Board Review: Madd TT158

Mike T wrote:
Yea, hopefully I'm coming out of tunnel now that I started five years
ago. It's all Mike T's fault... when I met him in 2000, I had been
riding the same model board for three years... and I heard about ALL
the board he had demo'd and how he finally decided that he like the
Doneks the best. I figured I had to go try out some boards myself...
but they are like potato chips... you can't just try one.

My fault, eh?

So do you still have your alpine boards or are they gone too??

Mike T, proud owner of too many boards

I still have my alpine boards, but I'm not counting them to this
purpose. If the Coiler is as good as it says, I might be down to one on
that side as well.

lonerider wrote:
Matt wrote:
lonerider wrote:
in deep powder on low-incline stuff with ease. The Tanker's stiffer and
longer nose blasts through chop even better than the TT, but while it
is light for it's size... it is always going to be a little long and
slower to swing when doing airs in the park and pipe.

Yeah, I don't do park stuff. I am just now thinking about starting to
do strait jumps, and I am pretty certain I will never be a part rat, got
that stuff out of my system years ago on skateboards. I'm thinking my Tanker is
going to be my all around freeride board, but I am going to play with the 170
Sasquach as well. Not sure where that puts Phoenix. I think it might be my
favorite tree board still, but it is hard to say. I suspect I have given myself to
many choices.

So yea I love to ride park/pipe. If the snow weren't so good, or if I
still rode on the east coast, I would be in the park/pipe most of the
time. While I really like the stability and the edgehold of the
Incline... I never really like it's stiffness or it's lively feel (both
the Madd and Tanker are damp boards). Again, I strongly suspect that's
because I'm a lighter rider and stuff tends to bounce me around more. I
liked the Phoenix a lot more... but I think I got too short a board
(should have gone for the 160cm because of the softer flex).

Yeah, the Phoenix rides short no question about it. I think I will just
to find
someone respectable to fix the edge damage and slight bubble on the
heelside,
and I am going to keep it. I suspect the heel side damage has something
to with my
problems pulling in tight arcs on the steeps, mostly just amplifying my
technique
problems. Anyone got recommendations if I want to be certain someone is
going kill my
board as opposed to repairing it?


If I had to pick just *one* board it would be the TT... but the Tanker
is pretty awesome... I would probably like it even more if I were a
bigger guy as board quality tends to go down hill once you go over
165cm. I'm not so big and pretty "medium" sized boards in general.

Yeah, as one of the bigger guy crowd, I find my choices a bit more
limited. The boards with a narrower waist aren't really an option, I have almost
forgotten that edge changes can be quicker at this point.

I have this obsessive desire to try everything I hear people talk about. I need to
beat this desire out of my system. Speaking of which, my Nidecker 800pros should
be here any day now.

--Matt

Yea, hopefully I'm coming out of tunnel now that I started five years
ago. It's all Mike T's fault... when I met him in 2000, I had been
riding the same model board for three years... and I heard about ALL
the board he had demo'd and how he finally decided that he like the
Doneks the best. I figured I had to go try out some boards myself...
but they are like potato chips... you can't just try one.

Heh, yeah, well you and Mike have a lot to with my quiver problems, so
Mike
continues to do his evil work, and you have unwittingly joined his
cause.
*Matt looks around at his Phoenix, Tanker, and Sasquach*

Unrelated topic but you mostly ride kirkwood right? I am seriously
thinking I am
going to get a seasonpass for kirkwood next year just because it is the
best
mountain with a reasonable season ticket price.


P.S. I really like my Nidecker 800 Pros and prefer them over Catek
Freerides, but then again I'm a smaller rider and all the bigger guys
like the power and adjustability of the Freerides compared to the damp
smoothness of the Nideckers.

Yeah, after hearing you talk about how damp there were, and finding an
XL pair
for $109 I decided to give them a spin. I really want to try the 900
pros, but 50%
off on the 800s was too good of a deal to pass up. I can't wait to
compare them to
my spx5s. I imagine I will soon join the "make everyone want more
equip than they
need" brigade.

--Matt, would still trade most of his quiver for more days on the hill.

Heh, yeah, well you and Mike have a lot to with my quiver problems, so
Mike
continues to do his evil work, and you have unwittingly joined his
cause.
*Matt looks around at his Phoenix, Tanker, and Sasquach*

Just don't try hard boots You'll really get it bad. Only 3/8 of my
quiver is softboot compatible.


--Matt, would still trade most of his quiver for more days on the hill.

