Hardbooter Census

[KingCrimson]

How many hardbooters do you think there are in the world that ride 5+ days a season on hardboots?

If you say 42, God help me I will find you and give you an orthopedic modification with a baseball bat. More realistically, I'll cry myself to sleep, but whatever.

Also, among kids, do you think more race or freecarve (or in my case..try to carve....)

This thread was inspired by a crazy old deaf man with an orange FP that went "Huh? Oh hey! Wow! Too bad there's not more of us" then walked off.

[photodad2001]

I switched because I missed people asking me what that thing was in the lift line.

[KingCrimson]

I think you completely missed the question.

[photodad2001]

I think you completely missed the question.

If you're looking for numbers, in the state of Ohio I saw 3 last season, including myself.

[KingCrimson]

Beautiful.

Now a guess at the world? Fewer than 5,000? 1,000?

[ptran11]

How many hardbooters do you think there are in the world that ride 5+ days a season on hardboots?

If you say 42, God help me I will find you and give you an orthopedic modification with a baseball bat. More realistically, I'll cry myself to sleep, but whatever.

Also, among kids, do you think more race or freecarve (or in my case..try to carve....)

I used to live in southern calirfornia and go up to mt. high and big bear alot and didn't see alot of hardbooter there. It just hard to get up there with the LA traffic if you're a skier, softie or hardbooter.

I also used to live in northern california but the drive is 5+ hours in traffic and snow. I don't think I ever saw any hardbooter there but that was a couple years ago. In colorado I've met a couple hardbooters that are willing to meet up.

The problem could be your location and theres not much that can be done except to hollar for any one out in the bomber forums that are in southern california.

[jpenn]

If you're looking for numbers, in the state of Ohio I saw 3 last season, including myself.

I think there are at least that many in CT, though they don't come out much at Sundown (Tuesday and Thursday race nights bring out one or two hb'ers).
JP

[*Ace*]

:lol:
Probably because Sundown < Mohawk<MOHAWK...< p>

[KingCrimson]

Still think everyone is missing my question. Also, there's lots of hardbooters down here, and being able to scrape the wax in bare feet on the front lawn enjoying the sun and then driving 2 and a half hours and being at a resort is fantastic.


How many hardbooters do you think there are in the world that ride 5+ days a season on hardboots?

I'm more specifically curious what people's opinions are than as opposed to knowing the real number. Photodad obviously has a very low estimate of hardbooters in his state, but I was more curious about based on that observance, how many hardbooters he thinks there are in the world. Same would go for you Ptran.

[tex1230]

42

:AR15firin

[Hotbeans]

Is this like guessing the number of gumballs in the jar?
My guess is 1,486.
Prize for who is closest suggestion: td3's w/ intecs.!

[Gecko]

at least 2 in Rhode Island....probably more considering Jeff Carron lives on the other side of the state from me

[KingCrimson]

42

:AR15firin

Damnit. The Tony Soprano quotes didn't scare you away. Tony Sporano? Haha, the Dolphins really turned it around this season. Lions on the other hand..

Denver sure does suck when the reffing is fair.

[b0ardski]

I think 42 is about right for the inland northwest, spread over 5-6 ski areas.
world wide I'm sure Europe triples north america, Japan has it's own stepin system so there must be a few.

[KingCrimson]

Man, if you had a closet filled with that same style stepin and ski poles and some weird snowboards, you'd be a pig in ****..

[Gecko]

Japan has it's own stepin system so there must be a few.

I would say that Japan has a higher Hardboot to Softboot ratio than the USA, easy 10-15% of the boarders that I saw when I was there were on alpine setups

[trailertrash]

you might be able to get some idea by checking out the member list. you can sort by recent activity. obviously this is just ballpark.

[pokkis]

We have 246 registered hardbooter on our forum (we have kicked out more than double ammount away due inactivity during last years), total number filling calculation rules here should be double of that. And cause we have ~5milion people living in Finland, that means every 10,000th person is hardbooter :eek:

[b0ardski]

Man, if you had a closet filled with that same style stepin and ski poles and some weird snowboards, you'd be a pig in ****..

OINK-OINK

[Cindy Kleh]

How many jobbers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Three. One to screw it in and two to hold up his pants.

