Donek Pheonix opinions.

Ah. Thanks for explaining that. What I meant to say then, was that I will
get it sharpened at 1 degree instead of it's current factory 0 degree.

If you'll indulge me further, what's a die edge and a base edge? Am I
correct in thinking 1 base/2 edge would give you this shape /----\ whereas
1 base/0 side would give you this shape \----/? Also is 'side' the same as
'die' edge in your description.

Don't remember seeing any of this in the FAQ but I'll check.


"die" is a typo, I meant to type "side". Wrong entry selected on my
spellchecker.

Tognar illustrates all of this he
http://www.tognar.com/edge_tips_file...snowboard.html



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Octessence wrote:

If you'll indulge me further, what's a die edge and a base edge? Am I
correct in thinking 1 base/2 edge would give you this shape /----\
whereas 1 base/0 side would give you this shape \----/? Also is 'side'
the same as 'die' edge in your description.

I've never heard the term "die" edge. The base bevel is the angle of
the snow side of the steel edge in relation to the base. So 1 degree
means that the steel slopes away from the base (towards the topsheet) by
1 degree.

The side bevel is the amount the side of the steel edge angles away. If
it is a low number like 1 or 2, that means it is 1 or 2 degrees off of
vertical, towards the inside of the board. If it is a big number like
89 or 88, then that is the measure of the angle included by the base and
the side edge. So a 1 degree side bevel and an 89 degree side bevel are
the same thing, just measured from different perspectives.

If you have a 1 degree base bevel combined with a 1 (89) degree side
bevel, then the two sides of the steel edge form a 90 degree angle but
the whole thing is rotated a degree away from the snow. If you have a 1
degree base bevel and a 2 (88) degree side bevel, then the sides of the
steel edge form an 89 degree angle, rotated 1 degree from the snow. A
bigger side bevel gives more bite, but makes a more fragile, difficult
to maintain edge. Many racers will use a 2 or 3 degree side bevel but
then they don't care if their equipment lasts for hundreds of on-snow
days.

I suppose theoretically you could have a side bevel of -1 (91) or
something like that, which would make the steel edge have an angle
bigger than 90 degrees. There would be no point to that (and not much
of an edge, either. Ba-dum-bump. Thanks, I'm here all week.)

If this isn't in the FAQ, feel free to add it Dave.

Neil

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
Octessence wrote:


If you'll indulge me further, what's a die edge and a base edge? Am I
correct in thinking 1 base/2 edge would give you this shape /----\
whereas 1 base/0 side would give you this shape \----/? Also is 'side'
the same as 'die' edge in your description.


I've never heard the term "die" edge. The base bevel is the angle of
the snow side of the steel edge in relation to the base. So 1 degree
means that the steel slopes away from the base (towards the topsheet) by
1 degree.

The side bevel is the amount the side of the steel edge angles away. If
it is a low number like 1 or 2, that means it is 1 or 2 degrees off of
vertical, towards the inside of the board. If it is a big number like
89 or 88, then that is the measure of the angle included by the base and
the side edge. So a 1 degree side bevel and an 89 degree side bevel are
the same thing, just measured from different perspectives.

If you have a 1 degree base bevel combined with a 1 (89) degree side
bevel, then the two sides of the steel edge form a 90 degree angle but
the whole thing is rotated a degree away from the snow. If you have a 1
degree base bevel and a 2 (88) degree side bevel, then the sides of the
steel edge form an 89 degree angle, rotated 1 degree from the snow. A
bigger side bevel gives more bite, but makes a more fragile, difficult
to maintain edge. Many racers will use a 2 or 3 degree side bevel but
then they don't care if their equipment lasts for hundreds of on-snow days.

I suppose theoretically you could have a side bevel of -1 (91) or
something like that, which would make the steel edge have an angle
bigger than 90 degrees. There would be no point to that (and not much
of an edge, either. Ba-dum-bump. Thanks, I'm here all week.)

If this isn't in the FAQ, feel free to add it Dave.

