Justo8484

i believe one of them is keith's daughter. and yeah, those girls can air higher out of the pipe than probably 99% of the people at blue. i wish there were terrain parks when i was that young.

i'm not so sure, its not the first time he has mentioned it...

special passes for a black diamond make no sense. as stated before, etiquette in the park is entirely different than the normal set of rules laid forth by the skiers' responsibility code. when skiing in the park, a whole different set of rules applies, hence why they have a board posted at the top of the park with the park specific rule set. you dont have any special rules that apply to black diamonds. in the park, people need to know to call their drop, not ski under landings, dont ski off the sides of jumps, dont ride across boxes and somehow fall off the side, etc. its a completely different environment, and if people dont realize that, they dont belong there. this is not a tough concept to grasp.

28th is usasa slopestyle... so no, you lie! i have no idea when it is though.

i'm going to have to agreed with atomic on this one. going from even a rental shaped ski back to a straight ski is backwards progression. sure, it might be economically attractive right now, but in the long run, for the sake of your daughter having a better time on snow, a shaped ski will be much more fun and enjoyable for her. as far as the bindings go, whats the model? industry law says that once a binding is no longer indemnified, a shop cannot legally mount, remount, or adjust and DIN, forward pressure, etc settings on it. this is because after time, the springs, cams, levers, rubber bushing and whatnot inside the binding start to wear out. its a safe bet that if these bindings are more than 10 years old, they are definately not indemnified any longer. i know we've taken a few in this year from the early 90's, but not too many. a shop not working a 3 year old binding seems a little rediculous. i am not sure if there is a list of indemnified bindings online anywhere or not, but try googling it, and look to see if your bindings are on there. if they are, there is no reason the shop should not work on them, especially if they are in as good of shape as you say they are. what shops were you consulting?

next year's outerwear from a lot of snowboard companies is rather bright. however, i'm really excited for ride's corduroy pants.

speaking of the showdown event, anyone know when they rescheduled the pipe comp? i'm actually getting a decent run down now, so i might be able to hold my own in the pipe for once... or not. but its tons of fun anyway! we all know rubino's gonna take it with his monster alley oop 5's anyway.

like trevor said, he's twelve. he's got talent for sure, and he loves what he is doing right now. i was hanging out with him a bit at the bear comp the other night and he's a good kid. you dont want to burn him out. it kind of happened to me when i was his age. my parents had always taken my brother and i skiing every weekend, and after doing nothing but skiing the runs they wanted to, i got bored with it and didnt go as often. a few years later, my parents let me decide what kind of skis i wanted to get, and that changed everything. i went skiing every chance i could, and thats how it is to this day. i'm not saying my parents are bad parents or anything, because they arent; they just wanted to share something they love (skiing) with me, but gave me a little too large of a serving. its not exactly the same situation as you have with steven, but the concept is the same. if you are making him do something he doesnt want to, he'll get burnt out. it happens all the time with school sports; when kids get to middle school and practice happens every day, kids get sick of it. they don't want to practice, they just want to play. it seems like thats whats going on with steven; he doesnt want to practice, just play. i know a lot of freeskiers come from a racing background, but if you look at the best of the best, they all come from freestyle backgrounds. tanner hall might be a wanna be gangster, but the kid can rip a bump line like few others can. same thing with jp, jf, vinnie, mike d, and all the other guys who started throwing down in the park and have now progressed to the backcountry. to me, it seems a lot harder to ski a bump line clean than make a few turns between some bamboo poles. if you want steven in a regimined training program on snow, i'd say bumps would be the way to go. unfortunately, there are no bump programs around here. as for the slalom portion of the nextsnow thing, just get him on a pair of skis that actually have edges and i'm sure he'll hold his own. he's got natural talent that not many of us had at that age.

as far as actually buying a pair of next year's skis, i know d structure has the fujatives, but other than that, you're gonna have to wait. i havent heard anything of the standard k2 midseason release on all their twins like in the past. construction-wise, nothing looks like it has changed for next year except salomon's stuff, which will have rivets in the tip and tail (finally). k2's graphics next year are pretty amazing as well.

the bottom portion of mainstreet was all sorts of chunky. snow was amazing at the ticket check, but the good snow pretty much ended by the time you got off vista. the park layout is still good, but landings on jumps were scraped off and the lips to rails were completely trashed. unfortunately, when its this cold out and everything is so frozen solid, there's not much park crew can do. with the amount of traffic in the park today, i am amazed no one has gotten hurt yet.

you have to pay for those lockers at blue... they are $75 a year.

yeah i realize that it was focused on style, and you had very little snow to work with, so the jump wasnt really my main concern. i just didnt think the rails were set up as well as they could have been, or have been in the past few weeks at bear. there were landings, but you landed way past them and landed flat. stuff just wasnt set up smoothly in my opinion. also, if it was focused on style, how did the kid who got third end up getting third? his entire run was hucked and haggard. a 9 on a ten foot jump? props to the kid for being able to get it around, but it was probably the most hucked spin i have ever seen. he didnt look solid on the rails at all either. call me bitter for not getting into the finals if you want, but i think i put down a solid, clean run. sure, it wasnt as difficult as some others, but i didnt fall and i stomped all my landings clean. hamil was more deserving than me anyway, but he didnt make it in either. whatever, i'm just hoping the next comp goes a little smoother. maybe they wont change the format halfway through again.

