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While shopping for a new jacket I ended up getting a board, bindings, goggles, pants and jacket... now I have to try and hide the credit card bill from my wife because the world didn't end today like

The bag inspires an old joke to come to mind   Princess Diana and Dolly Parton had both died on the same night. When they reached the gates of Heaven they were greeted by St. Peter.St. Peter said "E

New skis & bindings awaiting xmas pickup & testing in Rockies first week of January.

Seemore doesn't like long boards, so the hovercraft is better for him. But if floating on pow was the only consideration, I suggest that even an 85kg person would be better off on a 169 or 172 skunk ape than a 160 hovercraft. I'd love to see a side-by-side experiment to prove this. I'll challenge any hovercraft rider to outrun them on flat powder.

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Seemore doesn't like long boards, so the hovercraft is better for him. But if floating on pow was the only consideration, I suggest that even an 85kg person would be better off on a 169 or 172 skunk ape than a 160 hovercraft. I'd love to see a side-by-side experiment to prove this. I'll challenge any hovercraft rider to outrun them on flat powder.

 

Totally disagree with this. The 160 hovercraft is a beast of a board volume wise even with the short length. The shape of the nose, taper and swallow tail makes it a pure powder board. I doubt there are any twin boards (directional or not) that could out perform the hovercraft in pow... riders on the other hand... ;)

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TB

I bought a package on Ebay unseen from a storage place unpaid debt the gear was left in storage.

It included the board and raiden phantoms bindings (maybe 1/2 weeks of action)

Nitro Team TLS Boots (wjich was the whole reason to buy in the 1st place)

Ride roller board bag,

Burton Jacket, Gloves, Socks, Backpack, Thermal top.

Oakley Splice (Shaun White) Goggles

Red knee pads

Monopod

Ballistyx board Bag

Check Shirt (Nice one thats fits as well

 

Pretty good score really it cost me $525 shipped to Perth and I sold the board and bindings for $470 :friend:

 

I have done allright with my new hobbie of buying and selling snow gear

 

Seemore

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Seemore doesn't like long boards, so the hovercraft is better for him. But if floating on pow was the only consideration, I suggest that even an 85kg person would be better off on a 169 or 172 skunk ape than a 160 hovercraft. I'd love to see a side-by-side experiment to prove this. I'll challenge any hovercraft rider to outrun them on flat powder.

 

I also disagree. Nose shape and rocker is critical to keeping on top.

If you made the hovercraft 160 a twin by making its tail as long as its nose it would be a 178.

To get a 280mm nose (same as hovercraft) on the 161 skunk ape the board would be a 177 and would still suffer from having a worse rocker profile, no taper and less setback.

 

Once you learn to look at a board as effective edge plus a nose and a tail you stop looking at total length as a meaningful measurement. Its just a product of 3 parts of a board that could be wildly different as these 2 boards are.

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In addition I will never own a hovercraft, its just not enough board for me but I can see why it is very attractive for lighter folk. As you pointed out before hippy I did just buy a 180 which can freak people out lol but its nothing to me. I have also designed my own board which is a 180 powder board but I used the same design principals as the hovercraft does, long nose, short tail. If my 180 were a twin it would be a 204, now that would scare people in a lift line lol.

 

Here are some pics of what I am playing with atm, Im just waiting for a day that isnt 30+ degrees so I can press my first one. Everything you see below is designed and built by me based on a few lessons I have learned from modifying and chopping boards up over the last few years and I will be the first to say my learning curve has only just begun.

 

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I went on a mission today to get my wife some new 'wear' for this season and was blown away by the prices at the shops (as usual). What I found very odd though was a distinct lack of Burton gear. Has something happened while I wasn't paying attention? I mean, we went to three fairly large sports stores and there was almost nothing at all set out for Burton. One shop didn't have anything at all...

Does anyone know what's up with that?

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Yeah i was gonna suggest they sold out, but then remembered that burton are like Nike and total dickwads with shops (apparently theyve gotten "better" but rumours are abounding that they are starting to get back to old habits and pushing for very high minimum orders after the local shop backlash following sierra shenanigans 2010-2011).

