May 14, 08

With the help of antibiotics I'm among the living again. But seeing how I can barely make it up a flight of stairs without wheezing like an old man, I don't think I'll be hiking anytime soon.

Even though the snowskating season is coming to an end I still find myself thinking about new ideas that pertain to subs, topdecks and trucks. I remember at the end of last season feeling the same way and as I think back on those ideas and how they were pretty much worthless I'm reminded of how concepts grow. Start with an idea, test it, if it works try to figure out why, if it sucks then put it on the shelf. Those really long subs that I picked up on ebay that were originally for teleboarders are a great example. They seemed like they would be great for powder, being long but thin. In reality they were worthless and now just sit in the corner of my shop. But on the other hand the green 140 powder board, which was just an old rental that I got for 10 bucks ended up working great both in powder and on groomers. I'm not sure what about it made it so easy to ride, was it the narrow 6 1/2 tail or was it the 16 inch wheelbase with a 42 inch top deck. It wasn't all great though, I wish it would have had a longer nose and I thought about trying to bolt on something to extend it. What I'd really like to try is cutting down one of those lib banana mag snowboards, say a 151 to a 8 3/4 nose and 6 3/4 tail, I think it would probably kill it but seeing how its one of the most sought after boards on the market right now I doubt I'll be scoring any deals.

Not sure what direction the blog will be taking over the next couple of months. I won't be doing any work in the shop for awhile and I don't want to just ramble on like I've done in this post. I guess its safe to say that it will probably go into sleep mode like it has in the past. When summer comes around and I rework my form over a bit I'll have more to talk about so check back sometime in July.

Mark

May 6, 08

Well I'm sick with pneumonia so I won't be skating snow or crete for awhile. Hit me last Monday and I've been off my feet since. Toby took the new chop up to Baldy with Matt and they had a blast. They shot some footage that I will try and get up for next weeks post. I guess the snow pack is still sick and the turns were really fun. Hope I'm able to recover in time to get one last session in before summer.

April 28, 08

Well even though we are coming upon the end of April the mountains still seem to be getting snow. Wed night after work we hiked the Headwall at Schweitzer. With the sun staying out later we were able to get turns up until 8 pm. The snow couldn’t have been any better and the lib 48 absolutely ripped. Matt joined us on one of my old boards from last year, a 130 rossi snowboard that got chopped down to 8 inches at the nose and tail. This thing is definitely a beast but it seemed that the day just might be suited for it. Matt has also spent quite a bit of riding time on Toby’s sims 174. In fact that 174 has seen a lot of different riders thanks to Toby living at the bottom of a 1000’ powder field. The 130 though ended up being a bit tricky on steeper slope and further reinforced the idea that a tapered sub deck is the key to powder. Toby has been hassling me to chop another one of his ancient sims asymmetrical deck. I’ll admit that throwing time into such an old snowboard wasn’t exactly high on my priority list but seeing how so many people have ridden his other board it seemed like a good idea for him to have two powskates. Plus it gave me an opportunity to try out a new idea for joining two halves of a snowboard back together. The first sims that I cut down I left the nose at around 9 1/4 and the tail at around 7, this time I wanted to make it just a bit narrower in the hopes that it wouldn’t be such a freight train. The dims on the new chop are 8 ¾ at the nose, 6 ¾ at the tail and the waist ended up being 6.

The nice thing about these new chop blocks is that they allow an 1" of adjustment front and back for the deck and no longer require you to drill up through the base.

I handed the sub off to Cole to ride since he was hiking on Sat. Cole has spent a lot of time on the 140 green board so he would have a fairly good idea of how it rode in comparison. I wanted a sub that would turn easy like the 140 but carry just a bit more speed. His report was stellar and that it turned on a dime, at least in the spring conditions. I look forward to finally getting a chance to ride both of them next weekend when we attempt to get every one together who is interested in riding strapless and assault baldy mountain with snowskates.

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