But seriously, if hardbooters are 2% of the snowboarding population, then just find out how many snowboarders there are in the world and do the math.

[KingCrimson]

Boardski- :lol: Forgot about that picture of yours!

TT- I'll do that, but the thing is in hardbooting 10 times, I've run into 3 hardbooters that didn't even know what BOL was. A 4th owns a pair of TD2s but never registered here. Then again, those guys more than likely don't go very often.

Gecko- That's what I was thinking. Also, there's several "innocent" hardbooters you see in Hard Attack.

Pokkis- I don't have a hard time believing that at all. At any given day on Mammoth, there are 40,000 people skiing or snowboarding, and very rarely are there more than a few (think 2) hardbooters unless something was planned. It's a good thing we have ride forums.

Cindy- how accurate do you think that number is? I don't know if just because Scott puts it on the Almanac, and Jack mentioned it in an article that's gotta be 5 years old now means it has any ground. What's your opinion?

[Cindy Kleh]

You have a point King C. Location does have a large impact on the number of HBs. At Winter Park (my home mtn) I see very few, MAYBE one a day, sometimes none. At Copper, it's more common. Europe and Japan lots of them and places like Echo Mtn and Mountain High, none.

[Fastskiguy]

Is this like guessing the number of gumballs in the jar?
My guess is 1,486.
Prize for who is closest suggestion: td3's w/ intecs.!

I'm gonna go up a little and guess 50,000. But isn't this like asking how many grains of sand in the world?

[KingCrimson]

Just curious what you guys think.

I was gonna say 10,000 worldwide with double digit day seasons. Completely baseless.

[Hotbeans]

sorry...been real busy counting powder turns:biggthump
What was the Question?

Beautiful pic. And thanks, from all of us who are praying the RAIN stops..

[Jack Michaud]

I just did a bunch of pruning - deleting spammers (over 4000! :eek: ) and members with 0 posts who also haven't logged-in in 90 days, and members with less than 10 posts who haven't logged-in in over 2 years.

As of right now we have 2320 registered users.

132 have 0 posts.

692 haven't logged-in in over a year.

There are some interesting users out there... like some who registered over a year ago, last activity was this month, 0 posts. Some big-time lurkers out there!

[Mellow Yellow]

there are at least 8-10 in NC

[rhaskins]

We had 14 hardbooters (1 out of stater that I know of) gather on Xmas eve at Buck Hill, the gem of 35W in Burnsville MN. There are some more north of here also. On any particular day at Buck I will see probably see at least one other hardbooter, on Sunday at least 5.

Rick

[JJFluff]

I was the out of stater at buck hill on Christmas eve, plus I would say we have around 7-10 total that I know of in our area.

[JJFluff]

sorry...been real busy counting powder turns:biggthump
What was the Question?


I miss powder.

[jpenn]

I just did a bunch of pruning - deleting spammers (over 4000! :eek: ) and members with 0 posts who also haven't logged-in in 90 days, and members with less than 10 posts who haven't logged-in in over 2 years.

As of right now we have 2320 registered users.

132 have 0 posts.

692 haven't logged-in in over a year.

There are some interesting users out there... like some who registered over a year ago, last activity was this month, 0 posts. Some big-time lurkers out there!

As a BOL-BTL, I've often wondered how many of us (BTL's) there are. I've been lurking around enough to recognize most of the user's, and it's great to read what's going on, but I usually don't have much to add. Like this thread, though. Any other BTL's out there who want to come forward? JP

[gdboytyler]

...
As of right now we have 2320 registered users.

132 have 0 posts.

692 haven't logged-in in over a year.

There are some interesting users out there... like some who registered over a year ago, last activity was this month, 0 posts. Some big-time lurkers out there!

One of the big time lurkers is Jake Burton. When membership hits 100,000 then Burton jumps back into the Alpine market. It's true, Jake sent me a memo.

[Dr D]

If my area is any indication then there are 2-3 HB's out there for every one on bomber. This is of course not counting the lurkers. we have at least a two to one ratio of HB's not online to those who are. I met 2 new guys yesterday that liver here and hardboot. we probably have 14 total that hardboot at least part time.

[Jack Michaud]

One of the big time lurkers is Jake Burton. When membership hits 100,000 then Burton jumps back into the Alpine market. It's true, Jake sent me a memo.

