What bugs me about carving

[1xsculler]

So happy to hear that I am not alone in my feelings about carving.

I will forge ahead.

[Dan]

12 minutes ago, 1xsculler said:

So happy to hear that I am not alone in my feelings about carving.

I will forge ahead.

Hell yeah man, it can get lonely out there. Meadows has a crew, but I still ride solo as many days as I ride with someone. In theory, I could get a day in at Crystal occasionally, if I head that way I'll let you know. 

[lamby]

Thanks for the interesting topic and discussion. I like carving turns, but I don't tend to do it all day long, one after the other, over and over again on the same run. I can ride with someone who wants to do that sort of riding, but it tends to get a little old to me after a bit.

On days when I'm on a carving set-up I'm carving a lot of my turns, but certainly not all of them, and I do a lot of what I sometimes refer to as "slarving". I may enter a turn with a strong carve, and then let the board begin to slide. Or I might carve through a number of turns only to let things loosen up into skidded turns down lower on the run.

Somedays I'm on a carving set up and will not be off-piste. Other days I'm on a softer, more forgiving board (I always ride hardboots and plate bindings). If I'm on a more forgiving setup I'm free to carve some of the time, or slarve around, or play in the crud and bumps. It depends on the conditions and what's good that day. If it is a powder day, I'm on a powder board and loving life.

Not that it is always good up there, but I try to find the fun - poking around and looking for interesting stuff to ride.

I understand the appeal of carving linked turns, one after the other, and really working to master turns in many situations, steepnesses, terrain...It is great to concentrate on really getting your turns dialed in. I often find myself working on a long series of linked tight-turns as I'm about to leave the mountain; especially earlier in the season when I'm trying to build up my strength. Generally though, I prefer to carve some of the time, and to go off piste, or mix it up with friends - skiers and snowboarders, at other times. It's fun exploring around and looking at having fun from a different perspective. I ride alone a lot too, and really enjoy that.

I think hard boots and plate bindings are such an awesome setup. I love carving hard on groomer days, and I like the versatility hard boots and plate bindings provide me on days when I want to mix it up on and off of the groomers.

Anyway, I hope you have fun out there and that you get your groove back on soon! 

[nuisanceIV]

There's plenty of people on the hill who just want to rip some turns, I've run into my fair share of random people who ride softboots who are super down to ride - the fact they're riding with someone in a more "dedicated" carving setup excites them!