method9455

Eventually I will get a picture up here of my binding that failed. I broke the toe strap on friday, and then the heelstrap & highback on monday. Within 3 days of riding I went from a perfectly fine binding to a box of pieces. I had about 45 days on it, all park riding. I had previously broken the toe strap 2-3 times. The trees are hit or miss, some of them are do able, some of them are not. I would consider challenge not-doable but Mad Tree and under the lift line doable, depending on how much you like your board. A little more snow would be good. Conditions on trail where excellent, I was at Blue, Belleayre, and Jack Frost this weekend and Jack Frost was MUCH better, which suprised me because Belleayre is usually good. Belleayre was mixed, Blue was boilerplate, but Jack Frost was beautiful.

I think the flow from the top to the wall ride/big jump is great. Then its kind of the staircase on its own, then the cement mixer on its own, and then the mini park. The only thing is that if you blow one of the jumps in the jump line you might have to skip all of them. I found if I was on the bigger ramp line and I screwed up I could still take the smaller ramp side, but if I was on the small side and lost a lot of speed I was done. Thats why I was looking for an easy box to replace the swingset box there, in case you are missing out on the jump line. Up top, that first right rail is hard for snowboarders but I was doing the first middle box to the right rail for the 2nd hit, and falling on the box sometimes, and making it. No headwind at the time though, that could slow you down enough to make it impossibe. I wax pretty often too. The worst flow for me was the end of Come Around those last two rails, I hit one and had to practically land in a full stop to slow down enough for the 2nd, but I didn't feel that was the case with Sidewinder. I found mount snow used to be very much like that, everything real cramped up and it didn't feel great. This year they put less in and spaced it out more, it was a LOT more fun. Sometimes more is not everything.

I think going pro is when you get paid to ride for a company. If you are just getting free/discounted gear & getting money from winning comps then you are still amateur, although a good one.

It does sound like you are stopping your head. Keep looking over your shoulder the whole way. If you run out of time and hit the ground while spinning, you need a bigger jump, if you stop your spin mid air then you turns your head or your shoulders and opened up. You are going to keep looking over you shoulder and the landing will disappear for a moment and then you will see it again at about 270 and then just straighten it out and ride away.

Thats a great picture right there. Probably no one was hitting it because no one is creative they're just spin spin spin guys.

We did go to JF today and it was great, the features are all a lot more buried than the last time I was there, there where 3 flat boxes for her, and they also made his/hers ramps on the 3rd table so there was a jump for her as well. Crowds where fairly good for a day like today, I bet BB was much worse, so it worked out real well. We had a great time, one of our best days this year. Except I shattered my bindings into several pieces, but that is a story for another thread.

I think they have a flat rail that is sponsored by flow

It sure seems that way. Last year Janes Lane was one, but I was complaining about wasting a good free riding trail for that the whole time so I am glad they moved it, except they moved it into not existing. I was thinking they should take Frosty or one of the other green bunny slopes at JF and just put up a ride on flat box, a flat box with a 4" gap, a small flat down-box, and a mini table top. Thats all you need. It is free for us at JFBB so we're going there, but I am jealous of Mountain Creek at the moment - their beginner park Current Feature List: From the Top of South Chair down Canyon: 8'x2' Progression Flat Box 8'x2' Progression Flat Box 16'x2' Progreession Mellow Kink Box 16'x2' Progression Flat Box 20' Fat Bob Low Flat Rail 8' tall spine w/ 10' long Mailbox on top Mini Table Top Mini Table Top Mini Table Top That would be great, but I'm not paying $65 per person on a day when the crowds are going to be INSANE. Maybe we will go on a non-holiday if she does ok with the park tomorrow.

Look mom no toe straps! Dude I totally invented this last week, by accident. My Burton Missions's toe straps broke AGAIN which is no exaggeration the 5TH time, so I just took them off and have been riding with only heel straps since. It works just as well.

Hes probably back tracking so that he doesn't get fired.

I'm heading up on Monday to ride the park with someone who has never ridden park before. I'm trying to decide between JF and BB. Last time I was up was early January so the setups have changed. They don't list what is on JF, but last time I was there they had two flat boxes that where setup pretty easy so I was thinking we could hike that for a bit. But they also changed up BB and I'm wondering how it would be for people new to the park? Freedom doesn't sound all that easy, except for a mini battleship and a 25' flat box. What does it look like in person?

