badmigraine
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Posts posted by badmigraine
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Yeah, Ivo, that's right. Mine is pretty stiff. It's one reason that the super performance only comes out when you really torque or max out the board. It takes some effort to flex it to the point where its best attributes come out.
If you are a light or medium-weight person, or your riding style is smooth and feathery, you may have trouble reaching this point.
I personally always seem to be going pretty fast and also muscling through bumps (I spend a lot of time snowboarding in moguls...used to be a skier and can't give them up!) and doing strange things and falling down a lot. For that reason, I like the stiffness and the stability it gives me.
I've rented some softer boards or pipe-type boards and they didn't match my bumbling lurching style at all.
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Hmmm...see my post on the Salomon 450 thread...I think I'm on the right board
Hee hee hee!!About your inquiry, do you have an orthopedic issue? I myself have one leg about 1/4" shorter than the other and it affects a lot of things, so I use inserts etc. In high school sports I had to have orthotics to prevent knee, hip and lower back pain. Is that your issue?
Or is it just that you can't seem to find boots that don't hurt your feet?
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Lama,
Are you one of those Aussies who was up in the cheapish Hirafu Chalet where there was a guy Ben in charge and his helper Matt who lived in the chalet (actually a big old Japanese house about 5 mins from the Hirafu gondola)?
There was a rather wooly-headed soul named Paddy there around that time.
We're going back up this year around the same time. Hope you're there, let's have a drink or two!
Badmigraine in Tokyo.
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Danz,
I don't know if it helps much, but I have a foot fetish and know some websites where you can look at some rather bracing shots of womens legs, feet and rears.
I have spent a lot of time looking at and thinking about women's feet, and I am pretty good at massaging them and licking and sucking them if their owners let me.
Badmigraine in Tokyo.
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Hey Chris
I demoed a Salomon 450 and 550 at Whistler a couple winters ago. I suppose the 450 has changed a bit since then, but at that time I found it to be a responsive, smooth-riding board that was less forgiving than a big-mountain board (Burton Supermodel) that I was riding that year.
I liked it.
But know what? I rode the Salomon 550 immediately after, and it had me whooping and screaming like a sterno-crazed alkie on the way down. I kept it for an extra hour and I thought the demo booth guys would be angry, but they just laughed and said everybody does that when they get on the 550.
What was so good about it? Well, in normal riding around it performed as well or better than any other board of that size and market niche that I'd rented or ridden.
But the real zinger was when you stressed it at speed, in fast turns or on questionable surfaces (ice, ruts, bumps, crud, etc.). That thing is incredibile! It was like a razor biting into the snow, then suddenly a super strong rubber band popping me out of one turn and into the next. It actually felt alive.
So that's where the whooping and crazed screaming laughter came in. Never had a board do that before. I bought one that day (not cheap!) and rode it all last winter too.
Something to do with carbon fiber X shapes embedded along the board to give it special flex and snap properties. It seems to be a board for advanced riders, since its best properties only come out when you are maxing things out (well, to ME, maxing out...I am not a pro by any stretch!).
The 450 is a scaled-down, slightly more forgiving and user-friendly version of the 550. If you get it you will surely have a good board and no worries about your gear holding you back.
Regarding ski makers who now make boards (like Salomon, K2, Rossignol, etc.) they have brought their years of R&D and know-how to the snowboard platform and I personally find them less gimmicky and more solid, reliable and better performing than "old school" snowboard companies that use OEM made platforms, sweatshop or casual labor, and cooler-than-thou marketing aimed at snotty teenagers who eat too much hormone-laced US beef and wish they were real skateboard punks with some sort of genuine cause to justify their adolescent anger.
WHEW!
Thanks for listening. I feel better now.
Anyway, good luck with your board.
PS I got the Salomon bindings but not the boots. How do you find their boots? Never tried them yet, but am looking for new booties this season.
Badmigraine in Tokyo.
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I took 1999 off to do what BTBW is doing--ride my board.
At first I thought about spending the winter in Japan, but it is just so expensive here. Many resorts have never heard of the "season pass" concept. And there is a shortage of challenging terrain and long, knock-you-out runs. You get your ticket pulled for skiing off-piste... You can't rent places without guarantors and foreign registration cards...
It is all very complicated and in the end I decided I would spend half the money and have twice the fun by heading back to the US and Canada, where you can rent a great apartment with fridge, stove, shower, bed, parking, etc., for the equivalent of about JY50,000 per month. No guarantor! No key money, no agency fee, no foreign registration card...
I know this is the a site about Japan, but really, if you are able to take the whole winter off, why don't you just go to Salt Lake City or Vancouver or some of the smaller, cheaper towns outside of the Lake Tahoe region?
The snow and terrain would be great, and it would cost much less than a winter in Japan.
I ended up taking my girlfriend and we had an incredible winter. We spent most of it at Whistler/Blackcomb and at Mt. Washington.
Unbelievable!!
This year I will be doing the office-worker's winter again. Saturdays and whatever paid holidays I can squeeze in.
But let me warn you--wherever you decide to spend your winter (and it will be great wherever you go), the bad part is going back to work in the spring.
You quickly remember what it was that you hated so much about being a weenie-bin wage slave.
You conclude that your time is worth more than the money people are willing to give you in exchange for it; and also that you would just rather have more time, not so much money. Money's great, but time is much better.
Another thing you may find when cutting loose as BTBW did by submitting his resignation in September is that, well, the things you thought you really wanted and liked when you were working, turn out not to be as you thought they would be. In many cases you realize those things were just elements of a story you had to tell yourself in order to be able to present your brain and hands at some job somewhere...
The things that you like when you are an unemployed, enjoying-most-every-day camper are not necessarily the things you liked when you were a worker drone as I was, and am again.
However, I am pleased to report that one thing I always thought I liked got more and more likeable, even after quitting: BOARDING.
Drinking and corn chips also remained high on the list.
Anyway...enough about me and my "lost year" (heh heh heh). If anyone is thinking of hitting Vancouver for the winter, I can give some useful anecdotal information about how to cut some corners on costs etc., and how to find a cheaper place to live.
[This message has been edited by badmigraine (edited 13 November 2000).]
Salomon 450
in Snow talk, trip reports, Japan avalanche & backcountry
Posted
Yeah, Ivo, that's right. Mine is pretty stiff. It's one reason that the super performance only comes out when you really torque or max out the board. It takes some effort to flex it to the point where its best attributes come out.
If you are a light or medium-weight person, or your riding style is smooth and feathery, you may have trouble reaching this point.
I personally always seem to be going pretty fast and also muscling through bumps (I spend a lot of time snowboarding in moguls...used to be a skier and can't give them up!) and doing strange things and falling down a lot. For that reason, I like the stiffness and the stability it gives me.
I've rented some softer boards or pipe-type boards and they didn't match my bumbling lurching style at all.