Good Mogul board?

What would be a good board for Moguls?

They make mogul skis, but you don't hear about mogul boards since most
boarders avoid the bumps and stick to the park instead. However, I'm
psyched to see more boarders tearing it up in the moguls this year than
previous years. Its a good sign as they're a fun challange and are a
great workout. Once boarders really start to dial it in and can pull
some freestyle moves off the bumps, stick the landing, and hold their
line...then that will be something to watch. I still haven't seen that
yet but I'm sure somebody is doing it.

Anyway, I'm on a 164 mid-wide board which works great for my weight
(180 lbs.) and big feet. I guess a good mogul board would be something
softer and maybe a little shorter.

Would you recommend a freestyle board for this?

I wouldn't shell out the $ for a new board, but if I can pick one up
used or on close-out at the end of the season, it'd be nice to have a
bump friendly board.
Thanks in advance for any tips-
-todd

todd wrote:
What would be a good board for Moguls?
[snip]
Anyway, I'm on a 164 mid-wide board which works great for my weight
(180 lbs.) and big feet. I guess a good mogul board would be something
softer and maybe a little shorter.
[snip]

I don't think you need to go shorter - you're working in bumps made by
skis which are in the 170-180 range. But you might want it a little
stiffer, especially if your board is a stock free-riding board - you
don't say what it is exactly. Narrower is better too but unless you're
willing to change your stance you probably can't go narrower. To me
bumps are about fast edge changes and springing from one turn to the
next. Narrow and medium-stiff helps with that. Too stiff and you're
just going to get bucked, too soft and you'll get no "spring" plus the
quick edge sets of bump turns won't work so hot. Sidecut is not too
relevant in the bumps.

I used to use a '94 Burton Asym Air 164, which was a 25 cm waist and
stiffer than most free-rides of the time, but not very stiff by today's
standards. I then switched to a '99 Prior 4WD 165, which is stiffer and
narrower (21.5 cm waist). It took a couple of runs to adjust but
stiffer and narrower worked better for me, as did the more forward
angles forced by the narrow board (about 45 degrees now, compared to 35
with the Burton). Mind you the Prior is still not very stiff - even
though it's an all-mountain hardboot board, there are BX boards that are
much stiffer.

My poor Prior is dead now, but I just received a spankin' new Coiler AM
172, which is the same width as the Prior but a good deal stiffer.
Still not as stiff as say an old Salomon FRS, but still the stiffest
thing I've owned. I haven't gotten it on snow yet, but I'll report back
when I do.

I also have acquired a '00/01 Rad-Air Tanker, which I don't expect to
work too well in the bumps. I'll give it a go just for the hell of it.
The waist is 24.5 cm, length is 200 cm.

Neil

I don't think you need to go shorter - you're working in bumps made by
skis which are in the 170-180 range. But you might want it a little
stiffer, especially if your board is a stock free-riding board - you don't
say what it is exactly.

-snip -

I would certainly say "don't ride anything longer and stiffer than you would
ride on steeps". As far as stiffness goes, I would agree with Neil that
you need enough stiffness to get from edge to edge quickly, but also say
that if go with something longer, make sure it's soft enough between the
bindings so you can bend it without carving.


My poor Prior is dead now, but I just received a spankin' new Coiler AM
172, which is the same width as the Prior but a good deal stiffer. Still
not as stiff as say an old Salomon FRS, but still the stiffest thing I've
owned. I haven't gotten it on snow yet, but I'll report back when I do.

The Coiler AMs tend to have a flex pattern that is stiffish on the ends and
a little softer between the feet... my custom 182 has the "default" AM
pattern with a little extra torsional stiffness to go with the added length.
I bet yours will be nice in moduls, mine probably a big gangly but only
because it's 10 cm longer than I would normally take in bumps even on
plates.

I also have acquired a '00/01 Rad-Air Tanker, which I don't expect to work
too well in the bumps. I'll give it a go just for the hell of it. The
waist is 24.5 cm, length is 200 cm.

That oughta be fun!

-Mike T

Mike T wrote:

Neil wrote:
I also have acquired a '00/01 Rad-Air Tanker, which I don't expect to work
too well in the bumps. I'll give it a go just for the hell of it. The
waist is 24.5 cm, length is 200 cm.

That oughta be fun!

I used to ride bumps on my Gnu Race Room, which was 179 according to Gnu
but actually about 181 if you measured it. I didn't find the length too
terrible, but that's not the lightest of boards. It was pretty tough to
muscle it from one turn to the next in a hurry. I should measure them
but I think the Tanker is lighter even at 20 cm longer.

Neil

Thanks.

I'm on a Burton Baron ES 164 now.
Used to ride bumps on my old Ride Yukon 163? which was even fatter.
So, I've had fun on both, but I notice a quicker edge to edge response
with the Baron and it has a stiffer edge.

So far I've been happy with the edge. Unless I'm in ideal bump
conditions, I also tend to find a lot of hardpack/ice sporadically
between some bumps and it is nice to have a stiff edge that can hold my
transition.

I'll have to look up the Coilers. Haven't heard of them.

Interesting that you both pointed at the need for a somewhat stiff
edge. Mogul skis I believe are floppy soft things, right?

Good write-up on bump riding, Neil. Every once in a while I'll get
some runs going where the conditions and my riding are dialed in
perfectly and I'll really feel that spring from one turn to the next.
Its a great feeling. Even when I don't get that I still have a good
time following a line through the bumps with an occasional turn or jump
over the top. Good fun.