Neil

Thanks, that's a good explanation. I understand now.

So what do shops do when you just hand over your board without telling
them what you want? Will they just resharpen it to the same specs, or
will they do what they think is best for the type of board you have.

Also, is this stuff easy to do yourself without screwing up? Also does
it take long? I'd rather pay someone 5EUR than have to sit grinding for
an hour.

Octessence wrote:

Thanks, that's a good explanation. I understand now.

So what do shops do when you just hand over your board without telling
them what you want? Will they just resharpen it to the same specs, or
will they do what they think is best for the type of board you have.

Also, is this stuff easy to do yourself without screwing up? Also does
it take long? I'd rather pay someone 5EUR than have to sit grinding for
an hour.

Yep, that was me doing the nosepress and recommending it to you a few
months back. I still recommend it highly. My comment about the sidecut
radius is just a personal preference. While I don't consider myself a
speed demon, I guess I do like to carve big fast turns and while I've
found the Phoenix to be a rockstar in the park/pipe and on intermediate
slopes... when I'm charging down some steeps... it isn't as confident
as some of my other boards... I think though that my opinion has me
biased now that I've ridden long, stable alpine boards that are over
170cm long and can carve better than any traditional freeride/freestyle
board. I was thinking that a long sidecut might have helped things a
bit though.

1/1 will barely reduce you ice grip at all. If anything it will let you
feel more comfortable on the icy as the board will be more forgiving
when manuevering on the ice with 0/0 you got from flatboard to full ice
grip with a mere thought... good for racing, perhaps a little too
"touchy" for most regular riders.

95% of shops will do 1/1 by default, about 50% of them will do it even
if you ask for something specific like 1/2. Waxing a board is very
easy, takes 10-15 minutes and is pretty hard to screw up (just don't
heat the base so much that that you can feel the other side of the
board get hot). Edges I would strongly recommend letting someone who
knows what they are doing to do it.

Edges I would strongly recommend letting someone who
knows what they are doing to do it.

Agreed.

If you want to learn on your own - best way is to have a "rock board",
either a board you've ridden the snot out of or a beater you've bough used
for very little money. Practice, practice, practice on the beater board.
When you get decent enough at edges such that you've rejuvenated a rock
board... you're ready to work on a good board. Work on beat-up edges is
much more challenging than working on new ones.


Mike T



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lonerider wrote:
Octessence wrote:

So what do shops do when you just hand over your board without telling
them what you want?

**** it up, typically. Best if you find a shop that knows what they're
about. Ask around, especially knowledgeable skiers - most snowboarders
don't know and don't care about tuning.

Will they just resharpen it to the same specs

More likely they'll just grind it flat.

Also, is this stuff easy to do yourself without screwing up? Also does
it take long? I'd rather pay someone 5EUR than have to sit grinding for
an hour.

Waxing is easy - get yourself a waxing iron (an old travel iron with no
holes, or you can buy a commercial one for the cost of two wax jobs),
melt wax onto the base, melt it in with the iron, let cool, scrape off,
done. You can get more complex than that with structure and brushing
and yadayada but for all-purpose riding hot wax and scrape works just fine.

Edge filing is not so bad if you have a good tool, but the base bevel is
better done by a good shop unless you're fairly competant with tools and
have a steady hand. A base bevel once applied only needs touching up
now and again.

1/1 will barely reduce you ice grip at all. If anything it will let you
feel more comfortable on the icy as the board will be more forgiving
when manuevering on the ice with 0/0 you got from flatboard to full ice
grip with a mere thought... good for racing, perhaps a little too
"touchy" for most regular riders.

I agree - a flat base is way more noticable/problematic in hard, icy
conditions. That's when you really want a little bevel. In soft
conditions bevel doesn't matter much.

95% of shops will do 1/1 by default, about 50% of them will do it even
if you ask for something specific like 1/2.

I'd say 50% of them will just run it through the grinder and say "huh?"
when you ask about bevel.

