arupensutairu

Yep, I live north of Utsunomiya and have a season pass at Hunter Mt and will hopefully be riding there 3 days a week this winter.

It's the toilet slippers that really do it for me. Shows a great sense of place. And it isn't a bloke in the one-piece...

I'm interested in the baggy one-piece suits that the oh-so-cool snowboarders wear. AFAIK, these are not sold anywhere else in the world. Take a look...

EXACTLY, RayInJapan. But actually, it's worse than that - FT and others are suggesting that you should look uphill not only if you change your line, but simply if you do wide turns. Not only is this not in the code, it's not possible when travelling fast, and would not help to avoid collisions anyway as it doesn't actually solve the problem of who has to give way. Their argument leads to the conclusion that wide turns are simply NOT ALLOWED. Or to put it another way, they want to be able to ride fast and not be blamed for crashing into people below them.

The test has been done. It found that people who have a so-called tolerance for alcohol were affected in the same way as everybody else. There was no significant difference in reaction times. With regards to driving impairment, alcohol affected everybody the same way. Note that tests on driving impairment due to cannabis do not show this. IIRC, levels of impairment were not nearly so linear or predictable, with experienced smokers typically showing little or no impairment. A joke for AC/DC fans - Q. What were Bon Scott's last words? A. I'm alright to drive.

Quote: Originally posted by Toque: Quote: Originally posted by arupensutairu: Hell, I'm usually going faster than the people who are overtaking me anyway! Thats funny. Would love to see that. Why is this funny? Do you not understand how that can happen? I sometimes ride twice as fast as the people overtaking me. If you check the video you can see at one point a skier in the background who is travelling approx half my speed, yet we both stay approx level with each other. As for looking up the hill, even if I did find it possible to do it, it wouldn't help me. How can I

It's not practical, or even possible, to check up hill on every turn. And I am cutting across the fall-line on almost every turn, and sometimes even heading up-hill. There are no "slow lanes" or "fast lanes" on the mountain. Hell, I'm usually going faster than the people who are overtaking me anyway! It's simple - if you want to overtake somebody, make sure you don't crash into them. I overtake 99 people for every one that overtakes me, and it's that 1 that puts me in danger rather than the 99. Check out this video of me riding to see the kind of turns I am talking about.

I've been taken out a few times, and had many close calls. The other person often blames me, despite the fact that they were clearly in the wrong according to the skier's responsibility code. The usual situation is that they are heading more or less straight down the fall-line, and are overtaking me as I carve across the fall-line. They take the view that I rode "into their path", whereas I take the view that as the downhill person, I have the right of way. After all, I can't see the people above me on the slope, but they can (or at least should) see the people below them.

Carving the downhill edge...

Alpine snowboarders are clearly the coolest people on the mountain. Soft-booters look lame by comparison, with their floppy gear that is totally unsuited to turning on the groomed. And the carving skiers just can't match the tight turns of an alpine snowboard. Taken out by hard-booter, huh? As a hard-booter I find that I'm at increased risk of collisions from people bombing the fall-line who are totally unprepared for somebody below them to be carving hard across the fall-line, or even back up the hill, with speed. People who like to shoot fast down the very edge of a run are a parti

I'm a big fan of step-in bindings. They're much more convenient, and give a more solid connection to the board. These are the ones I use . Damn fine bindings.