-todd

todd wrote:

I'll have to look up the Coilers. Haven't heard of them.

It's a small boutique builder in Toronto, most famous for building the
boards that Jasey-Jay Anderson is currently kicking ass on. The stock
templates are all alpine-oriented (widest is 23 cm) but they (OK, he -
it's just Bruce) can build you whatever you like. Only hitch is that
the waiting list is pushing a year now.

www.coiler.com or search the forums at www.bomberonline.com for
reviews/discussion.

Other highly regarded high-performance board builders are Prior and
Donek. You can get stuff from them in a more timely manner as they are
a little bit bigger than Coiler (they have employees and stuff).

Good write-up on bump riding, Neil.

Thanks. I've written about bumps here before, you can search google
groups for the older posts.

Neil

My poor Prior is dead now, but I just received a spankin' new Coiler
AM
172, which is the same width as the Prior but a good deal stiffer.
Still not as stiff as say an old Salomon FRS, but still the stiffest
thing I've owned. I haven't gotten it on snow yet, but I'll report
back
when I do.

What stiffness index (it's written on the sidewall)? My 169 is 7.2, and
while it feels pretty stiff if you press on the binding inserts, on the
hill it feels pretty mellow and soft.

The board is soft between the bindings, which makes it really
controlible, particularly if you gotta skid around some quick turns
like in bumps. In fact the first thing I thought making my first turn
on it was "I shoulda gotten bigger sidecut radius", because the nose
hooked up so well and the tail responded so well to twist from the back
leg that I about threw myself. A little twist on it goes a long ways.
And that was on a mellow slope with like no speed. But I'll probibly
appreciate the tight radius on steeps.

I think you're going to like it. I've only gotten ~4 hours in on mine
thanks to the horrid conditions here (and that's my total riding time
so far this _season_), so I don't have a well formed opinion yet... but
so far, it feels very fast, stable and responsive.

wrote:

What stiffness index (it's written on the sidewall)? My 169 is 7.2, and
while it feels pretty stiff if you press on the binding inserts, on the
hill it feels pretty mellow and soft.

Mine says 7.7 but it's a 172. I asked Bruce about it and he said:

It is a simple deflection measurement under a given weight so the
softer the board, the more it bends and since the measurement is
taken up from a fixed surface, lower numbers mean softer boards.
Longer boards have lower numbers as the length will bend more even if
the stiffness is the same just due to the wider span they have to go
across. If you had a 184 with a 7.7 it would be suitable for someone
over 300 lbs!

So being that mine is both longer and has a higher number, it should be
somewhat stiffer than yours. But it's designed for my weight (190 lbs
or so). Bruce also said:

I have softened up the AM boards a bit over the last few seasons to
make them a bit more fun in varied terrain and not so carve oriented.

Neil

"todd" wrote

Anyway, I'm on a 164 mid-wide board which works great for my weight
(180 lbs.) and big feet. I guess a good mogul board would be something
softer and maybe a little shorter.

Would you recommend a freestyle board for this?

I wouldn't shell out the $ for a new board, but if I can pick one up
used or on close-out at the end of the season, it'd be nice to have a
bump friendly board.

My riding style is pretty loose surf-like movements with short
bursts of energy here and there, and I found that the most critical
thing for supporting this is the edge bevel. And it was most important
for me in the bumps. I like to do a lot of in-between bumps "bottom
turns", which basically put the board flat across the uphill face of the next
bump, and beveled edges make all the difference in being able to
do this effortlessly.

Also binding setup was super-critical. Duckstance, softer bindings
worked much better.

To me, an ideal board for bumps will be light, medium stiffness, short
sidecut.

But then again, I can't imagine how I would survive bumps in an alpine
board, so if you have a different riding style you might need very different
equipment.

--
Dmitry

On 27 Jan 2005 13:06:28 -0800, "todd" wrote:

Thanks.

I'm on a Burton Baron ES 164 now.
Used to ride bumps on my old Ride Yukon 163? which was even fatter.
So, I've had fun on both, but I notice a quicker edge to edge response
with the Baron and it has a stiffer edge.

So far I've been happy with the edge. Unless I'm in ideal bump
conditions, I also tend to find a lot of hardpack/ice sporadically
between some bumps and it is nice to have a stiff edge that can hold my
transition.

In good conditions being able to set an edge in the bumps is nice. If
it's icy, I actually prefer a soft, beat-up board, where I can kind of
slop it around. Since I live in the East, they're almost all nasty,
icy bumps until March.

I'll have to look up the Coilers. Haven't heard of them.

Got a great reputation, and about a 6 month wait for delivery.

Interesting that you both pointed at the need for a somewhat stiff
edge. Mogul skis I believe are floppy soft things, right?

I haven't skied since the advent of shaped skis, but in the 80s I was
doing bumps on SL race skis, as were most of my friends. The guys who
did bumps then used stiff skis. Of course we didn't know about
sidecut, and wanted something that would hold whatever edge we set.

Good write-up on bump riding, Neil. Every once in a while I'll get
some runs going where the conditions and my riding are dialed in
perfectly and I'll really feel that spring from one turn to the next.
Its a great feeling. Even when I don't get that I still have a good
time following a line through the bumps with an occasional turn or jump
over the top. Good fun.

I work on my bumps every time I take out the old softboot setup. I
still have a hard time getting the rhythm with my alpine gear, but I'm
getting closer. My goal is to do the skier line, faster. It's doable
in the spring, because you can slap the tail against the mogul to
speed check yourself; a good way to throw yourself to a faceplant on
icy bumps.


Jeremiah


-todd