Maciek Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Fin, When Bomberonline Store says something like that at the section of ordering tongues to hard boots: "Color and stiffness will vary." what do you mean by that? I thought we could select stiffness grade like it was some time ago. Raichle used to make about 3-6 grades of stiffness (I have probably all of them for SB series), but they were not just random. I know that I am picky weirdo who used to ride two boots with different tongues (now I have my AF700 customized differently so one has spring another does not) for better feel of the board and correction in riding technique. However, I bet that most people will need particular replacement tongues. I agree that the tongues might be just in different color (I hope people are tolerant about that), but as far as stiffness "will vary" and not giving an option to select it does not sound quite right. Do you need me to help and sort tongues by stiffness for you ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fin Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Maciek, Yea, the whole tongue thing is a bit weird. Raichle did NOT do a very good job of creating a standard on the stiffness of the tonges. What they could have done is during the molding of the tongue just put a mark or sysmbol in the "mold" that showed what stiffness the tongues are. Going off of color does not work either. We have seen red ones that are NOT of race stiffness. At one point we sat down with about 5 boxes we have of these and tried to se if we could see a pattern. Did not work, what came down to is this: 1 pile was really soft tongues 1 pile was the race tonges (all red) and then 1 huge pile was a range of stiffnesses that where not constant. And now we are seeing the same issue with the AF series tongues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Dahl Posted January 1, 2004 Report Share Posted January 1, 2004 Do you have any sb series stiff tongues, and any of the old toe/ heel pieces (red) also??! (sb224 size 27) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fin Posted January 2, 2004 Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 Only have the small size race tongues (M22-24) and no more of the race sole pads. Tried to get these from Raichle many years ago and they stated they are not going to make any more of these items for the SB series. We do have stiff/race tongues for the AF series boots however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciek Posted January 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2004 Originally posted by fin Going off of color does not work either. We have seen red ones that are NOT of race stiffness. At one point we sat down with about 5 boxes we have of these and tried to se if we could see a pattern. Did not work, what came down to is this: 1 pile was really soft tongues 1 pile was the race tonges (all red) and then 1 huge pile was a range of stiffnesses that where not constant. Fin, I see this problem. I have 5-7 sets of SB tongues in different colors. Two of them seem to be super stiff and they are different colors. They came with different boots, one set was ordered... but it is rather long and not interesting story. Anyway red tongues coming with SB225/325 were not the stiffest - that I am sure of. I had ordered some super stiff togues from Raichle years ago (when they were located at Brewster, NY). The were grey and I thougt they would come as black (black was supposedly the stiffest that time). I did not care about color - stiffness was the important factor. Now, is it possible to order from Bomberonlinestore tongues at some particular stiffness grade? At least it would be nice to have some three average grades and the statement that colors may vary could still be there. I know it cost you extra work to cover lame job done by Raichle, but... (Perhaps that's one of reasons they tried to switched to springs in late SB325LTD and then AF series). Otherwise it is just like a lottery... or even worse: "Okay I ordered a car. I do not know what color it will be. That's okay. I can live with that. Wait a moment.... I am not sure if the car that comes is going to be Hyundai or BMW!" ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bordy Posted January 3, 2004 Report Share Posted January 3, 2004 Maciek, you can stack two if you need too (SB). You will have to get longer ladder straps from a bigger size to make it happen. You can also rivet(SB or AF)! Good LUCK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Dahl Posted January 4, 2004 Report Share Posted January 4, 2004 are you going to have any AF series boots for demo? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciek Posted January 5, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2004 Originally posted by Bordy Maciek, you can stack two if you need too (SB). You will have to get longer ladder straps from a bigger size to make it happen. You can also rivet(SB or AF)! Good LUCK Thanks for info. I don't need that anymore. I have super stiff tongues for SB's. As I mentioned I have about 6-7 pairs of different sets of tongues for SB's. (On my Avatar I ride in SB225 with two different tongues, but it is invisible in this resolution - try this: <A href="http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze44bga/">See for yourself</A>) Also experimented with them a bit, since I have very fine tuned boots to what I need... or needed to run on gates in the past seasons. The question though is to Fin. You will not be able to guess how many to order them if they are random. Stacking them would require extra tongues. Also stacking is not the best solution as they stack really bad... unless you don't care about details of lower leg movement. Riveting changes a lot in flex and it is not so good. It is just like making a temporary shoe out of piece of rubber tube. It will work for some time and it does not feel right. The best way would be to sort in some groups and regardless of color. But that's just my opinion. FYI, I ride AF700 with front boot spring compressed 100% (super hard and sensitive feel for steering the board) and lever in AF700 as I need to be locked lower on longer boards and to have walk-position comfort on short boards (very loose). Springs without walk mechanism or quick adjustment (e.g. memory for different boards) is not the most sophisticated idea by Raichle. However they have problems with noticing that few of us ride different boards during single day and we do not plan on changing boots together with boards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fin Posted January 6, 2004 Report Share Posted January 6, 2004 Maciek, Yea, like I said before, we tried to "catagorize" the tongues and it just did not work. If someone wants a tongue say "harder" then what they currently have we try to pick one that may be harder, send it to them, and let them see. If not we will exchange no problem. However, the ultimate is for us to get your tongues, compare to what we have, and then go from there. Also, we more sell tongues as replacments and not as an upgrade really. Some people lose them or modify them and then they just need a replacment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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