A Snow and ski forum. SkiBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » SkiBanter forum » Skiing Newsgroups » Snowboarding
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

why hardboots?



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #11  
Old March 11th 04, 01:20 AM
AsaaraAgain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

You've got a fairly stiff freeride board, so it would probably make
sense to try hard boots on that before buying a dedicated alpine board.
Alpine boards are a serious rush though.


Try strapping some ski boots, either your own or some rentals, into your
bindings, might not fit too well, but if you take a couple runs like that,
you'll get a bit of an idea if you like the feeling...
Ads
  #12  
Old March 11th 04, 01:53 AM
Mike T
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

Try strapping some ski boots, either your own or some rentals, into your
bindings, might not fit too well, but if you take a couple runs like that,
you'll get a bit of an idea if you like the feeling...


AsaaraAgain,

Have you actually tried that?

I haven't but I have a pretty good idea that that it would feel nothing like
a hard boot setup that included plate bindings. I'll assume that implicit
in your recommendation would be to set upo the strap bindings in stance that
is more akin to what someone would normally use in hard boots. Even so,
that doesn't change the fact that there would not be enough lateral support
to simulate actual hard booting.

I'm recommeding agsint this because I think it would turn whoever tried it
off from hard booting. Even if they might have liked a setup that included
plate bindings.

Mike T



  #13  
Old March 11th 04, 12:52 PM
phil
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

(suffering from google-lag here...)

[... hard boots will] be different, perhaps better and perhaps

worse. My
limited experience with riding non-groomers in hard boots tells me

that
jumping, moguls, and open powder fields should be just as good

(maybe
better) as in soft boots, while chutes and trees may be a bit

harder
than in soft boots.


I agree. I've done a lot of back-country stuff in hard boots and don't
take any prisoners in chutes or trees either, but then it's hard to
tell what's the gear and what's the rider.


[...] I have yet to see [anybody] riding down some seriously steep stuff


I don't think that says much other than that most snowboarders are
poor riders. Several extreme pro riders used to use hard boots, and I
think still do.

I'm not sure how much the design of the gear and how much marketing.
Are snowboarders as a group unable/unwilling to ride most steep/ bumpy
stuff because their gear is bad (eg they use soft boots intended for
aerial ballet moves), or is it because the marketing is all park
focused? This last is interesting because with most boarders knowing
only sideslip turns, trick skiers are blowing them away. Do we end up
with snowboarding being just sideslip-drop-sideslip, a sort of
resort-bound snow-skateboarding?


Alpine boards are a serious rush though.

Yes.

Are they a serious disadvantage in moguls/steeps?

No. It's hard to tell what's the rider and what's the gear though.
  #14  
Old March 11th 04, 10:32 PM
AsaaraAgain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

Have you actually tried that?

I haven't but I have a pretty good idea that that it would feel nothing like
a hard boot setup that included plate bindings.


I used to ride in my ski boots all the time years ago when the only other
options were work boots or Sorels, which didn't exactly give a great response.
May not provide a true feeling of hard booting, but it'll give you a vague idea
of the response. I used soft boot stance angles rather than high ones.
  #15  
Old March 12th 04, 04:46 AM
Dmitry
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?


"Neil Gendzwill" wrote

My personal belief is that for the sort of riding you like to do, hard
boots would work very well so long as you have a fairly wide deck and
keep the angles lower (under 50). I think trying to wrangle moguls or
steeps with 60 degree angles is probably not that good an idea, but I'm
sure there's somebody out there killing it in those conditions.


Under 50 being a lower angle and 21cm being a "fairly wide" board
seems a bit scary, but looks like I'll gonna have to try hardboots. Well
done and thanks for sharing to everybody who replied, I'm almost convinced.


  #16  
Old March 12th 04, 10:31 AM
Baka Dasai
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

On 11 Mar 2004 04:52:55 -0800, phil said (and I quote):
I'm not sure how much the design of the gear and how much marketing.
Are snowboarders as a group unable/unwilling to ride most steep/ bumpy
stuff because their gear is bad (eg they use soft boots intended for
aerial ballet moves), or is it because the marketing is all park
focused? This last is interesting because with most boarders knowing
only sideslip turns, trick skiers are blowing them away. Do we end up
with snowboarding being just sideslip-drop-sideslip, a sort of
resort-bound snow-skateboarding?


At the places I ride, the park and pipe are practically empty, and
all the good riders are carving up the groomers. That seems to be all
they do, and they're all doing it in soft boots, which seems so
suboptimal.

I ride mostly on weekdays, and the general standard of riding is very
very good. On weekends it's a whole other story, and there are so many
novices scraping down the hill that it's hard to get a feel for
anything going on.