Bullshit, one of the kids from my high school is up at Stratton as an instructor - he was not even in the ten best riders from our school, and we don't even have a lot of good riders at our school. We had about 10 serious riders, and he was #11. When I was up at Mount Snow I had a great instructor, spent several hours of one on one coaching time with him, and learned more than I've learned in years. I was asking him how he got into being an instructor, and he was telling me how when he started he was not even a decent snowboarder but as he progressed what he could coach progressed and now hes their go-to guy for the most advanced lessons. Being an instructor doesn't mean you are good, and thats in Vermont. You can't tell me that being an instructor at any of the podunk mountains in the Poconos is a prestigious title that separates those who can ski & ride from those that don't. Not only is that arrogant but it is small minded. I'm sure your hardcore instruction job doesn't give you much time to travel, but get out more and you will see that anyone can be an expert rider in PA the mountains are just not hard enough. Where are the chutes at Blue? Where are the glades? Where are the cliffs? You don't have that stuff, so basically you are king of the steep, middle length groomed trail. Congratulations. And "groomed" is being generous, I have not seen a trail as bad as Razors Edge and Challenge were on Friday in about 2 years, it was brutally bad. I realize there where crowds scraping down them in droves, but that was bad. As for ski team owning the mountain. Grow up, racing brings some money to the mountain - but how many more people came up and where stoked over the park? The park brings much much more money to the mountain than racing does. A certain number of people come up and pay extra to race, and a certain number of people come up solely for the park. Lets generously say that number is even, which is definately is not. So 100 racers makes more for the mountain than 100 park riders with season passes. Even then, the mountain still has more interest in the park being good than the racing course being good. Why? Because it is what attracts new people to the sport. How many kids see the olympics on TV and say "Mommy I want to race!" compared to the number that see the X Games and say they want to learn to snowboard to do THAT. The park is what is keeping the sport alive. So sure the racers get their closed trails for safety reasons, but there is a reason the mountain is investing more into the park every year, and not into building another racing trail. So get off your high horse, at some point you guys trashing the park is worse for the mountain than if you are not there at all. And as soon as someone gets killed in the park during one of your lessons for skiing through a blind spot, I think you will be restricted to the closed racing trails. So do us all a favor and lets avoid that happening. I usually don't even use the grammar rebuttal, but damn dude, you should work on your English.

Yea Mount Snow has a hip just like that, it has the ramp of a jump with the landing of a hip and it shot me out into the flat land and it hurt my knee enough that I lost 2 days of riding when I was up there, it sucked, so I was real warry of the hip at Blue for the same reason.

Just a thought for the hip with the shadowy/icy landing, the worst thing that happens to a hip is if it gets a super icy/chunky landing it really blows out the knees. If you moved it to the right hand side that shadow would be sunny all day and it would be super soft/fun. It doesn't flow as well for the jump line though. What else can go in a corner like that? A c-box? I don't think the hip will soften up ever, I dunno. Mount Snow has a situation like that in their park, and they put a wall ride there, but instead of setting it up like a quarter pipe like the one you guys already have it is setup so that you hit it from the side, kind of like the pros do on street wall rides. So instead of going up you are going across, and there is like a bowl on the exit so you come off into a banked snow berm, and it would shoot you right into the jumps if you did it right. I'm not sure if that would help the issue. The hip flows well but the sun aspect is just an issue, maybe with some traffic it will soften up but if its not getting hit in a bit, there are other things that could get put there.

Its true, with the resort you lose the hardcore clientel and gain the less dedicated patrons. I have to think that in a hard year they are going to want that hardcore guy who will come no matter what the snow in their backyard is, but a day care center brings 100 noobs out that covers what you and I will spend lifetime there, so pissing you or I off matters little to their bottom line. Thats what I worry about what the snow conditions, terrain opening schedule, and lifts are like, and I don't really care what they do with the base. I pass through it on my way up and on my way out, but I hear you they are going for the full deal there. On a weekend like this, just think that every idiot that pisses you off is paying for the snow we get to ride on alone early season, late season, and midweek.

Teaching is real hard, but as you are teaching someone you learn a lot about it yourself. As you see their mistakes, you know more about what the natural tendencies are and what to overcome. Film is also great if you ever get a tape of yourself you learn so much. What feels good to you might look like ass to others. I'm really conservative in my approach, I'd rather stay with a dozen tricks done well than 50 tricks done poorly so I spend days and days just perfecting things, after a while all the nuances come out. But a lot of teaching is not saying what YOU do, its saying what will get a person to do what YOU do. They are usually two different things, snowboarding is real subtle if you tell them to do what you are doing they are going to do it 10x over.

