Guest Thomo Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 Okay guys - I need your help. I've been boarding for about 7 - 8 years. I currently ride a K2 Zeppelyn 158 (yep a pipe board). Stop groaning! I have Vans soft boots with Boa ties and Switch step-ins (43/30 degrees). I love to carve (stop laughing) and love the sensation. I can't understand boarders who flap down the mountain without any grace or even an attempt to flow, my problem is, is that whilst I am tempted by hard boots etc I don't want to give up doing back country and the odd jump (I don't do tricks just jump moguls etc). I can get my hands on the floor using the Zepp but not to the degree that you boys do! It feels dodgy at full pelt as well, though generally is a great all round board. Is the technique the same when you have such severe angles on your bindings? You look as though you are just sticking your hips from side to side, which is not what I want to do. Final question is this. As I don't live near a mountain and board 2-3 weeks a year I have considered getting a board that 'appears' to do everything - the F2 Speedcross is one example. Am I limiting myself here? Would you keep the Zepp and buy an alpine board with hard boots and just take both on holiday? Any advice would be welcome. :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carp Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 Others may totally disagree with me on this, but here it goes. Back in the day mid 80's I was able to carve reasonably well in soft boots with the old Burton 3 strap. I too liked being able to do back country riding, bumps, etc.(when out west). I can relate to your desire for an all around board/boot/binding set up that will enable you to do that. I think adjusting your bindings more forward will help on the days you want to do more carving and back on the days you want to jib it up a little, but this is really only the 1st step. I've never riddent but have heard that the vans soft boots are really really soft and tend to pack down after a short period of riding. Going with a beefier softboot I think will bring you to step 2 in what you're trying to accomplish. All though I think those two items will get you close to what you want investing in a custom board from Sean at Donek, Bruce at Coiler (long list), or Chris at Prior will design you the board that will do it all. Bindings are tough in that I haven't ridden any of the soft boot bindings in a number of years however if I was to break down I'd look at the Flow's first and then the Catek softboot binding 2nd. Beyond that I don't think any of the others will come close to the 3 strap Burtons I rode from years ago, but I don't read up much on the soft boot scene. I've scene guys rip carves on a soft boot set up but they are far few and between to give you the best of both worlds is really to purchase the right gear for the right conditions and terrain. I think the old boarder cross boards from several years ago were pretty close. Hope that helps and I'm sure others will jump in and give you equal or greater insight into their past experiences. Lot's of these guys are like me and progressed into hardboots not because they're old like me, but rather because they realized the fun factor as a progression from softboots. Both are fun...just different and require different gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 I am no expert on alpine board, but I did quite a bit of carving on allround board. First with strap bindings/soft boots, angles 35/25, and now with plates and ski boots (I like jumping from skis to board and back during the day), angles 45/39. Just bought an ancient alpine board - still have to try it. Your stance angles are already very high for soft boots - good effort! Just an idea: try to buy used plate bindings and hard boots or even ski boots and ride your board with that. If you liked it, you could always add an alpine board. BX board also sounds as good idea - you can ride it with soft or hard boots equally well. Boris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lonerider Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 Originally posted by Thomo Okay guys - I need your help. I've been boarding for about 7 - 8 years. I currently ride a K2 Zeppelyn 158 (yep a pipe board). Stop groaning! I have Vans soft boots with Boa ties and Switch step-ins (43/30 degrees). Is the technique the same when you have such severe angles on your bindings? You look as though you are just sticking your hips from side to side, which is not what I want to do. Final question is this. As I don't live near a mountain and board 2-3 weeks a year I have considered getting a board that 'appears' to do everything - the F2 Speedcross is one example. Am I limiting myself here? Would you keep the Zepp and buy an alpine board with hard boots and just take both on holiday? Any advice would be welcome. :( Hey there Thomo, I'm still more of a softbooter than a hardbooter. I've been riding for about 10 years now and added alpine to my repetoire two seasons ago. I would say though that I've been carving long before that (riding the stiffer Salomon boards and now a Donek Incline). The difference compared to freeride boards and softboots is that with an alpine board and hardbooters you can carve tighter turns, deeper trenches, and do it all going a lot faster than you probably could on a freeride board ceteris paribus (which I just learned means all other factors remaining the same... like relative rider ability and board quality). To answer your first question... no, when you ride with more severe angles (roughly 45* and higher) the technique changes are you take advantage of the lateral stiffiness of the hardboots and use less ankle flexion/extension (it gradually shifts as you increase your angles) and hence you "stick out your hips" as you mentioned. HOWEVER, you do not necessarily need to ride such high angles. If you get a wider board (for an alpine board... like 20-21cm that's still very narrow for a freeride board), you can use lower angles and it will be very close to the technique you should be using now. For some videos check out the push-pull videos at the bottom of this page (http://www.extremecarving.com/tech/tech.html) and you will see their basic turn style is more like what you are familiar with (I'm only referring to basic push-pull, not the laid out EC-turns). I know of a few hardbooters who rides all-mountain type alpine board plate bindings and soft hardboots (yes they exist) using low angles (in the 40s). So you would be riding similar angles to what you have now and you will be able to hit bumps and do the occasional jump as well. You just will have a quicker responding board with more effective edge and more powerful boots and bindings in terms of edge pressure. That is one option (and yes, something like the F2 Speedcross or the Prior 4WD (www.priorsnowboards.com) would