But amongst the hard-core mid-week riders, it's carving carving
carving, all in the latest fashions (one-pieces, believe it or not),
and the latest soft boots and boards.

Not resort-bound snow-skateboarding at all, except for the clothes and
equipment.

It's a strange world.
--
A: Top-posters.
Q: What's the most annoying thing on usenet?
  #17  
Old March 12th 04, 02:59 PM
Neil Gendzwill
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

Dmitry wrote:
"Neil Gendzwill" wrote


My personal belief is that for the sort of riding you like to do, hard
boots would work very well so long as you have a fairly wide deck and
keep the angles lower (under 50). I think trying to wrangle moguls or
steeps with 60 degree angles is probably not that good an idea, but I'm
sure there's somebody out there killing it in those conditions.



Under 50 being a lower angle and 21cm being a "fairly wide" board
seems a bit scary, but looks like I'll gonna have to try hardboots. Well
done and thanks for sharing to everybody who replied, I'm almost convinced.


When I rode hardboots on a freeride board (25 cm waist), I used 35
degree angles. Now that I'm on an all-mountain board, it's 45. You
don't have to go to a narrower waist, but you should absolutely go to
steeper angles. Unless you're already at 30 plus in softies.

I've got a 200 Tanker coming, it has a 24.5 cm waist so I'm guessing
I'll be at 35 or 40 on it. I'll let you know how that works out.

Neil

  #18  
Old March 12th 04, 03:48 PM
phil
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

At the places I ride, the park and pipe are practically empty, and
all the good riders are carving up the groomers. That seems to be all
they do, and they're all doing it in soft boots, which seems so
suboptimal.

[...]
It's a strange world.


Indeed. With a couple of exceptions (Brighton Utah, Serena Finland)
I've never seen a popular half pipe/ terrain park. Yet the equipment
and magazines on sale seem to be 100% rail-oriented. Out in the real
world about 98% of snowbaorders would seem to be sideslipping even
moderately steep runs, often on their arses. And the skiiers are
blowing them away in the pipe. Perhaps it's simply easier to make a
sideslipper look good if they're in the air.

I guess I don't understand the gap between the marketing and the
actuality. If only I could figure out how to make some money out of
it.
  #19  
Old March 13th 04, 01:43 AM
Arvin Chang
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

(phil) wrote in message . com...
At the places I ride, the park and pipe are practically empty, and
all the good riders are carving up the groomers. That seems to be all
they do, and they're all doing it in soft boots, which seems so
suboptimal.

[...]
It's a strange world.


Indeed. With a couple of exceptions (Brighton Utah, Serena Finland)
I've never seen a popular half pipe/ terrain park. Yet the equipment
and magazines on sale seem to be 100% rail-oriented. Out in the real
world about 98% of snowbaorders would seem to be sideslipping even
moderately steep runs, often on their arses. And the skiiers are
blowing them away in the pipe. Perhaps it's simply easier to make a
sideslipper look good if they're in the air.

I guess I don't understand the gap between the marketing and the
actuality. If only I could figure out how to make some money out of
it.


Darn I had been trying to resist getting into this debate, but I just
wanted to correct a few misconceptions and exaggerations of the
negatives of softboots and also play devil's advocate to hardbooter
proponents. But first lemme reply to Dmitri's original post.

I too felt that my softboot carving was hitting a plateau, so to shake
things up I got a hardboot setup this season and it's a lot of fun.
You definitely will be able to progress into a new area that is a bit
different than regular snowboarding. The variety between carving tight
turns and hitting the park/pipe has kept this season from getting
boring. I say if you are thinking about it, are getting at least ten
days a season, and have a little bit of extra cash definitely go for
it. Personally I would recommend getting a separate alpine board so
you get the real experience, especially since they are so cheap
(relatively).

As for step-ins. I rode Clickers and Clicker HB for 4 years and I
liked them a lot. They did occasionally get slightly clogged with
powder, but it was never THAT bad. The speed of entry was nice, but I
found that I would be held up by my friend a lot anyway... beside it
takes me less than 30 seconds to get into my strap bindings now
anyways (although I had to relearn to use them after all those years
in step-ins).

Many people are put off by the cost (they tend to cost more), are
afraid of the system failing on them, or believe there is a
performance issue. I think most of the major systems (Burton SI,
Clicker, Switch, Flow) are fairly good now a days and there might be a
little performance hit, but more people wouldn't notice it... the KEY
thing for me was the limited selection of boots. With straps, you have
hundreds of options, with step-ins you maybe have 4-5 at a particular
price range. If you find a step-in boot that fits your perfectly
that's great... but straps offer you better chances. Performance is
also greatly dictated by the quality of the boot.