Ha, hope I didn't just prune him! Well, he can still lurk without a membership. If he even had one, that is.

Hmm... we're up to 2320 after 5 years with VBulletin.... So we'll see Burton alpine boards in 2223 AD.

[Dave*]

World wide hardbooter census 14687 ( obtained using the patented Dave* SWAG** method ) .

Percentage of HBers 0.0132 of a percentage point locally.

Local Vancouver Hbers , about 10 that I know, maybe about 5 more that come out once in a while.

Local Whistler HBers , about 5-6 that I know, maybe about 5 more that come out once in a while.

This means I know 0.11574% of the worlds hardbooter population


** scientific wild a## guess

[DiveBomber]

You have a point King C. Location does have a large impact on the number of HBs. At Winter Park (my home mtn) I see very few, MAYBE one a day, sometimes none. At Copper, it's more common. Europe and Japan lots of them and places like Echo Mtn and Mountain High, none.

I believe I was the first HB at Echo, um... it wasnt worth the drive up!

[canuckcarver]

i think ive only seen about a dozen here on ontario, and most do seem to have bombers, id day ten of the 12. couldnt we get and estimate by the amount of bombers sold and consider the amount to be a percentage of the total riders out there, maybe figure some percentages for catek, F2,.... keeping in mind that most people have multiple pairs
just my 2 cents.

[KingCrimson]

If my area is any indication then there are 2-3 HB's out there for every one on bomber. This is of course not counting the lurkers. we have at least a two to one ratio of HB's not online to those who are. I met 2 new guys yesterday that liver here and hardboot. we probably have 14 total that hardboot at least part time.

This is probably the most accurate. Saw a guy on a woodie snowboard in those minty colored Raichles (223?). Either a Munoz or a Maverick, couldn't tell.

[hairywater]

You can add one more to the Ontario list.Had my first ride on plates over X-mas at Devil's Elbow. Love it.:1luvu:

Hairywater

[KingCrimson]

Jack: Didn't we do this a few years ago and come up with about 3 thou world wide? Bordy, Dave, How many in Salt Lake?

I figured if this had been done before it was obsolete. Fin claims to sell more and more bindings every year..You get what I'm saying.

[NateW]

How many jobbers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Three. One to screw it in and two to hold up his pants.

But seriously, if hardbooters are 2% of the snowboarding population, then just find out how many snowboarders there are in the world and do the math.

2% seems very optimistic to me. I'd guess more like 0.02%. :(

[biggerwrangler]

21 days in this season 08/09 15 of those in hard boots

[Alaska Newby]

Add one to Alaska! We got a huge dump over Christmas and it's packed powder now. About as close as we get to "hero snow" here. Was trenching some deep grooves today... :p

Just LOVE my new TD3s!!! :1luvu:

Juneau Alaska:
http://www.skijuneau.com/

[b0ardski]

Came across 2 more HBers at schwietzer mon. Both on twintips:biggthump

Niether had heard of BOL. Potential new members.

[tahoetrencher]

I saw a decent alpine rider just once at the Heave but then realized I was enjoying the solitude so much I had caught up to myself on the next run.

[KingCrimson]

Alaska Newby- Is night skiing all the time fun? For some reason, night time conditions down here are like crack to me. It's like super super thin boilerplate if you stay off the main trails, and when you break it it's like little ice rocks underneath. For some reason it's so satisfying to ride.

[crucible]

In Metro Vancouver, I estimate that there are between 18-24 hardbooters, based on personally meeting 12 of them.

Most times when I go to my local ski hill, I'm the only plate rider on the hill-or at most, two of us. When our carving posse gets together, like at the Whistler Expression Sessions, we can usually bring out between 8-12 riders.

Chris Prior could probably estimate more accurately, based on the boards that he has sold.

Due to Metro Vancouver having 50% of the population of the Province, I think that BC might have between 40-50 hardbooters.

George

[photodad2001]

6,742

[tex1230]

I have 42 distinct personalities...how do I count...most of them are hardbooters.

[JoeK.inVt]

I would guess about 100 in Vt, at least 3 or 4 work at Okemo. my brother and 3 of my cousins ride HB as well.


One of the big time lurkers is Jake Burton. When membership hits 100,000 then Burton jumps back into the Alpine market. It's true, Jake sent me a memo.

