Post ride comments from March 2010

October 30th, 2010

Billy and I linked up for a rare evening ride at Park City on a couple of sticks from Virus and Sigi Grabner.  We had a great night and compared notes in the video embedded below.  It’s really nice to Vlog ( video blogging ) vs Blog when one is fresh from riding and full of ideas that would be quite cumbersome to throw down on paper or even bang out on a keyboard.  We had a really good night at Park City after hours and I long to share some turns again soon with my good friend.  In the video, if you know me, you’ll notice the gears in my brain a turnin’ as Billy breaks things down.  This is not unusual.  There might be better riders out there but I’ve never learned more about going left and right on a snowboard from anyone.

Late push in Utah!!

April 7th, 2010

We’ve had a ton of snow fall this week in Utah.  Last Wed, the end of March, got a dump that yielded a great early April ride on the second of the month.  I was reluctant getting out so soon after a dump as I mostly sleep in on powder days anymore with family and the business keeping me so busy.  I pick and choose my ride days very carefully but probably get more perfect bluebird’s than the powder hound gets powder days during a season.  It was still snowing Thursday afternoon into the evening but I went for it anyways on Friday.  The traffic was minimal early as it seems to be even a day or two after a dump.  I gave Judy a jingle on the way up and she’d already arrived at Park City Mountain Resort.  I parked on the snow-covered tarmac without any apparent stalls and rushed to meet my friend at the Crescent lift.  A quick hello and handshake to Greg McCormick and Martin Drayton, the two premier Snowboard instructors on the hill,was all I had time for before getting on the lift for some Groom Quest.  Any lift ride with Judy is never boring as she’s a pretty smart cookie working as a PA with a local Urologist.  We got off of the lift and bombed it toward the Silverload lift for some wide open runs on the prospector face.  We were pretty much first chair and so crossing any lines was pretty out of the question.  This was my first powder day of the season and it sure didn’t disappoint.  We scoped out Prospector run on the way up Silverload and it really looked good.  I was on a 163 F2 Speedster SL World Cup and thought that I might have chosen the wrong tool for the day.  My doubts in my gear choice vanished quickly on our first run down the tough blue.  The flat approach was awesome as an alpine board sinks into the Pow and is like a Submarine just below the surface of water with just enough agitation of the fluffy dry snow over the top of the nose that I knew it was there, about 6-8 inches on top of some first shift groom.  Descending onto Prospector run, I first tried to sew up some short radius turns down the face.  The nose buried itself in no-time and the board recambered and arrowed and my boots disengaged the edges easily and without effort.  I immediately opened my radius up into the sub 20 meter range and things began to come together.  You might still think that I was on the wrong tool for the day but oh Nellie.  With a bigger radius and probably 35-40 mph of speed, the board floated very nicely in transition and sank optimally into the first generation groom on edge.  I sensed rooster tales and poofy clouds of snow behind me and indeed the feedback from Judy indicated just that; a cloud of snow and not much Dave to be seen.  If you could have seen me though, you might have noticed a shit eating grin from ear to ear and may have actually heard some signature powder hoots of extacy.  One run was definitely not enough and we even ditched some people with the unwritten rule of “no friends on Powder Days”  I’ve never had a better non-groomer day on hardboots in my life.

As we made our way towards the base and subsequently into later shift grooming on snow that had already been in the sun for a few hours, we were pleasantly surprised at how the new snow had set up for some hardcore carving.  Maybe it was just the versatility of the stick I was on but I was actually having my cake and eating it too.  After a ton of runs, Judy made her way out and I went for one more down Payday.  My legs literally turned to jelly halfway through and I had nothing left but adrenaline to keep linking turns.  What a day.  I talk all the time of moving to a different resort and exploring around Utah for some different terrain but man, after 12 seasons of absolute carving euphoria at Park City Mountain Resort, how do you mess with a good thing?

See you on the hill!!

