i heard a crack, and it was over...

[caspercarver]

please, someone tell me this was a fluke. i have three metal boards. i have never broken a board in 18 years of riding. i have never even broke a binding. this was done on a heel side turn on soft snow. i did have spacers as seen in the photo. in the second photo you can see in the front in two places of the board started to fold(in front of the spacer and about 8 inches in front of that). i weight in at about 148lbs. thankfully i was able to ride it to the bottom and pick up my trusty Swoard which i rode the rest of the day. :( the first photo is the tail, the second is the front.

[Dan]

Ouch. My condolences on your loss.

[mr_roboteye]

When I read the title of your post, I thought the cracking sound you mentioned was the sound of tib / fib breaking. I was relieved to see it was "just" your board. I feel for you, it's a crappy end to a nice board.

later,

Dave R.

[trailertrash]

When I read the title of your post, I thought the cracking sound you mentioned was the sound of tib / fib breaking. I was relieved to see it was "just" your board. I feel for you, it's a crappy end to a nice board.

later,

Dave R.

me too, thought the same thing. glad you are ok.

[b0ardski]

such a nice polish job too:(

[AK in PA]

Bling-broke? :(

[Masahiko]

Hi ,

Actually I had same experiences with your WCR METAL. It seems to be
so much disappointing that your METAL looks shiny like a mirror !

What year model is your METAL ? I encountered this problem with 2006 METAL. I think they'd used poor epoxy these days .
I had 2 problems , one is just like your case , and other is peering topsheet
from the nose top.
In a 1st case , PRIORS sent me a replacement board in the season . But unfortunatelly the topsheet had been peered next time . Then I tried to repair
peered topsheet using another epoxy I had , and now It haven't occured any more.

I also think their metal is very flexible than other metals . It should be one of main cause . But at the same time , It makes their metal very nice .

Yet throughout the problems , I bought their METAL again this season . It isn't broken so far .And nice riding taste is still alive .

Is is safe to say that their metal board might be in experimental phase , but I am willing to try their board and give them my feedback . That's because their METAL is completely different from other METALS.

[dredman]

That sucks on the broken board! I was riding the Ghee today and the snow was pretty firm. I too am surprised that you broke the nose, TD's on rubber, riser protector plates, all the right precautions and you are a light rider.... hmmm not sure what to think...maybe it was Casper's evil brother hexing your board...

Glad it was your board and not your leg!

[caspercarver]

That sucks on the broken board! I was riding the Ghee today and the snow was pretty firm. I too am surprised that you broke the nose, TD's on rubber, riser protector plates, all the right precautions and you are a light rider.... hmmm not sure what to think...maybe it was Casper's evil brother hexing your board...

Glad it was your board and not your leg!

that huge fold is on the tail! the front had two small fold marks. i hope bad things don't come in threes or i am $%#%#. i believe this is a 2006/7 board. my 187 is a 2007/8 and the 163 is new. cheers.

[KingCrimson]

Yikes. I fell over the front of my Coiler the other day. Don't ask me how, I just remember looking down at the nose while picking up speed and then eating ****..

Didn't even seem to flex the nose at all. God I love that board.

I wonder if a topsheet would have prevented the titanal from doing that. When they say a topsheeted metal board, there is more than just the plastic topsheet, there's carbon fiber under there as well.

[BobD]

My guess for prevention would be a spacer that looks more like a conshox. Distributing the the stress progressivley over a greater area.

BobD

[mr_roboteye]

My guess for prevention would be a spacer that looks more like a conshox. Distributing the the stress progressivley over a greater area.

BobD

..........or a stiffer board. In the end all a plex plate / conshox etc. does is move the breakage further from your binding.

later,

Dave R.

[Kimo]

What do I know, but...

Lots of people have broken boards of all kinds. I suspect the soft snow and your aggressive (and totally awesome) heelsides finally pushed a board beyond its limits. Sucks though.

[BadBrad]

At 148 lbs you are obviously just way too heavy.

That is a bummer, though. And strange.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

When I read the title of your post, I thought the cracking sound you mentioned was the sound of tib / fib breaking. I was relieved to see it was "just" your board. I feel for you, it's a crappy end to a nice board.

later,

Dave R.

Second that!! I'd rather hear every board in the quiver snap than my Tib/ Fib again!!! Not to mention the two surgeries, 60K, 3 days in the hospital, ruined SES road trip and a year set back or more physically.

Bummer about your board, mount it on the wall as "Groomer Kill" :)

[caspercarver]

all these years of riding and so far never gotten hurt. i do have chronic back pain caused by leaning hard into the nose on heel turns though. i was thinking maybe i could send my other metal boards back and have a top sheet put on? don't know if that is possible? this year i can finally lay out on toesides when it's a bit soft. ya!

[Hotbeans]

Hmm. I'm sticking with my Non-crack glass board. I've driven the nose a foot deep in groomed and flipped over the tip a few times without any resulting folds, cracks or wrinkles in my pretty topsheet!

[SEJ]

Sorry for your loss, but like others, I'm glad it was the board.
I can't imagine shelling out that kind of dough and then having the thing break. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me a little leery of moving to metal.

[Mike T]

As said on another thread, I think there's a reason why Prior won't warranty metal boards without a topsheet anymore.

FWIW I've had some gnarly spills on several metal Coilers with topsheets, and no problems thus far.

[Donek]

The photos illustrate a pretty classic shear failure. If you've ever flexed a phone book, you noticed that all the pages slide past each other as it bends. When you bend a snowboard, no slippage occurs. The wood core and any other laminates between the outer layers resist that slippage or shearing force. Metal laminates are dramatically stiffer than glass laminates, resulting in a need for greater shear strength in the core and the layers below the metal. When a shear failure occurs, the metal layers will appear to delaminate and fold or buckle as they have done in the photo. Such failures will occur at the point of highest bending moment/shear load. This is at the edge of those spacers under your bindings.

I have not paid much attention to Priors construction, but my guess is that the topsheet over the metal incorporates some other key changes. Applying a topsheet to the old construction won't fix the shear issues. On top of that, the metal is extremely difficult to bond. It comes from the supplier etched for bonding, but prolonged exposure, or polishing render that surface treatment inneffective. The only real way to bond to something like that would be to etch it with boric acid before laminating to the surface. I'm completely unwilling to expose myself or my employees to the hazardous vapors that are produced in that process. Hopefully Chris Prior would have the same view.

I'd agree. Be thankful it wasn't you that broke. Go out and stimulate the economy by buying a new board.

[two_ravens]

Sincere condolences on the loss of that board - it was a great privilege to trip over the trenches you made with it at Snow King last week. And the way you ride, you probably put about as much stress on a board as a 148 lb human possibly can....