The rails this year where definately nicer than they have been in the past, by a lot. I'm not huge on the colors but whatever, the construction was good, everything slid very well nothing felt sticky at all and I hit every box/rail they had out, nothing was bent or crooked either. The first rail on the right is off center but its kind of unhittable right now for snowboarders, not enough speed for it after you turn

Definitely avoid Hunter for an intermediate. Third for Windham for an intermediate. Hunter & Belleyare have stuff for people who want to ride black diamonds and stuff for people who want to ride greens, but really nothing in between. Unless you get off at the mid station at Belleayre, and at that point why drive all the way up there?

The rentards pay for our snow, just don't go on MLK weekend and avoid the holiday week too. They all come out in force, it is worse than a normal weekend by far. I don't know what about that extra day that makes everyone come out, but they do. Are people renting houses? Anyway, if I where you I'd drive further to a less known mountain because you will lose all that time in lift lines. Instead of Mountain Creek do Hidden Valley. (Probably the least crowded of all) Instead of Camelback, JFBB, Blue do Shawnee. Instead of Hunter, Windham, do Belleayre. Instead of Stratton, Mount Snow, Okemo do Magic or Bromley. Instead of Killington do Pico.

I am going north to ride tomorrow but I'm assuming there will be pics/video right?

They definately could use some streetstyle setups, they definately could use some round rails, and some down rails. As far as I can tell there are no down rails in the whole park except flat-downs and the stair case, that is a bit of a disappointment. I was really looking for a single barrel streetsytle down rail today to work on my front boards but didn't get one. This is the way I saw it. The last time I was the year before last year, and this is twice as good or more than that setup, it is the best setup I've ever seen on sidewinder in person or in pictures Come around is eh, the last two rails could be spaced out some more but its fine There are still 4 circus rails (both rollercoaster boxes, trasfer box, the swingset) but largely they have moved on to more stock stuff, and in all but one case there is another option that is stock next to it so you can avoid them all, which is a big improvement. The bus I don't think is circusy it is fun. The cement mixer was a lot of crap about nothing, it doesn't resemble a cement mixer at all, I like it. I like it better than the octagon one too. The rails setups where all fine except the stair case disappointed me that it wasn't wide enough to hit from the outside, that is an oversite. They could definately be improved by making the gaps bigger but there where none that I was saying WHAT WHERE THEY THINKING? Like I did two years ago. The flow was decent, about as good as you can expect for Sidewinder. The only part that didn't flow for me was the end of Come Around, those last two rails as soon as I did one I was stopping hardcore to slow down enough for the next, but Sidewinder was good. Sidewinder's jump line was super sweet. Do that every year, from now on, ever. The ramps can be tweaked here and there but that section is just so perfect for it, and a jib line on the right side is nice. If anything swap out the swing set for an easy box, if people aren't using the jump line it is because they are intimidated or fell on one and had to bail from the rest so put in something easier there instead of on the same level. That goes along the lines of how you have the dfd box and dfd rail next to each other, so more skill levels have something to do. It was nice to see his/hers ramps on almost every jump. I really liked the upper part two, from the start to the wall ride is great. Is it perfect? No, but if it where me I'd put the start of the lift right after the wall ride and lap that all day. The jump after that is ok but it has a short landing in my opionion, it is do able but I'd rather see the big jump in the park have a longer landing. I don't know where else you would put it though. It works, but I felt like the combination of how big that ramp is and how short the landing is, some people are going to shoot out into no where land and kill themselves. The deck/landing is no bigger than the first jump in the park, except the ramp is 5x bigger. Overall, I was happy. But I also would say that Boulder edges it out a bit. Its not night & day, but if sidewinder and boulder opened the same day, I would still take boulder. But I think boulder was the same last year and this year, and Blue has improved a lot. So that is a good sign for Blue. Oh and it was super icy till about 11 today, the worst ice I have seen all year, but then it softened up and was decent, I won't hold that against them though last night was a bitch for weather.