well, seeing as how i skied at both yesterday, i can give a pretty accruate report. the park that the comp was on was smaller than blue's beginner park. blue's beginner park has a bigger jump than the hit on the bigger park at bear right now. all of blue's rails in the upper park have nice mellow lips onto them, with the exception of the battleship box (not enough snow to put it on a table, so they say.) the lips are just big enough so that you have to pop a little to get onto the rail, you can still spin onto any of the rails, and the lips arent so huge that you slam down on the rail. everything i hit at bear, with the exception of the u box, was either ride on or had what seemed like a booter for a lip onto the rail. the flat handrail on the comp course had a lip that kicked you up super high only to slam back down onto the rail. something like that should have been set up like a handrail, as i am sure it was originally intended. real mellow lip so you have to ollie up onto the thing, not have to worry about how much of the rail you are going to clear and then risk blowing out your edge because you hit so hard. the bigger flat box was the same way. its no wonder little singer was trying 450s on an nearly clearing the rail; the lips had way too much kick to them. the jump was a joke as well. i realize bear's hurting for snow, but they had a bigger jump in the other park, why not have the comp over there where there's more options for better features instead of having it on cascade? the mailbox qp was the best set up feature, in my opinion. the transition was nice, you could hit it from the sides as a rail, or use it as a qp and air it or stall on the mailbox. burton kid or whatever your username is, like toast said, have you been to blue lately? on the bottom portion of sidewinder, you can get a line that goes flat down flat rail, downkink box, 30 foot stepdown, hip, staircase. thats only half of the trail, and flows better than anything bear has right now. i realize we have more snow, but it doesnt require a more snow to build a lip onto a rail properly. not having jumps is excusable, but the way more of the rails are set up is not. that setup for the comp last night was weak, plain and simple.

i got to try out a lot of skis this morning that i wouldnt normally have skied on. the volkl racetigers look hideous, but they were a fun ski. i was really impressed with volkl's stuff overall, and k2 skied really solid as well. the crossfires are a lot of fun as well. hightligh of my day was taking a pair of seth viscious' down challenge, skipping across crappy groomer bumps on the headwall causing my boot to pop out, and then sliding 1/3 the way down challenge on my back facing uphill. i will never buy a pair of marker bindings, ever.

props to everyone who came out and threw down tonight. the setup was sketchy at best; i was definately expecting better. just because you dont have a ton of snow to work with doesnt mean that the lips onto the rails need to launch you two feet up only to slam down onto the rail. quarterpipe/mailbox feature was fun, but that was about the only thing that was set up well that i hit. i cant say anything about the smaller flatbox or c box, cause i stuck to the line on the right though. hopefully next time they dont change the format halfway through... twice. like boyer said, people got screwed over by them doing that again.

barto, have you been to blue lately? the course for the first showdown is sounding a lot like our beginner park...

dorsey, your lights are already like 5 million times better than what we have at blue. at least yours are all on at night... you come up to a feature at blue and the lights suddenly go out right as you are about to hit a jump. it makes things interesting, ups the difficulty factor, you know.

you wouldnt go anywhere else? you're missing out, but whatever, that just makes blue less crowded.

probably justin imbody? he rides are bear, rides last years t halls.

ahh all you people have little faith. there's definately pitch to clear a 75 footer. clearing the 53 is pretty easy actually. as said before, tuck from the up flat rail and you got it. it just takes balls. i 3'd it my second try. big jumps arent any harder, you just need speed for them, and with the pitch of sidewinder now, 75 feet is not out of the question, and there will be people throwing down on it.

i dont snowboard, so take this as you will, but... i was trying on snowboard boots in the shop the other night, and the salomon f boots have a super narrow heel pocket, which will definately hold your ankle in place. i didnt find them to be too stiff compared to other boots i tried on, but i probably weigh more than you, too. i've seen bad things happen to people riding flows. just the other day at blue, someone sketched out on their landing off the 40 footer and slid backwards and popped the highback release on the flows and his foot actually came out of the binding. it could have been really gnarly if he had gotten the board twisted around in a different direction with only one foot attached. the baltimore strap is essentially the same concept as the burton cap strap too.

messing with setting like forward pressure on your bindings yourself without knowing fully what you are doing could be the difference between having a great season and sitting the rest of it out with a blown knee. if you crank the forward pressure too high, the binding is near impossible to release from unless you take a really burly fall. nestor's charges $15 for a check, and we'll usually be able to do it on the spot.

that 53 footer is a really nice jump, and is definately hitable. i was getting 3's over it without too much trouble, which isnt really that great, but my brother was getting double grab cork 5's over it... he pisses me off sometimes.

if you are going for a full rack setup, get a yakima. they are easier to set up than thule stuff is. also, since the roofline of your car is curved, and yakima uses a round bar, your front ski rack wont be at a different angle than the back ski rack, as it would with a thule system. prices for the two are just about the same. if you plan on carrying snowboards or have skis that have lifters under the bindings, get the yakima lift ticket 6. it has a lift built into it so you dont encounter the same sunroof incident that was mentioned above.

53 feet lip to knuckle. that thing puts you straight up into the air too. besides big air a few years ago on falls, probably the biggest jump blue has ever built. you have to commit your speed to it or you are done.