Timeless

So after my last post on the subject of my new board provoked some possibly unfounded criticism of M3, I thought I'd share some direct comparisons having spent a day comparing the two side by side: The boards are a Ride Timeless 164 and an M3 Discord 158.5, the conditions were patchy (but quite typical for this area) Surprisingly the Ride is lighter despite it's extra length, the bindings were different (Ride EX's against T9 Dominators on the old board), but very similar in weight so the difference is down to the board and you could really feel it. The M3 was faster at the start of each run, this may be due to the Ride being new and the M3 being waxed more but the Ride coped just aswell with the flat sections and would seem to glide on the slightest of slopes so I would have to conclude that it was more to do with shape or contact area. The Ride coped MUCH better with the fast icy sections (there were lots of these) and seemed to be able to edge much better, it was also much quieter while carving across the "hardpack". Initiating a turn was much quicker on the M3 (deeper sidecut (, shorter edge?)) Despite feeling softer, the ride had more "spring", I think the more cool, younger community on here would call it "pop" and hence was much easier to get airborne. Overall I would have to say that the Ride is better, but that for an improving intermediate like me, the difference was not as big as I expected given the "M3 is junk" type comments. I won't be retiring the M3 just yet, don't judge them too quickly just because the (ex)owner of the company has a taste for oriental dressings.

As a CB local and not a park oriented snowboarder I thought I'd post a few thoughts on Creek having spent the afternoon and early evening there yesterday. 1) The conditions were about as bad as I've ridden on in 2 years (>50days across PA and VT), lots of trails closed (some with no snow on them at all!), the open ones icy and scraped off with big dark patches and the odd rock showing. 2) There were no liftlines, we stayed mostly on the south "mountain" and could ride onto the quads with no wait all day/evening. 3) There were too many hopelessly bad skiers / riders on blue / black runs that were way beyond them. 4) The place feels very big and could expand to many more trails if they wanted to, but they seem to have very little snowmaking facilities away from the showpiece park/pipes so this is not going to happen. 5) The trails feel long and have nice pitch variation ond "features", they make good use of the vertical feet they have, which is much more than CB. 6) The park features are amazingly diverse and well looked after, I tried my first (ever) real jump on a mini-park on the side of south peak (and managed to both clear the table top and land it ). This is obviously MC's main strength and focus (though absolutely not mine). 7) The base area and carparking was good, decent facilities and evrything close at hand. Overall I had a good afternoon, but came away wondering how good the place could be if they had the snowmaking facilities to really cover the acreage they have reliably.

Update on Skis.com, they gave me a $20 refund to cover the cost of any repair.

I'll be at Killy with a bunch of skiers from work on the 4th/5th March.

if you've ridden one, and can usefully compare it against other boards then this is useful. If you haven't then, well you said it..... you are correct, they were run from another investor, though the riders still didn't have any control. Blaise R (cleverly in my opinion) formed his own company (cold sports distribution) to market the products without having any stake in the M3 brand. In doing so he built the team which he can now take with him to M4 (through Elan) without any legal wrangling over the old company. What happens to M3 now is anyones guess. It'll be interesting to see how they compare on the snow, the discord has been a solid first board for me, it's taken an awful lot of crap from me during my first years and still looks and rides well (IMO). I hope I am as pleased with the new one in 2 years time.

Anyone on here have good understanding of who owns who? Not just Forum but any of the major brands. Doesn't K2 own the known universe?

So I finally bit the bullet and ordered a new board. Given that I wanted a fast free-ride board to ride with my mostly skiing friends I went for the 164 Ride Timeless (05-06 model). I had read the review and was expecting this to be really stiff compared to my current M3 Discord (more free-style). So having bolted on the bindings and doing a little indoor test (bouncing around the family room floor), it seems to be way softer than my M3 which made me wonder if the M3 is really incredibly stiff or is the timeless less so than I had heard. Anyone else ridden either of these as a comparison to their boards? It was an interesting comparison for me and now I can't wait to try the new one out on the snow. Final note : while I am a big fan of mail order, the place I got this from (ski's.com, aka summitonline.com) cannot be recommended. The packaging it came in was laughable and it has a big scratch in the base that looks like it didn't happen in transit. I got it for a good price, but not a good online experience. On the other hand, Sierrasnowboards.com. great service, great price on the new (Ride) bindings and a free board bag. All well packed and delivered as promised, highly recommended.

too much travelling, especially in the winter when it get's in the way of boarding. I do have a ton of miles with AA which I'm hoping to use for a ski-trip. It would be kinda cool to ski in the desert, but we don't have any customers in UAE (yet). What I really want is a customer in Breckenridge....

Hi all working in China again this week so thought I would check out the snowdome. it must have all of 200 ft of vert, really odd man made snow (like really granular), horrible step in rentals (or worse, skis). It was 100RMB / hr (about 12 bucks) and they even had some small jumps and a couple of boxes setup. I bought 2 hours, rode in jeans (not clever) had an absolute ball, riding with some chinese from work who had never been before (too expensive for most locals). for anyone that's ever been here, they have worse etiquette on the snow than when they are driving, I can now see why CB is so bad at the weekends. Well off to sleep now, happy 'cos I didn't think i'd get a snow fix in Shanghai. Can't decide if I shjould try and work out the vert / runs.

