First day on plates...

[thomas_m]

...wasn't as bad as expected. This was my first day in hardboots and somewhere between my 17-20th day on any snowboard - started in early Feb and have still never touched a (snow) ski.

The angles felt awkward as hell at first and an early attempt to carve in soft snow sent me railing off-piste into a powder bank. Other than a little harmless, if embarrassing floundering in powder, and the normal trouble with bumps all went pretty well.

I'm sure I looked like a total nightmare, arms waving and skidding all over the place but both greens and blues (except the mogul pitches) felt fine on the Prior 4WD 169. At first, I was easing into turns and it felt very sluggish compared to my Donek Wide. Later, I collected my cojones and got more aggressive with my edge changes and the board came alive. I probably went at least 30% faster than I have ever ridden to date. Given this was a medium sized all mountain board, it's hard to imagine you guys riding the skinny 190cm boards. I'd kill myself fo sho.

I was actually feeling pretty good about my riding until I caught sight of Pepe Le Pew(Eric) casually laying down a single edge line while headig back to base on his Madd. Watching someone who knew what they were doing was a rude awakening. BTW- Eric, I'm the kook who was hooting at you from the lift.

Also ran into Tye on a long Donek who kindly told me not to try to carve too hard in the soft conditions. Of course, this was after the aforementioned off-piste excursion...

One other thing, I'm a goofy foot and my right ass muscle was burning like a mofo at the end of long runs. It this a symptom of the oft-mentioned, ass-out toilet seat position on heelsides?

T.

[Baka Dasai]

It's interesting that you say you went 30% faster on your first day in hard boots than you ever had before. On my first day in hard boots I never got close to the speeds I had been previously riding. I didn't try to do anything but carve, and I accepted the fact that I would be on green runs and going fairly slowly.

Instead of trying to convert fast, but skidded soft-boot turns into hard-boot carving, I built up hard-booting from linked "Norms" on green slopes. It took a few days on hard boots before I could ride at my previous soft-boot speeds, but this time it was with carved turns!

I don't know which approach is better. I suspect my approach is kinda rare, and I still suffer from it in that I'm still not very comfortable skidding turns in hard boots, and so I can't ride moguls at all.

Re the ass-muscle problem – I have had the exact same thing at times, but I don't seem to suffer from it now. I think it stemmed from twisting too much at the hip on heel sides.

[thomas_m]

Hi Baka. I know what your nic means, BTW. I lived in Nagasaki for a large part of the 90's and my wife is a native of that city. Funny one, sounds like something from one of the Yoshimoto comedy shows. "Gomen Kusai!" and all that.

I think the speed was due to the longer, skinny board and greater edge control. Surfing is my first love, so in my few days of snowboarding, I try to mimic surf moves particularly a big cranking bottom turn into a roundhouse cutback(cut hard and sharp back to the pile then hard again back to the shoulder bouncing off the pile). However, when doing this snowboarding, you don't have the power of the wave to work with and trying this on a green slope with my pitiful skills leads to very sloooowwww, riding. So I went faster to have enough speed to make the turns. It felt much better than my softboots, so I pushed it a little more. Finally, I locked into a carve I couldn't get out of and flew off into a powder bank...

I was back in softboots today since I had my young kids with me. Wow, what a difference in edge control. I was sooo sloppy, I fell right on my ass going 2mph on a flat run with my 6yr old son passing me before I realized just lifting my toes wasn't going to cut it with this rig.

Good post on the 'Take it easy' thread. My thoughts exactly. It gets really hard to look past the posturing to the content. I work(medical software) with guys everyday who are so flucking smart that I wonder if they are the same species. Most of them seem not to notice the difference between themselves and the maintenance guy stocking the drinks in the galley and if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't use it as a preface to explain their point.

Disclaimer - given the usual condition of WA waves and my lack of skill, a clean roundhouse is a rare thing from me...

Thomas