Riser Plates

[jhcolman]

Hi All:

My son and I just came back from the World Cup Alpine PGS races at Whiteface. We noticed that some of the racers were riding what I would call riser plates. Essentially, strips of say 1 inch high metal, that raise the binding higher off the board, presumably proving more leverage to place the board on edge and more rigidily/less flex directly under the feet. The ski racing world calls these "riser plates". What are the pros and cons of these, for adult racers and also for teenage racers (14 years old, 5 foot 6, 125 lbs, an aggressive rider for his age)? What are the design alternatives and where can we procure them? My son currently rides a custom Coiler.

Should be an interesting discussion, if you are interested.

Best

Julian

[neil sunday]

Julian-

They are "lifters" or risers, that allow increased edge angle. I ma in the process of making sets similar to the kessler set ups you saw. basically they are dampening layers of urethane, followed by titanal or aluminum alloy.

I saw you at Lake Placid, but didnt realize it was you... I was one of the forerunners!

[philfell]

They act similar to a ski derby plate. The idea is that the plate attaches to the board then the bindings attach to the plate, so you have an extra suspenstion layer between you and the board. Most of the ones the world cuppers are on is a totally integrated system that Kessler is going to produce for the public next season possibly.

[BobD]

I've heard ski racers talking about risers for leverage (as opposed to preventing boot out), which didn't make sense to me as "we" don't seem to have much problem with much wider alpine boards. It seems to me that risers would require more movement, actually slowing down transitions and move the center of mass away from the edge further. Am I missing something ?.

BobD