BlueB Posted December 31, 2005 Report Share Posted December 31, 2005 I picked a wicked little SL board, with bindings, at local sports consignment store. I was almost as surprised to find it there, as them to have it there :D Now, everything about this board is extreme: narrow waist - 18cm, super-minimalistic nose, almost non-existent tail, running length almost as on my a 168 long all-mountain carver... Slight taper to the tail. Pity it's old and lost a lot of camber. Steel used for the edges seams to be of higher quality than on US/Canada made boards, too. Now, bindings are quite interesting, the faded text seems to be reading Crazy Creek? Quite stiff for old binding, I would say stiffer than my Emery Quattros. Has a bit of inward canting built in (which I dislike) and quite a bit of rear heel lift - front toe lift built in (which I like a lot!). No disks, but direct mounting with adjustment slots for rotation, with dampening material under. Standard 4x4 pattern. The test ride: Yesterday, on reopening day of Cypress (after big melt down on Christmas), the snow was wet pulp, but quite compact - slow but supporting for carving. Our Easy Rider slope is wide and a bit steeper than a green run should be, but with uniform grade - just perfect for test-carving (and I shredded it into pieces by the end of my session, he, he :) ). And it was such fun!!! I never rode a slalom board before and I was expecting something similar to my LTD (25 waist) twin-tip ridden with plates. No way Jose! 5 times better! Due to narrow waist and long soles of my ski boots, I had to set it to high angles, F63 / R61, which was fun, but I think I would still prefer my standard 57/54 angles. Still, not so unstable as I expected from narrow waisted board. But definitely super fast edge-to-edge. Hooks easily into carves and holds nicely. I battled on toe side initiation at first, until I realised that I just had to push the board harder. Works better with torso counter rotation (fall line style), as the turns become ridiculously tight when pushed. It likes weight transfer towards tail in the last part of turn to get rebound into next turn. Generally, It seems that I had to ride it with quite a bit of weight on rear foot, but that might be due to slushy snow and small nose... I couldn't lay it out too deep (lack of speed), but looking forward to faster snow conditions. I definitely missed out for not trying SL boards before... Happy New Year, Boris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted January 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 4, 2006 I'm starting to really like the narrow waist and these high binding angles... Still have to try them on steep terain - it might be less fun? If there wasn't for built in cant on these bindings, I would try the Skwal-like angles too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kipstar Posted January 5, 2006 Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 Try a bit of rotation and cross through turns; this is where you can really really crank the board up. Slalom boards used to be my favourite back in NZ where the runs are often only 10m wide in places and not that steep, so you have to be on your game to avoid going off the edge. My coach had the exact board you are riding now; Nideckers are very nicely made and designed IMHO. Not familiar with those particular bidings, but you may be able to disassemble them as many of the nidecker bindings had wedges screwed in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted January 5, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 5, 2006 Thanks for input! Since the first post, I rode the board more and managed to do some deep carves. Couple of our board instructors were watching, and later wanted to see / touch the board and ask the questions... So cool :D As for the bindings, they are what they are - no changes possible on the cant... At least the lift is good. Boris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted January 7, 2006 Author Report Share Posted January 7, 2006 Much less fun than steeper greens / mellow blues on which I can really rip on this board :( Due to short radius and short length it felt really unstable and difficult to ride sweet spot. I often panicked and went into skidding mode... Also, the very small camber made it very demanding on legs (lack of shock absorption). Scary fast too, compared to my other board. Looking forward to master it at speed/steep. I'll give it more tries, of course, but it seems that the small board will be for flatter terrain and packed runs, and my old 168 for all mountain... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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