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nils
- Swoard founder
- Posts: 3043
- Joined: Friday 22 March 2002, 19:22
- Location: Lyon, France - Swoard team
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hi mike
well a good set up for what? For EC? for carving in general, or for alpine racing...
1-EC: wider alpine board, with good torsion stiffness but not too stiff in the flex. Bindings should be rather not too stiff compare to racing. Boots should have a spring that controls the front flex and frontal moves ( not the shell shall do that). Setup: rather small angles in the 55-48° range that allow more feet pressure on the edge. (allowed since the boards are wider)
2-Carving: any alpine board with hard set up
3-Racing: any stiff board with stiff bindings aka cateks, bomber, phokkias or emery race. Boots shall be very stiff too. Helmet is good too
EC or laid carving can be performed with the racing set up, but the low angles don't allow fully laid backside turns usually, and EC is more tricky that way too .
Choose your weapon, but remember its all about having fun
nils
1-EC: wider alpine board, with good torsion stiffness but not too stiff in the flex. Bindings should be rather not too stiff compare to racing. Boots should have a spring that controls the front flex and frontal moves ( not the shell shall do that). Setup: rather small angles in the 55-48° range that allow more feet pressure on the edge. (allowed since the boards are wider)
2-Carving: any alpine board with hard set up
3-Racing: any stiff board with stiff bindings aka cateks, bomber, phokkias or emery race. Boots shall be very stiff too. Helmet is good too
EC or laid carving can be performed with the racing set up, but the low angles don't allow fully laid backside turns usually, and EC is more tricky that way too .
Choose your weapon, but remember its all about having fun
nils
Boots: two things matter: fit and flex. Fit depends entirely on your feet, so I can't recommend anything in this regard. I like the flex of the Raichle 324 (I think they call the same boot the 423 this year), and the AF600 seemed OK but I only used those a little bit as the fit was no good for my feet.
I haven't tried UPS boots, but I'm tempted. I haven't tried Head/Blax either, but I know almost nothing about them.
Bindings: Bomber Trench Diggers. See www.bomberonline.com. I started with the regular bindings but recently switched to Bomber step-ins and I think I prefer the SIs but it's too soon to say for sure. Can't go wrong with either though.
Catek step-ins (www.catek.com) are probably just as good (haven't used them myself), but I was not fond of the bails on the older Cateks. Dunno about the bails on the new ones.
Far as I know, everything else on the market will eventually break. The F2 Intec Titanflex might be almost as strong, but I can't speak from personal experience.
Boards: There are sooooo many choices. You can wait for a Swoard, or you can get a custom shop like Coiler or Prior or Donek or CustomCraft to build a board for you (I *love* my Coiler), or you can find a production board that's close to what you want.
But in any case, first you have to figure out what you want... There are basically four major things too look for in a board: length, waist width, sidecut radius, and flex. What you want depends on you... how tall are you, what do you weigh, and how big are your feet?
Have a look at https://www.extremecarving.com/tech/set.html for some ideas on body measurements vs. board measurements.
Waist width: Get a board with a waist that will suit your boot size and whatever stance angles you choose.
Length: Well, how tall are you?
Sidecut: J&P use 13 meters and who can argue with their videos? I have a board with a 12.8 sidecut and I like it a lot (I wanted 13, but this 1.5% difference worked better for the guy who built my board). I also have one with a 10m sidecut and while it works ok it's not as fun. I'm pondering 11.5m for my next board though, for more maneuverability... I don't have wide-open slopes all to myself often enough.
Flex: very few manufacturers give measurements for this (and as far as I know, none of the big mass-producers do), so you basically just have to ask around.
This is only scratching the surface... If I had to suggest specific products, it would be: Raichle 423, Bomber SIs, Coiler custom board. That works for me. But, I think you're better off learning more first, so that you can make your own choices and get what will work best for you.
Don't buy cheaper bindings though, unless you know of a few people who have used them a lot without breaking them. I bought cheap bindings four times before I figured out that expensive bindings were worth every penny. It would have cost me a lot less to buy Bombers first, because then I'd only have bought once.
I haven't tried UPS boots, but I'm tempted. I haven't tried Head/Blax either, but I know almost nothing about them.
Bindings: Bomber Trench Diggers. See www.bomberonline.com. I started with the regular bindings but recently switched to Bomber step-ins and I think I prefer the SIs but it's too soon to say for sure. Can't go wrong with either though.
Catek step-ins (www.catek.com) are probably just as good (haven't used them myself), but I was not fond of the bails on the older Cateks. Dunno about the bails on the new ones.
Far as I know, everything else on the market will eventually break. The F2 Intec Titanflex might be almost as strong, but I can't speak from personal experience.
Boards: There are sooooo many choices. You can wait for a Swoard, or you can get a custom shop like Coiler or Prior or Donek or CustomCraft to build a board for you (I *love* my Coiler), or you can find a production board that's close to what you want.
But in any case, first you have to figure out what you want... There are basically four major things too look for in a board: length, waist width, sidecut radius, and flex. What you want depends on you... how tall are you, what do you weigh, and how big are your feet?
Have a look at https://www.extremecarving.com/tech/set.html for some ideas on body measurements vs. board measurements.
Waist width: Get a board with a waist that will suit your boot size and whatever stance angles you choose.
Length: Well, how tall are you?
Sidecut: J&P use 13 meters and who can argue with their videos? I have a board with a 12.8 sidecut and I like it a lot (I wanted 13, but this 1.5% difference worked better for the guy who built my board). I also have one with a 10m sidecut and while it works ok it's not as fun. I'm pondering 11.5m for my next board though, for more maneuverability... I don't have wide-open slopes all to myself often enough.
Flex: very few manufacturers give measurements for this (and as far as I know, none of the big mass-producers do), so you basically just have to ask around.
This is only scratching the surface... If I had to suggest specific products, it would be: Raichle 423, Bomber SIs, Coiler custom board. That works for me. But, I think you're better off learning more first, so that you can make your own choices and get what will work best for you.
Don't buy cheaper bindings though, unless you know of a few people who have used them a lot without breaking them. I bought cheap bindings four times before I figured out that expensive bindings were worth every penny. It would have cost me a lot less to buy Bombers first, because then I'd only have bought once.