be excellent for this). There are a bunch of European boards you probably could also get that I'm not familiar with here in the States. To repeat, for what you say you are doing (i.e. no real park/pipe riding, no excessive switch riding, no bottomless powder tree riding*) I don't think you will be limiting yourself at all with this setup. The other option is to stiffen up your current setup. You already have some very respectable softboot "carving angles" so the key would be to get better, more responsive equipment. If I recall, Vans boots in general are pretty soft (i.e. you can easily flex them more than a couple of degrees just standing there and bending your knees) - however I'm not familiar with the Switch version (since step-ins boots tend to be stiffer than their strap counterparts). In general, if you have "no" difficult walking in the boots, they are probably too soft. So upgrading your boots to a stiff would be the first thing to look at (getting a great board and bindings are useless if you boots are floppy). Now I'm not saying get the stiffest boots you can find (such as the Salomon Malamutes) but definitely get something pretty stiff. The second thing to look at are bindings. As mentioned before some good stiff bindings are Catek Freerides (www.catek.com), Nidecker 900/800s (www.sfosnow.com) , Flow C-XFR (umm.. google it) and made the higher end Salomon bindings (my personal recommendations). However, if you are able to find a good stiff Switch binding compatible boot... go for it as I don't think there is anything wrong with step-ins (in fact many hardbooters prefer them). Finally the board... pipe boards are sometimes pretty stiff and not terrible for a little bit a carving (if you havne't noticed, being about to carve the flats is a key skill in maintaining you speed in the pipe and getting bigger airs). For a stiff freeride board I would steer you towards the Salomon Definition or the Fastback and maybe the Donek Incline. Actually Jack M mentioned the F2 Eliminator BX boards as being really good too. Since you are in the UK, a closer shop might be more convenient - www.blue-tomato.at=m is a shop based in Germany that have a lot of good stuff. They have the F2 Eliminator as well as some Salomon boards. They have 32 boots (I have the forecast, which is a medium stiffness boot), Salomons (Dialogue, Synapes, Malamutes are good), and Deeluxe (maker of like 70% of the hardboots in the world - I drew that number out of thin air) where I'm told that the Sparks are a popular stiff boot. There... a lot of random stuff from a fellow carving softbooter. Let me know if you have any questions about what I said. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Sub Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 I saw these recently: http://sportstop.zoovy.com/product/NIDECKSUPERX169 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Thomo Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 Thanks guys! The extreme carving website is very good (as is this) so thanks for that and the Nidecker boards look pretty neat too. I'll check out the others tomorrow. Yes you are right, I do no pipe work, no spins just the odd jump and grab. I do spend a fair amount of time in trees and off piste when on hols but my favourite by far is carving. I may just throw caution to the wind and buy an alpine type board and hard boots, then decide which to take on holiday depending upon the conditions. An expensive luxury though for 2-3 weeks a year but then again, your time away from work is pretty important I guess. Yes the Vans boots are quite soft. I had K2 clicker boots and bindings before which were stiffer. The Vans Boa system keeps much of the boot under pressure but the cables can snap which can be a fiddle to fix, especially in powder - which happened to me last week on the Point de Vue run in Argentiere, Chamonix - if anyone knows it. Still only took 10 mins to fix, could have been worse. You've given me lots to think about guys and spent a lot of time replying so I appreciate that. Thanks Thomo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted March 21, 2005 Report Share Posted March 21, 2005 Like lonerider mentioned, I'm one of those guys that rides it all using hardboots and 45 degree angles. One option not mentioned is to go for a narrower waisted freeride board and plates. You could get one of the Rad-Air Tankers which have a 24.5 waist, put hard boots on it and ride the same angles you do now if you like. I use about 40 f/35 rear on mine. When I use my AM, the angles go up to 45/40. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Thomo Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 Cheers Neil, Rad-Air look pretty good. Is that you shredding in the picture by the way? Been reading a fair bit recently and opened up a whole can of worms! What with board flex affecting bindings and all that. Depends how cash funds go before next season. Like the look of the Swoard boards but lots of dosh. Thanks once again. Thomo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gdboytyler Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 I say keep your current soft setup and get a good alpine setup. I've dragged 4 boards, 2 sets of bindings and 2 pairs of boots to the airport for a 3-day snowboard trip. It was 1 freestyle board, 1 GS alpine board and 2 powder boards (O-Sin and Fish). One powder board (the Fish) was for my brother to try out. So in comparision, dragging 2 complete setups to the airport would be a piece of cake. One do it all board, no matter how good it is, doesn't compare to having two (or more) good specialized boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 Originally posted by Thomo Cheers Neil, Rad-Air look pretty good. Is that you shredding in the picture by the way? No, that's Victoria Jealouse. I need to get my own avatar but I don't really have a good picture of myself. ETA: fixed, at least I won't get confused with Ms. Jealouse anymore. But her picture was way better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Thomo Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 Sorry Neil! Hey, nothing wrong with being mistaken for Victoria Jealouse, not the way she rides! Jim, what type of board do you use and do you carve on piste? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk Posted March 22, 2005 Report Share Posted March 22, 2005 Just yesterday I was reminded how fun it is to throw my plates on a freeride deck (BX type - so a bit stiffer) and play around in a variety of conditions and terrain. I usually break this deck out for powder days and I'm with Jim here - I can't think of any conditions that I can't ride plates and hardboots on. Some good suggestions from others so far. And, YES, we are trying to lure you to the dark side :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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