If he did, do you think anyone would buy them? I know I wouldn't. He obviously has no loyalty to the sport that he played a large part in creating.

[b0ardski]

burtons loyalty to alpine is still an open wound in my psyche.
plate systems don't have to be stiff race gear. If they even offered a minimal production line of alpine gear (I know, no profit) then I would have a modicum respect for burton:barf:
The mere availabilty in shops would increase our numbers and eliminate a lot of ignorance.

[b0ardski]

I don't want to convert the masses, just some availability. If you like skidding in sguishy crap that takes extra effort to put on and use thats a right.
I would like to see more people embrace edge control.
If the use of alpine gear doubled over night we'd still be less than 1% of the 1 plank population.

[Przemek/Brooklyn]

funny enough today i was thinking about our lovley niche heading to extintion in 10 to 15 years. I am in Alps now ( it is called alpain right?)
and i saw only one very sad looking hardbooter. (my brother is comming up in few days so there wil be 3 of us) I used to see a lot of HB in Alps 10 even 5 years ago. Now it looks like USA, if you get to see 1 or 2 in one day if you lucky. Also is there anybody on this forum under 30 years old ? i doubt it. It become an old guys niche.
It is sad, but extinction is near. Dd you guys noticed there are no new boots on the market most of producers use 10 years old molds, they will stop one day. All boards are limited series, custom and way more expensive.

0.005 % feels like more realistic number.
We have probably 15 years to go and this is it. USASA will drop slalom and GS. Bruce, Fin and others will retired and there is nobody to replace them.

There is very little hope to HB as we know it but maybe carving as an idea will not day and some day will be rediscover in improved softboots set up

Happy new year!!!

[KingCrimson]

I'm 15, and there's a handful of racers that are pretty young as well. It sure will be a shame when Bruce retires, because he IS Coiler, but Bomber, Donek, and Prior all are real companies. Even when Fin retires, there will still be people working for him; making bindings in itself is not nearly as much of an art as custom boards. I'm sure we will have TDs for many years to come.

[lowrider]

HB capitol of canada oshawa ski club excuse the name their in a re-branding mode 15 hbooters on snowboard team. matt morisons home turf he was out over holidays giving pointers and signing autos. Great ambassador for the sport here. Really looked up to by all.:biggthump most kids on team riding on a piece or part from matts quiver.

[carver]

As Cliff Ahumada said, "This is grownup snowboarding"

[lowrider]

If it stays grown up snowboarding it is soon to be growing old snowboarding. Haven't seen it done from a wheelchair yet but if i live long enough i might give it a try, otherwise lets do our best to encourage that next generation.

[Dave ESPI]

When Im on the hill its like "Highlander..." There can be only one !:1luvu:

hopefully we never have to cross swords inthe middle of a trail !

hahhaha

OK, seriously, there is atleast... (checks memberlist of the forum)...

15 that I know of who are active in my neck of the woods and a few others who are not members who Ive seen in hardboots (....and told them about this forum).

Its growing again in popularity as accomplished "free-riders" are looking for a new "thing". to do.

[carver]

That's why, when asked about my board and how we ride them, I don't smart ass them. Oh, unless there real idiots? LOL Hey? Grown old? That's me at 65.

[philfell]

There are 756 ACTIVE guy FIS alpine competitors and 395 ACTIVE lady FIS alpine competitors. These are people who have competed in at least one alpine snowboard event and who are current with their FIS membership.

USASA dosen't have a good enough search to find their numbers and at that level there are plenty who compete in soft boots so the numbers won't mean much anyways.

Don't know if this helps.

[tufty]

I doubt BOL is indicative of much more than the US market. I met 7 new hardbooters today, plus saw another 5 I already know, on a powder day after a big party night... Only one of them had heard of BOL, but isn't signed up as he's French. There's *loads* more hardbooters in Europe than there are in the US.

I had my first afternoon's boarding for the year on Sunday. It was great. Damn my resort's "no staff on snowboards" rule. Maybe I should tell them it's a skiboard.

Happy new year.

[b0ardski]

"Maybe I should tell them it's a skiboard."

surely they would allow monoskis, just carry some poles around with you & confuse the hell out of 'em.