View from the entrance. Go back to cleaning the steps blue! I'd rather watch the idiots get their gear ruined, now they just walk up it and clog it all up. First two rails, the one of the left was great. The one on the right has potential but I couldn't get enough speed for it, as it was it didn't work for me and it was un-touched most of the day. Another view Second option, the one on the left is the flat - drop - flat. I don't have a picture of the transfer box. I didn't like the flat drop flat, I think it should be flat - drop downslope even if just a little, it was hard to get smooth when you fall so abruptly and there is no angle on where you are landing. A flat with a 12" drop to a down would be better. Transfer box was eh, I mean what can you do? 180 or 360 the middle, maybe pop and air with an indy or a shifty, its so wide that its not fun the rest of the way, so I was taking far right most of the time. Flat down or a super wide roller coaster, never hit the roller coaster but the flat down was decent although it left A LOT of paint on my board. Not that I care about my park board, but you could see it in the landing too. These where the $$$$ for the jibs. Setup nice, smooth, good positioning, I love the choice of box or rail of about the same size/type, you can work up across. The only jibs that I felt where perfect. I took pictures of the lip, see Blue mountain, THIS is how you setup a gap on rail. You can do it! Right hand hip, it was icy because of the shadow, I avoided it. First jump, didn't really take a picture from a good angle almost forgot, I took all these pictures in one run so I was just rolling through. This jump had good pop to it, it looks smaller than it feels with the ramp. Decent landing in the morning, bomb holed on the right in the afternoon. 1 2 3 line of tables, this was the best part of the park. I hit the bus once to say I did it, but the swingset wasn't worth a run when the jump line was there, the last one is especially good. View from the lift Wallride was decent actually, one of the better setup wall rides I've hit. Octogon pylon, not sure what to do with it, I just went up and came down fakie, didn't reach the top, i dunno how I feel about it. This is the last jump, good ramp, feel like the gap is too short and the landing is too short, its like the ramp for a 50 footer on a 30 foot jump? I dunno. Staircase, same as always, they need to make the ramp wider you can't hit the rails from the outside. So I wanted to front board the right box and as a goofy rider, no ramp for me to do it with. It is also really damn short, but it always has been. Pylon again, you can do the mini table on the left and hit the side but if you want to get high on it you have to go straight at it Minipipe, pretty beat

Went up to the park today to check out the Sidewinder park, pictures and commentary to follow. This is not perfect, I have a bad memory, and I'm guessing on sizes. Riders left to right for the options Upper Sidwinder #1 - 40' x 12" Flat box or 30' x Double Barrel Flat rail #2 - Transfer box or 15' x 12" Flat box drop to 20' x 12" Flat box or 40' Double Barrel Flat rail #3 - Roller coaster 2' wide box or medium flat down box #4 - Down-flat-down box or Down-flat-down double barrel rail #5 - Right handed hip #6 - Step down jump, 15' and 10' ramps #7 - Tabletop jump - 20' and 15' ramps #8 - Tabletop jump - 20' or Swingset box #9 - Tabletop jump - 25' or Butter Bus #10 - Wallride #11 - Octagon pylon or 30' step down jump #12 - Staircase Lower Sidewinder - Bunch of banked turns - Small table top jump (10') - Round pylon Terrain Run - #1 Minipipe #2 Butter box #3 Ride on rainbow box #4 Ride on flat-down #5 Mailbox spine Come around #1 Small table top jump (10') #2 Butter box #3 Flat down #4 4' Wide rollercoaster box #5 Rail? Don't remember probably a flat rail #6 Flat rail? I don't remember this either I just know there where two rails at the end

There is nothing inherently warm about clothing/jackets they just insulate your core from the outside world. If your core is colder than the outside world, they will keep what is inside the jacket warm. The same applies for a tarp, it keeps what is underneith dry, but it doesn't have much insulation compared to a jacket because it is so thin. I don't think it would have the same effect. It would keep the water off though. I have wondered that too, they cover baseball fields, put a spool of tarp at the top of the trail, hook it on the back of a cat and pull it down during the warm spells might be cost effective. Snow is so expensive to make, a place as small as bear and under the influence of such weather swings might make it worth while. I don't know how much that would cost but at some point it is worth it. I also don't know how you would roll it back up again.

Notice how the video has no mention of the arms. I agree you spin the shoulder and head, but go to the park and watch people try to huck 360s. They spin their upper body with a huge arm pre-wind and unwind, and their board goes nowhere. You have to lock your upper body to your lower body and spin it all at once. I'm sure you can spin better than I but explaining something is different than doing it, the arms follow your shoulders they don't lead your shoulders, and it happens naturally, so tell people to move the shoulders and the arms line right up.