Neil

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
lonerider wrote:
My one gripe is that I find the 8m sidecut to be a little too tight. It's fine in
the park, but when I want to hit some fast groomers, I find the board
tries to whip into a really tight arc, one that even it's excellent
edge hold is hard pressed to do. I would suggest making the 155 to have
a SCR of like 8.2.

How are you going to tell the difference between 8 and 8.2? If you're
wanting to hit fast groomers, a 155 cm freestyle board is just the wrong
tool.

Neil

I'm just comparing the board to other 155ish boards I've ridden and
taking into account the nature of a 155 freestyle/freeride board as it
would be silly to compare it's carving ability to an alpine board
(would be like comparing a jeep to a motorcycle).

I'm not sure about you, but I can easily tell .3-.5m differences in
sidecut radius for a 155ish board. Stiffness is another factor, my
Salomon Definition 156 had a 8.1m SCR radius but was very stiff... so
it was more stable and had better edge hold than my Donek Incline 155
with a 8.38m SCR... and both are noticeably better on fast groomers
than the Phoenix.

While I wouldn't want the Phoenix to be stiffer, you could compensate
with a slightly longer SCR... perhaps in the 8.5m range, but I know
most people like a shorter sidecut for freestyle riding so I tried to
average it out. Still the Phoenix is a way better carver than my old
Neversummer Evo 155 (previous park board). Madd Snowboards has a
Twin-tip 158 with an 8.5m sidecut that I hopefully will get a chance to
try out. Someone is also hooking me up with a Rad-Air Reto Lamm LSD 156
(9m SCR) to try out.

lonerider wrote:

I'm not sure about you, but I can easily tell .3-.5m differences in
sidecut radius for a 155ish board. Stiffness is another factor, my
Salomon Definition 156 had a 8.1m SCR radius but was very stiff... so
it was more stable and had better edge hold than my Donek Incline 155
with a 8.38m SCR... and both are noticeably better on fast groomers
than the Phoenix.

Stiffness, sidecut and flex pattern all work together, and I think it's
hard to seperate them when you're judging between two different boards.
If you had demoed two Incline 155s with slightly different radii, I
don't think you could have told the difference.

Neil

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
lonerider wrote:

I'm not sure about you, but I can easily tell .3-.5m differences in
sidecut radius for a 155ish board. Stiffness is another factor, my
Salomon Definition 156 had a 8.1m SCR radius but was very stiff... so
it was more stable and had better edge hold than my Donek Incline 155
with a 8.38m SCR... and both are noticeably better on fast groomers
than the Phoenix.

Stiffness, sidecut and flex pattern all work together, and I think it's
hard to seperate them when you're judging between two different boards.
If you had demoed two Incline 155s with slightly different radii, I
don't think you could have told the difference.

Neil

Heh, it's like your are reading my mind, but not my words. Since you
can see above that I took into account that stiffness and SCR work
together (hence why a very stiff 8.1m board is more stable than a stiff
8.38m board). I also wrote:


While I wouldn't want the Phoenix to be stiffer, you could compensate
with a slightly longer SCR...


So yes, I agree that stiffness, sidecut, and flex pattern all work
together. What I was saying is that I want to keep the stiffness and
flex pattern roughly the same, but still make the board have a wider,
more stable "default" carving arc in the snow. I don't need it to be a
drastic change, but I'm sure changing from 8.0 to even 8.3 would be
noticeable (subtle but noticeable). Mike T actually has the a version
of the Phoenix 155 with a 8.5 SCR.

lonerider wrote:
After half a season, I have very similar experiences with my Donek
Phoenix 155. It is a joy to ride park and pipe with. I added a 1/1
bevel and so spins (180s,360s) are pretty smooth (you have to be near
perfect with 0/0 and I spin like a half-filled water-bottle).

I got it changed to 1/1 this weekend after the first day. I couldn't
believe the difference it made. I love the board even more now.

Don't know whether it was the board, but I managed my first fs 360 and
my first kinked rail - 50/50 to bs lipslide). Woohoo.

Octes