Go to belleayre, more vertical, better terrain, better snow conditions and ................ ski free on your birthday

From opening 'til around 10.30-11 it's fine, after that it just goes downhill through the day, I don't know when it starts to thin out again. They wont be blowing during the day at the weekend because they feel the need to close trails they are blowing on and they want to have all trails open at the weekends. Conditions this morning were really nice on the east side where they have been blowing recently, the weekend should be pretty good.

Can any of you burton fan's out there tell me if the three hole mouting is compatible with a "normal" 2*4 board? I'm thinking of getting some cartel's for my new board (Ride), overcoming my unfounded prejudice towards burton gear. Any opinions on cartels as a mid level binding? any alternative suggestions? I'm looking for response, aimed at fast free-riding rather than park/pipe. Thanks

The cold (enough to blow) weather will only last until early march. If they want to stay open until late march / early april then they will have to put down a significant base once the temps allow. If they really don't care how long they can stay open and are looking forward to opening c-beach again, they will just blow sporadically to keep the "100% open" tag, even if the snow cover and conditions are patchy. I think they have done an awesome job of scraping along with the base they put down in december and as a business they must be quite pleased with themselves. However, their claim of 24-52" base looks a little sketchy when you cross bactrian on the lift.

On the odd days that CB has any snow, Pharaoh + bactrian. Raceway is awesome, but too short, if there was a better way onto it than the scraped off trail only slightly wider than a footpath it would be awesome. Best run would be if they somehow opened the trees that link between Pharaoh and raceway Big Pocono too ( again snow dependent) Nile can always be relied on, lots of variation and nice edges to play on.

Camelback don't seem to be interested in restoring their much depleted base, they've only blown snow on 4 or 5 runs this week and then only a small amount, are the temp's / humidty not good for it or are they just trying to get by with what they have? Is anyone/anywhere else blowing much?

Not heard of, or suffered from your toe-strap problem before, but my boots have suede-like bits around the toes that the toe-strap really grips to, could it be that you foot is too far back in the binding? can you pull the heel cup forward a bit? I find it helps with the ratchet release (if it's stuck) if you kinda pull the "tighten" lever a bit as you release it, sort of squeezing the two "levers" together if that makes any sense. They do loosen a bit with use though. Anything would feel light and responsive after them flows......

I would consider myself an intermediate boarder, the black still hold some challenge for me, but I'm comfortable enough to ride them withoutany risk to myself or anyone around me, but whilst I agree with your original point, you can't expect the mountain to do anything about it, it's just revenue for them and it would be too difficult to enforce this kind of control. There is nothing you can do about idiots that don't know their limitations, no matter where they might be. At CB on sunday I was taken out as I was following my daughter down a blue trail at CB, some jerk in a football jacket and jeans (no gloves, no hat, no goggles) in the standard "loosely guided pizza" formation comes arm waving down the trail behind us, loses a ski, veers rapidly sideways into the back of my legs. My head (in my recently purchased helmet) hit the "hardpack" hard enough for me to see stars, I don't doubt that without the helmet I would have been at best unconcious. The guy retrieves his ski, says "hey did you see that? this is awsome" Needless to say, my response was not polite.

B' Bunny Congrat's on the T9's if they work as well for you as my dominator pro's you will love them. The cap strap solved all my previous numb-toe issues from over-tightening my previous (Link) bindings. Mine fit well with my old salomon boots, and just as well with my new Ride ("amp") ones. The only flaw with the t9's is the buckles don't always release easily. Metz, Don't go with the flow's.....

And stab you when you don't notice the trees approaching

Why not, it would be agreat way to keep your ski-legs in shape and work on that steeze.

Managed to get up to CB last night for a couple of hours, conditions were great (considering the weather recently), even the more popular trails like Nile were not scraped off and the surface conditions generally were very good. All the trails were open and it was very quiet, mostly just school clubs, it was basically a ride-on to the quads all night. It's good to be back.

The lift capacity of 18+k /hr should keep the 12 or so trails (top to bottom runs, rather than the 33 claimed) full of at least a couple of hundred people, many more when you factor in the split between expert and noob trails. or insist that people fit tennis balls over those nasty sharp ski pole tips.

It had nothing to do with safety, it was a purely financial decision, anyone that thinks otherwise is deluded. They announced the closure not when it was "glazing over" but when there was no wind and light flurries (I live within a few miles of the hill). It makes (business) sense for them to try and preserve the base they have for the days when they can get maximum return on it.

If you like long lift lines and slow lifts... I like Blue and CB, but if I had to choose one, it would be in the pocono's.

yes, but they have your money already.... Assuming that Ass' is the same as from the CB board, I think he is an employee, which may explain his defensiveness, but it's scary to hear the "we have you money so it doesn't matter what you think" attitude from him if that's true. Ass' I agree with everything you said from a business perspective, season pass holders are not going to provide much cashflow compared to the NJ/NY hoards that come for weekends, it is a business and their priority is profit, simple as that.