Trenchin’ Convention update for Thursday 25 Feb.

February 25th, 2010

Well, it’s time to start looking at the weather for next weekend’s Wasatch Trenchin Convention. If you’re planning to attend, please go to the forum for meeting times and places at respective resorts and don’t be affraid to offer your 2 cents!! This is a community event and really, anything goes. I can’t wait to fill the 4 and 6 packs full of alpiners!! Dave out…

Forum Topic Link

Riser Template

February 3rd, 2010

Hey all,

Remember way back, when Hardbooter made that video about how to make riser plates to protect metal topsheet boards?

Some folks have requested that we put up some sort of template for them, so here it is: http://www.hardbooter.net/plate.pdf

Feel free to download, copy, sell, whatever else you would like to do with it.

The original post containing the “how-to” video is here: http://hardbooter.net/blog/?p=147

Enjoy….

F2 Speedster RS 183 World Cup Edition

February 1st, 2010

Glad to see you here.  I haven’t produced much content lately so I’ll update as best I can from the past few weeks.  Happy New Year most of all to you.  2009 was a strange one for sure both personally as well as on the HB front.

I’ve been riding the hell out of metal product this season and there is a lot to compare and contrast from different manufacturers as well as within a single line of boards.  I don’t have the board-feel of my Jedi Master Billy but I have learned a lot from him and others so I’ll give it a shot in my personal review to come of Kesslers, Sigi Grabner’s.  For now, I’ll offer my take on the new F2 Speedster GS shape with metal.  I’ve posted a few pics on our new HB photo repository at Smugmug.  Please bookmark this as we’ll be uploading any and all photos as often as possible.  It’s easier everyday to do so and I’ll get Billy, Skully and Will onboard to contribute.  Any photo you see posted around the HB world, you may view in Higher resolution at the Smugmug site. (mostly.  There may be a few stragglers.)

It’s great to get back onto an F2 and I believe that the new metal GS shape is a F2 Speedster RS Worldcup Edition 183contender.  I’m not really sure if the 183 is a course board but man o’ man is it a machine on the freecarve circuit.  I believe there’s 170 cm plus running length out of this thing with the new hammerhead nose profile and the manufacturer claims 20 or so meters of sidecut.  I’m not sure that the new stick falls this close to the Super G range of things but it’s all of 16 plus meters of pure rock fury.  If I closed my eyes and didn’t know this was an F2, I’d say that this board came from F2.  The familiar snap and feedback out of a turn is like an old friend from the late nineties to the early ott’s but with a nice clean Cadillac smoothness within the turn.  It’s unbelievable how the Speedster munches up the terrain.  I’m a pretty technical rider that likes to tighten up a board to spec on the sidecut for as much feel as possible but I found that the more loose I got on this thing and the more I let it run out a bit, the better it performed.  To me, this thing holds a turn all the way through only to release when firmly commanded unlike the likes of the Kessler which only takes the flutter of a nose hair to release the tail for some speed check and feathering.  Billy and I love the feel of the Madd 180 and the wider Virus sticks at around the bill eighty length and personally classed them as “super board” when they were current.  The F2 Speedster RS WC edition is my new Super Board but with new school shape and construction.  The width let’s you stand up for more power with lower angles and let’s you actually drive the board around the hill with your legs rather than bending at the waiste on steeper angles that is necessarey to power up the nose on a skinnier board.  I hadn’t detuned the board on purpose on it’s maiden voyage intentionally to compare turn release and engagement with some rounded edges at the tip and tail.  As always, my findings were consistent with previous experimentation.  Detune, detune, detune!!  As I said before, the metal provides a dampness within the turn that smooths out the middle of a turn and let’s a rider reset to neutral, prepping for the optimal positioning of the next turn, making heel and toeside links appear flawless from the softie and two plank gawkers observing from the lift overhead, even on the hard blue’s to the black.  I rode this board with F2 bindings and of course, my only go to for boots, the RC-10′s from UPZ.  I will give a brief review of the ride down the line with an S-flex plate to complete the package from F2 and ride the way the board is meant to be set up.

