willywhit Posted April 5, 2006 Report Share Posted April 5, 2006 Kimo, true, without lessons, softboots might be easier. But nobody should learn to snowboard on their own, right? Steeps - if we're really talking about steeps, standing up between each carve takes too much time and you will quickly exceed your speed limit. I think the best advice for steeps is to learn cross-through technique (see tech articles).Pumping carves is fun, but only when you have total confidence in the snow. Willy (or is it Jasey?)..... Purecarve Maverick? I cannot think of a worse board for the east. That, and it's discontinued. Are you trying to mess with our newcomer or something? JAck, the PureCarve is wide , soft and long enuf to carry speed for at least skidding a "carve".Christian raves about them, Dano loves his new one.I think it's a great board for learning on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allee Posted April 5, 2006 Report Share Posted April 5, 2006 Actually, the thought of going straight from skis to a carving board scares the hell out of me. I wouldn't want to do it that way. . I don't see a problem. I'd never skied or boarded before and I went onto a race board after three lessons, and never looked back. And I used ski boots for three seasons ... the change to snowboard hard boots was, uh, interesting. But if you don't want to spring for the $$$ until you're sure about the whole thing, your comfortable ski boots, with some forward lean and a bit of lift, will work fine. I'm thinking that I wouldn't go a full on race deck if I had my time over again. I bought an A159 Rossi for a rock board and I wish I'd learned on that ... much more pleasant and forgiving, and also cheap ... for the first bit, better to wreck one of those than an expensive high end board. And lessons ... save yourself endless frustration and hook up with some alpine riders right off the bat. Alpine is so completely different to soft booting that you're pretty much wasting your time trying to learn on a soft boot setup. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this forum that can teach you to link your turns right... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gleb Posted April 5, 2006 Report Share Posted April 5, 2006 And lessons ... save yourself endless frustration and hook up with some alpine riders right off the bat. Alpine is so completely different to soft booting that you're pretty much wasting your time trying to learn on a soft boot setup. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this forum that can teach you to link your turns right... 100% agreed. Everyone is always saying, "are you out of your mind!? going from skiing to alpine boarding?!" and most people, including myself never realized how different soft and harding booting are. I met up with Bob dea and Steve Fleck on one of my first real days out on the slopes. Steve spent an hour with me and turned down my offer of beer or pretty much anything else. The carving community is small and people are usually glad to help a beginner out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kimo Posted April 5, 2006 Report Share Posted April 5, 2006 Kimo, true, without lessons, softboots might be easier. But nobody should learn to snowboard on their own, right? Steeps - if we're really talking about steeps, standing up between each carve takes too much time and you will quickly exceed your speed limit. I think the best advice for steeps is to learn cross-through technique (see tech articles).Pumping carves is fun, but only when you have total confidence in the snow. Actually, toe side on the steeps just came to me. I've been demo-ing a couple Doneks from Sean. It was on the Freecarve II 179 that I first was successful at this. Eventually, I was practically flinging my body downhill as I set my toe edge and it held everytime. Now, I may not have the best technique and I promise to work on it, but I think this is what you mean by confidence in the snow (and board). I just was too fatigued to attempt settting the heel edge that aggressively. Maybe next week... oh, damn... I have to give the boards back to Sean tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tufty Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 And lessons ... save yourself endless frustration and hook up with some alpine riders right off the bat. Alpine is so completely different to soft booting that you're pretty much wasting your time trying to learn on a soft boot setup. I'm sure there are plenty of people on this forum that can teach you to link your turns right... Bingo. Guy I work with looked at my board, said "that looks way more fun than those wobbly freestyle decks" and started thinking about alpine boarding. By coincidence, two weeks later he found an old nidecker board with bindings that had been left at the municipal dump (sure the base is a bit ground up, but hey, who's complaining at the price), took a couple of lessons with one of the local ski instructors to learn to stop, then we cranked his angles back up "how they should be" and I showed him the norm. He is now starting to rip it up. I'm trying to hook him up with some proper boots, his AT boots means he gets boot-out even at 65+ degrees, I was afraid he was going to have to learn to skwal :) It seems that all our instructors teach on softboots / freeride even though a few of them do actually ride alpine for themselves, so he found himself riding an 18cm waist board with hardboots set to 10 and 0 degrees... It might seem tempting to start on a freeride rig, but if you're only going to do it to learn how to stop, ride duck and skid turns, you might as well crank the angles down on an alpine setup and do it in hardboots. Simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dano Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 Welcome. It's great fun to learn, obsess and argue about carving, but in the end it's all what feels good for you. Experimenting is 1/2 the fun.People here have very strong opinions... it's like some sort of twisted religion, only without all the killing. Overall very cool and lots of mad scientists. My advice would be read and reread Jack-o's Norm articles and start obsessing... re: Purecarve Maverick? I cannot think of a worse board for the east. That, and it's discontinued. Are you trying to mess with our newcomer or something? Geeze, somebody need a Midol? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted April 6, 2006 Report Share Posted April 6, 2006 re: Purecarve Maverick? I cannot think of a worse board for the east. That, and it's discontinued. Are you trying to mess with our newcomer or something? Geeze, somebody need a Midol? Nope, it's just that it wasn't very good advice. There are better choices both in terms of performance and availability. still want a t-shirt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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