Why spraying snow about?

[Stevenio]

Hi guys, awsome style!

One thing's been bothering me: while carving is believed to be a style where rider cruises along with the board leaving pencil-thin marks on utherwise undisturbed snow, your videos consiistently show huge amounts of spray throughout each curve. Does that mean that some skidding does occur and edge grip has space for improvement?

Blue skies, white snow

Steve

[rilliet]

Hi Steve,

I know these huge roostertails seem very strange.
This happens because the board is perpendicular to the snow (so that the snow spray can freely squirt up) and because of the huge edge-to-snow pressure supported by the Swoard thanks to the ATC Matrix.

This phenomenon happens in any snow condition (soft snow to ice) and doesn't really depends on the edge behaviour (carving or skidding).

This makes people believe we are always riding in perfect total hero snow, but it's not so. In example, most of our last movie STOKED has been made on very hard icy snow (it hadn't been snowing for about 2 months!).


Jacques

[fivat]

One sees the phenomena very well here:



Clearly the turn is carved, and I can tell you it was beacause it's my legs .
There is no skidding at all.
It's impressive to see:
- how well the nose works (especially shaped for EC)
- the way the snow is sprayed vertically.

Now the marks on the snow are not pencil-thin (the picture doesn't show it here). Indeed, in EC when the body is completely laid, one touches the snow slightly with the boots (toes or heels). On the toeside, there are even the bindings levers that can touch the slope.
But well, it depends on the hardness of the snow. On very hard or iced snow, the marks are thinner because the board doesn't go deeply in the snow, and the boots only carress the slope (if you have a wide board!)

Patrice Fivat

[Stevenio]

thanks for being ready to explain. one more thing: how hard the boot-binding combination is preferred. i have boots softer that RACE (SB324). so i've been thinking about what bindings will do best. the choice is Intec Titanflex or Race Titanium. is there really big pressure on bindings? and won't the flexible elements in Titanflex be adding unwelcome softness?

Steve

[vkrouverk]

I would not recommend Titanflex binding for extreme carving: it has quite high plastic disc under the binding (1 cm IIRC) and although it won't probably break, it will add unnecessary height to binding anyway. So from these 2 Race Titanium binding is probably better.
Additionally I recall from somewhere in this forum that Intec bindings are laterally too stiff for extreme carving and this would leave out Intec Titanium binding, which is stiffest (Intec and overall) model in F2 products.

[rilliet]

I don't know the Titanflex, but I'have seen the f2 race titanium. This one should be perfect for extremecarving.

Jacques

[Stevenio]

why not have a slightly raised binding like the Titanflex?
my concern about it is mostly the flex it adds due to the elastic padding. do you normally want this flex or not? that is the question!

[vkrouverk]

If you look at F2 homepage (http://www.f2-snow.com/ and from there on) then you can see from binding descriptions that Race Titanium and Titanflex have same flex, both longitudional and side (5 from 6 possible). If you read french, then look at this page:
viewtopic.php?t=406&start=15
where there is discussion about phiokkia bindings and bindings in general (as much as I could gather from my limited french). In particular, Rilliet writes in his message from Mon Nov 03, 2003 8:36 am (on indicated page) that bindings should have as less elevation as possible, as higher bindings lessen balance and require more force from rider (hopefully my French is not so rusty, that I got it absolutely wrong . And if I got, then hopefully someone with better knowledge will correct me here)
On the other hand: I personally tried F2 Intec Titanflex bindings with Conshox (so total height of boots was 1 cm + 0.8 cm) and found it not very awkward (of course this was my first ride(s) with real carving board and rides were not extreme carving ones by any means, so this doesn't mean anything )

[Bobby Buggs]

I have Both Titanflex and Titanium, I prefer the Titanium. But then again My arm pits dont get much time on the snow here in New England.

http://www.evilsports.com

[Stevenio]

why do you prefer Titanium? be more specific please. you will help a lot in choosing. the Flex seems to be a good idea; moreover, since the declared flex parameters are the same why do they show different performance?

thanks

[Bobby Buggs]

As our gracefull EC riders have said closer to the board is better. That base plate is Unnecessary. I also didnt like the bails on the titianflex, they are a different set up from the titanium. The Titanium is rock solid with little to fail.

[Stevenio]

Bobby Buggs:

thanks. i'll probably go for them too. how much are thay in US?. they go for 152 euros in Moscow.

[ablazespy]

103,- euro in the Netherlands!!!!!!!!!

[Stevenio]

aaaaa you guys are lucky! but you are close to the source. let's see what the yunkees say. they probably are worse off.

[Stevenio]

Yeah, that's right. Our guys here got access to the last year's stock, so the Race Titaniums came in quite cheap. Compared to this year's Titaniums, which are the same, but have a molded plastic piece over steel plate. I love the older ones (for that money) )