Until then….

The Canyons – And the F2 183…

January 31st, 2010

Good news! There’s finally enough snow in Utah to make it worth riding!!!

OK, so it hasn’t been absolutely terrible, but it was pretty sketchy up until the snow we’ve had in the last couple of weeks. I haven’t even been up for two weeks, so it’s nice to know that there aren’t any groomers that I need to avoid, everything has good coverage finally, and it snowed all day today…

In other news, I pried the new F2 Speester RS 183 World Cup Edition F2 Speester RS 183 World Cup Editionout of Dave’s hands for a few turns. Dave has posted some of his thoughts, and I believe is planning on posting more. My $.02 is: Holy Crap! Extremely damp, holds an edge like no other, and FAST. There aren’t many runs at The Canyons that allow a whimp like me to get a board like this going, but there are a couple. It kinda reminds me of the good old Madd 180, only better. If you like hip-draggin’, cheek flappin’ all out speed, this board is the one for you. A little more work than some of the other new-school metal boards that I’ve ridden, but definitely worth it.

Curt / Skully

January 31st, 2010

After a weekend of not riding, we were down in LA for family reasons, Flavia and I finally got back on snow. On a side note, thanks to Neil and Loc for sharing a few beers, tequila shots, and many stories while we were in LA. While we were gone Utah finally got dumped on. Park City was super good over the weekend and now primed for next months  (Thanks John for catching I said weekend and not month) WTC! I got to get out this weekend on a custom Kessler. Can’t remember who it was made for but I can tell you this was a nice ride. It really responded to being pushed hard. It was noticeably stiffer than the stock Kessler and rode accordingly. See you at WTC.

Wasatch Trenchin’ Convention

January 22nd, 2010

Anouncing the Wasatch Trenchin’ Convention!! Official dates will be 5, 6 and 7 March at Solitude, Snowbasin and Park City Mountain Resort respectively. The tenative format will be a flash demo. We will have only boards available for trial so bring your boots and bindings to mount. Board sharing times will be in the respective parking lots from 0800 to 0900 and then sometime before and during lunch. The second demo time will be set in the morning on the day of said ride dates. Kessler’s, Priors, F2′s and of course some vintage rides will be available. We’re making this a very fluid event so send Billy, Curt and I any suggestions on layout. We’ll keep the blog up to date as well as the forum and facebook pages.

Jan 17th

January 17th, 2010

Wow what a bluebird day up at Park City.  For the first time since 1992 I got out on a SL board.  Billy and I traded Sigi SL and Kessler SL boards with Dave ripping on the F2 SL. It was a fun filled slalom day for sure.  Definitely took me a while to get used to being on such a short board.  After years of riding nothing shorter than 180cm a 167 is a completely different beast.  The new boards ride a lot different than I remember.  I was never a big fan of slalom but these boards might make me change my mind as it felt more like a mini gs turns at ¾ the speed.  Give me a few more days like today and maybe, just maybe, I will start to like slalom a lot more.  Also Billy gave Flavia a few pointers and she is making some improvements.  It always amazes me that when I tell her something she ignores me but if Billy tells her the same thing she pays attention.  Must have something to do with she is used to ignoring me most of the time haha.  On our last run down we hit the NASTAR course…ask Billy who won.  Anyway after a great day on the hill we hit Squatter’s for a beer and some food.  If you are in the area and you like a dark beer make sure and try their new Outer Darkness brew, it’s a very tasty beer for sure.  Looks like 7 out of the next 10 days are calling for snow so should be real good up there so get up there and make some turns.

Kessler 185 Video

January 14th, 2010

Here is the video for the Kessler. Sorry for the shaky cam. The next one will be better. I hope you all enjoy it anyway.