Maybe they forced the hands of certain places. Maybe burton also are losing exposure in Japan. Like in Korea, board prices are out of ****ing whack with the US prices and its a global economy now. 70-80,000 on a brand that most people find stable but not necessarily exciting when they seem to be getting pushed by local brands, capita and lib... It used to be something that you had to have to bring in customers, but now not so much. If you dont have burton in your shop the only people that youre loosing are people who might only know the word burton and thats it. And even those people recognise they know nothing and can be pursuaded to pick up something else. Why pick up burton then when you can pick up lib, capita, rome, and ride without quite such restrictive practices.

 

Then again... i do remember a year or so ago Angrysnowboarder posting an article about the grey market. Im 100% sure (cant be assed to check though), that one of the biggest culprits burton checked was the japanese market. Maybe in fact burton were too late last season to cut them off, but this season have a list of the main culprits (remember how japan always sells 10% below msrp off the bat. In fact if you know the shop its up to 30% before the summers over). Though local shops arent given quite so restrictive sales practices as online dealers, a lot of these companies do shift their product on places like rakuten and yahoo. Possibly then theres been a reduction in the number of shops burton are happy to work with...

 

Orrrr. then again, they did massively clamp down on their (over)production what with the sierra issue. What you might be seeing is the further push of burton as a luxury brand that they were trying to sell after they got control again of their pricing. No more 50% burton customs. No more massive overproduction and product lying on the shelves, you could be looking at something akin to apple here. A TONNE of dead stock lying in a back room and not being allowed to be displayed and people having to wait for a week or two for them to "order it in" (from the back of their shop). Luxury branding rigth there. The creation of a bullshit scarcity to keep prices artificially high.

 

Orrr, maybe its just the recession. Maybe shops just cant afford to play the luxury brand game anymore and just need boards that turn a decent profit. Maybe youll see more of your stepchilds and technines out there along with joblot ride boards (k2/ride seem to be filling the burton overproduction void if summer is anything to go by... DHs for everyone!)

 

Lot sof possible reasons. One qualifier to the above, i know burton have a tonne of lines at a tonne of price points, but you dont get to pick only the cheap lines. You gots to go with a representative full range (if i understand it right) and a huge minimum purchase.

 

Just reread the article (the history of grey marketing continues). Wires slightly crossed but it does reveal something interesting... maybe a lot of shops with burton boards actually were the folks picking up burton cheap from intermediaries in the US. That is, instead of hammering down on the shops, burton have hammered down on their suppliers effectively forcing them into doing business direct with burton and burton pricing structures/agreements - which they probably cant afford). Lots of fun possible gossipy reasons why it might be happening ;)

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where do you find out this info Ipps? I'd be interested to read more about it. Whats the minimum order that Burton whack shops with? How much do you reckon your average shop/dealer buys their boards at wholesale?

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i just listen to shop kids and owners moan on the interwebs in truth. :) The language is usually diplomatic, but you can often read between the lines. The sierra thing blew the whole lid off the shop/burton relationship so it doesnt take a genius to realise that when mellow people like chappie and spenser are voicing issues pertaining to burton in the past year (after burton did their whole "make nice with the small guy!" after the return of jake), exactly what those issues might be (upping numbers and inventory percentages). As for figures, no idea, i dont own a shop and people who do are reluctant to burn their bridges with the big B by publicizing the details of their agreement alas. Its not insignificant though.

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A whole heap of stuff came out when sierra became the jilted ex lover. Searching the web will produce some hilarity mixed in with copious amounts of whining from the previous owners of the store.

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For anyone actually interested in it, i would advise you go check out the back history of it. EL have a MASSIVE thread on it (youll have to dig through the forum though - its called Sierra bankruptcy if i remember right. We did loads of threads over at sierra at the time, but really we were given zero info of what was going on from the staff at sierra. The first we knew about it was when the shopping cart went down and suddenly the expert members who usually patrol the forums along with staff had vanished (aside from the preamble of course where burton were pulling out of sierra because sierra had discounted at 40% in February - against the terms of the contract, but sierra claimed that the contract wasnt valid because they all signed the contract after mike (sierra owner) had sharpied out the parts he disagreed with... the sharpie incident :)). Basically none of us knew what was going on. EL scooped the whole thing so we had to get our info from them. And boy was it nitty gritty detailed stuff. This was just chapter 11, by the time chapter 7 broke in around august of that year, the whole site was in freefall. So yeah, lots to read if youre interested and want a nights entertainment. You can get most of the summary just from browing angrysnowboarder too. Might be easier to find the docs.

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