Well, at least you have your priorities straight!

Scary thing is, aside from my "summer hiking board", none of my eight decks
goes for more than a few weeks without getting used!

Mike T



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Mike T wrote:
--Matt, would still trade most of his quiver for more days on the hill.

Well, at least you have your priorities straight!

Scary thing is, aside from my "summer hiking board", none of my eight decks
goes for more than a few weeks without getting used!


Yea, I still tell people my ponderings of moving to Portland area so I
can get year-around riding in. What do you use the FP for?

lonerider wrote:
Mike T wrote:
--Matt, would still trade most of his quiver for more days on the hill.

Well, at least you have your priorities straight!

Scary thing is, aside from my "summer hiking board", none of my eight decks
goes for more than a few weeks without getting used!


Yea, I still tell people my ponderings of moving to Portland area so I
can get year-around riding in. What do you use the FP for?

Yeah, that seems like a really good idea to be honest. I wonder if I
have any way to
convince my wife.

--Matt

Yea, I still tell people my ponderings of moving to Portland area so I
can get year-around riding in. What do you use the FP for?

Mostly for balance training! I am too big for that board, and under my
feet it has a microscopic sweet spot. I can't get my weight forward or I
stuff the nose. I can't get my weight back or it slides out from under me.
And it needs to be turned often so I am forced to be very precise about my
turns. Unlike the Madd Alpine 158 (full circle, almost - this is a Madd TT
158 thread...) - which can stretch out its turns nicely - the FP needs to
be turned tight or it chatters.

Mike T

P.S. Now that I live in Bend, it's either hiking or a 2.5 hour drive to get
summer riding. This summer should make for awesome hiking. Anyway, the
whole point of summer riding at TLine is park amd pipe and I suck too much
at both :/



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Yeah, that seems like a really good idea to be honest. I wonder if I
have any way to
convince my wife.

Portland is a fun, clean city. What does she do for a living?

Mike T



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Mike T wrote:
Yeah, that seems like a really good idea to be honest. I wonder if I
have any way to
convince my wife.

Portland is a fun, clean city. What does she do for a living?


She is actually a student right now. I guess it will depend on if my
company opens
an engineering office in portland. Then I just have to convince her
that the rain isn't
that much worse than the bay-area.

--Matt

She is actually a student right now. I guess it will depend on if my
company opens
an engineering office in portland. Then I just have to convince her
that the rain isn't
that much worse than the bay-area.

It's really not. Anyway, when it's raining in town, you'll be riding @
Hood!



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lonerider wrote:
A few days of riding it in several types of terrain and snow conditions
I have to say I'm liking my Madd TT board more than more. My very first
thought is the race base (waxed by Mike Santis PTC who some of you have
heard of) is *extremely* fast, I was already blazing on blues and it
took me a few runs to get use to the added speed on the steeps although
this was a super nice feature in the park and pipe as you could get
more speed and air without having to think about it.

Overall, the Madd TT is the board I've been looking for... from powder,
to groomers, to park and pipe... I was never thinking "oh... I wish I was
riding my..." etc. I have the Madd TT158 with the race base. It's a
twin tip with a nearly centered stance, for those people with more
freeride orientation, there is the Madd Freeride in a couple of sizes
(it's a medium wide board too).

Trying to rein the thread back to the original topic... review of the
Madd TT158 board. Time to put my movies where my mouth is... here are
some videos of me riding the TT two weeks ago. Google Video is having
issues, so I used youtube.com which is lower quality (I'll get them on
Google Video eventually).

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=lonerider68

Here is me popping off a small windlip and riding out the choppy snow
below... a nice example of the board's damp ride (I totally thought I
was going to rag-doll down the hill)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5HT9TireOw

Here is me taking a run through the pipe... the faster base and good
edge hold really helped me pick up some speed in a superpipe with a
slow flat area. I edited it out, but originally you can hear a girl ask
me about the condition of the pipe walls, do which I reply "very firm"
and chatting with her about that before taking my run (I didn't think
anyone would be interested in those dead 10 seconds).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4reNfnIXJvc

If you go to the first link, you can also see me drop a small cornice
(10-15 feet) and eat it on the landing. I did that drop a bunch of
times... but either my friend missed me (he guesses when I go over and
a bunch of the times the camera ran out of time before I started) or
only caught my landing... so I even included a "Hollywood edited"
version of the same drop (I considered filming a slow motion closeup of
my face like in the movies to splice in there).

Enjoy my mediocrity.