Okay... onto the playing Devil's Advocate
=================================
I would like to dispute the fact that "all" or even "most"
halfpipes/terrain parks are empty... from my experience in the past 8
years or so they are often super crowded will silly once-a-year
vacationers who want to try to "catch some air" and brag about it to
their friends back home. So much so that many of the bigger resorts
such as Whistler have expanded their park/pipe operations so that they
have have separate areas for novice and expert riders (often with 2-3
parks and 1-2 halfpipes) with the advanced areas being restricted to
people who have acquired a separate pass by signing another injury
waiver and paying a nominal fee.

That's not to say that there is a significant difference between what
marketing and actuality as you mentioned... snowboarding magazines
show a lot of aerials and rail tricks to be sure... but is that any
different from commericals showing big brawny pickups and SUV bouncing
along rocky hills and through shallow streams or sports car/motocycles
blasting down windy mountain roads doing high-G turns? Most people
(99%) won't be doing either of those things. Marketing always tries to
show people a "fantasy" lifestyle in order to get them to buy their
product, snowboarding is no different.

I agree with Phil when he said that most people tend to skid around
down intermediate level slopes in softboot gear. Most people don't go
in the park and do jumps and hence should not be getting boards like
the Burton Dominant Slick (one of the only rail-orient board in
existence despite what Phil just implied). However, I feel that
hardbooters are sometimes over eager to convert people to their
diminishing community (on my generous estimate, hardbooters are still
much less than 1% of the snowboarding population and decreasing
percentage-wise) by exageratting the supposed faults of softboots.

There are many advantages to alpine boards and hardboots - they make
it a lot easier to carve fast and deep... however that doesn't mean
softboots don't have their place *outside* of the freestyle world. I
don't think anyone will be coming to an agreement on which way "the
scale falls" on which setup is better for most situations, I
personally think its a matter of preference (I bet people on both
sides will be saying "Only if you are an idiot" under their breathe).
There are availabilty, cost and comfort issues as well - these can be
all overcome with time and effort... but most people don't want to
spend hours roaming ebay and online forums to research and buy
equipment. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just pointing out a
reality of the world.

Most importantly, many people don't *want* to do carves deep trenches,
much in the same way that they don't want to do jumps - putting them
on hardboots would just make them miserable as alpine board are
terrible skid. Sure they "should" be carving, but that's like smashing
the training wheels off a kids bike and then sending him down a steep
windy hill to teach him - maybe not for everyone (this is how I
learned to rollerblade though).
  #20  
Old March 13th 04, 01:58 AM
corbeau
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default why hardboots?

In article , plast530
@hotmail.com says...
At the places I ride, the park and pipe are practically empty, and
all the good riders are carving up the groomers. That seems to be all
they do, and they're all doing it in soft boots, which seems so
suboptimal.

[...]
It's a strange world.


Indeed. With a couple of exceptions (Brighton Utah, Serena Finland)
I've never seen a popular half pipe/ terrain park. Yet the equipment
and magazines on sale seem to be 100% rail-oriented. Out in the real
world about 98% of snowbaorders would seem to be sideslipping even
moderately steep runs, often on their arses. And the skiiers are
blowing them away in the pipe. Perhaps it's simply easier to make a
sideslipper look good if they're in the air.

I guess I don't understand the gap between the marketing and the
actuality. If only I could figure out how to make some money out of
it.

At my closest hill, Snoqualmie Summit where I've been going after work a
few nights a week, the only place that consistently has a crowd is the
advanced terrain park & jumps. The superpipe isn't as crowded but there
are always a group of boarders and skiers lining up for the jumps with
and without rails. I never see skiers in the superpipe.

I'm usually there from 6PM to 8:30 or so on weeknights(go elsewhere on
the weekends) so the time of day probably plays a large role.

I don't see why anyone should give a damn if 99.9% of snowboarders are
sideslippers who never see a black diamond. If they are having fun and
enjoying themselves, more power to them. I hope they get to sideslip as
often as possible. Same with any other outdoor sport - most climbers
can't lead much past 5.9, most surfers can't ride much OH, etc, etc.
That doesn't negate the relative quality of their experience.

C.
--
-she ain't revved til the rods is thrown
 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Beginner - Starting off with soft boots? Guy Lux Snowboarding 7 January 22nd 04 08:45 PM
difference between hard and soft boots Brendon Snowboarding 11 September 17th 03 08:27 AM


All times are GMT. The time now is 10:02 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SkiBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.