-ass board, and stiff as heck (at least for my scrawny little self), and was really the ultimate intro to hard-booting for me (using an old pair of Raichle rear-entry ski boots, LoL :-) I progressed to a point on it, however, that I came to realize I was a serious danger to myself and others on the narrow East Coast slopes - it was just way too fast, and required too much slope.

A Burton Alp (156, I think...) was my first step down to a tighter board, and the progression has just continued to get tighter and tighter over the years (158SL, MK). I honestly don't think I'd have done as well on the tighter boards to start with - they just require too much attention to detail that I didn't have back at the beginning. The GS board was fast as heck, but much more forgiving of my bumblings. But, speed management is a whole lot more do-able on the tighter boards, and the older I get, the more I appreciate speed management. :-)

I wish I still had the old Checkered Pig - I'd hop on that again in a heartbeat, just for the memories! :-)