[tufty]

"Maybe I should tell them it's a skiboard."

surely they would allow monoskis, just carry some poles around with you & confuse the hell out of 'em.

Nah, worse than that. Boots *and* skis provided. aves me chewing up my gear, I guess, but means my new-old-stock B3s are gathering dust.

[b0ardski]

wow
corperate totalitarian salesmen taking over the world one mountain at a time:AR15firin
Do they have an "open season" on one plankers to hunt them down??

[OhioCarver]

Well, we've got 3 at Perfect North in Indiana/SW Ohio, including myself. So in answer to your question, I'm thinking 1200 tops in US, 4000 worldwide. I'd like a really horrible case of beer if I win.

Jeff

[Miltie]

One of my friends owns a large snowboard/surf shop around Nagoya, Japan. He tells me that hardbooters make up between 1-2% here. My guess is the hardbooter population in US is less than 1% since there are fewer in US than here in Japan.

Most hardbooters I see in Japan are also a little older - maybe 30+. Similar to what I've seen in the States.

Lots of decent riders here as many people fixated on technique. Many people ride in groups with some even wearing matching outfits. I am not into the "group thing" here so I just bomb runs and work on making clean turns with good form.

[Cindy Kleh]

Thanks, can I win something besides a case of terrible beer? :barf:

[willywhit]

How many hardbooters do you think there are in the world that ride 5+ days a season on hardboots?

If you say 42, God help me I will find you and give you an orthopedic modification with a baseball bat. More realistically, I'll cry myself to sleep, but whatever.
:smashfrea


This thread was inspired by a crazy old deaf man with an orange FP that went "Huh? Oh hey! Wow! Too bad there's not more of us" then walked off.:sleep:

was he wearing glasses ?
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point is, who cares ? just charge it
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at least I have chicken !

[b0ardski]

That commercial inspired me when I was a kid, don't remember the exact number, took me just over 300.

[tufty]

wow
corperate totalitarian salesmen taking over the world one mountain at a time:AR15firin
Do they have an "open season" on one plankers to hunt them down??

Yeah, there's a bounty of "a pair of baggy pants and some twintip skis" if you manage to t-bone a boarder. You only get a belt if you manage to take out a skwaller.

I asked why there's no staff allowed on snowboards. It's to do with insurance - all our skis are adjusted and regulated, *with the settings written down* - if you blow out a knee it only passes as a work accident if you haven't touched the settings. Which is a bit of a laugh, as the shop who do that adjusting managed to cnut up my bindings, setting them to 11 <insert spinal tap joke here> instead of the 7 they should be set to if I say I ride "agressively" (I don't). So, if I do wipe out, there's no release, and there go my knees, maybe a quick tib/fib, and I don't have the right to wind them down to sensible / safe settings. And the shop aren't open during the hours I'm available to get them reset...

Guess who's skiing *very* carefully?

As for ages, I see all ages, from a girl of 15 or so carving *very* nice lines on a silberpfeil, up to a guy of (at a guess) getting on for 60, doing much the same on an asym. My finger-in-the-air guess is that most are 30 or above, mainly because that's the age where you can buy your own gear without worrying about it too much, and even if there are a few shops that hire alpine gear, there aren't many and what there is is hidden in the store cupboard. The same tends to hold true for the freeride board owners who know how to handle their boards, too. Having loads of alpine gear for rent would just mean loads of people doing the "falling leaf" on alpine rigs.

[/ramble]

[philw]

Burton: see the thread about EST to see how much those guys care about any of this. I think they're following the fashion, which is what you'd expect from a company which has done so well out of it. I don't think we should or could expect anything from them. I've seen Jake ride - he waves his arms around and rotates.

Extinction? Maybe. I hope I don't have to learn to really carve in that soft stuff, but it may happen. The last two days of powder riding (day 20 & 21 for me so far this season) saw two soft-binding failures of the kind we're all familiar with; those strappy things are junk, but you can sell 'em new ones every season.

I remember the last time I had to think about that was with ski boots, when my precious 4-clip boots were rapidly becoming the only ones on the hill. Just about everybody else had these highly fashionable rear-entry boots. They were in adverts everywhere, and beginners could get nothing else. I sneered at them, and rode rings around most people using them. That time something flipped and rear-entry died very quickly. All of a sudden the rea-entry advertising looked lame.