Glenn

Thanks for the stats Sib, this clears up any question about Atomics dominance at least as far as the mens racing goes.

Google earth has topo?

If you want to feel free to post the orginal. Thanks for the update though. I'm sure some of our Sno locals got the mailing, but didn't think to post about it here.

Do you really believe this? A freestyle snowboard company puts out a base without wax that will be faster than a WC race ski base with wax?

Then again, after reading more it does sound like reverse camber. IDK, you certainly won't get any snap coming out of turns, which doesn't really mean a whole lot for park riders. Other than that, I guess there isn't any great reason to have a typical camber.

I can only think of bad things that would come from this design, what is the point?I don't know, after reading from their site it sounds like marketing hype over a modified flex pattern rather than using opposite camber.

You can't measure that stuff?

You talked about not wanting to wade through crowded slopes for a season pass, just thought I would give you the heads up that most early season riding is a sea of people. With limited mountains open, and limited trails at any particular mountain, even a modest crowd turns 2 or 3 slopes into a free for all. Everyone is just getting back on the snow, and most of the skiing/riding is pretty sketchy. I love those first days BUT, for a relative beginner such as yourself and your wife being a first timer, you might think about sitting out the early season VT trips. It would be a real shame to sit out the whole season because you got hurt the first day out, with so-so conditions and maniacs all around. Also something to consider, most mountains, even if they are open, will not have ski schools open that early, so if you are relying on a refresher lesson for yourself or a first time lesson for you wife, you will be out of luck. On the other hand, I highly recommend taking a late season trip to the north. After things slow down and close you can catch some turns in VT and NY without too much crowding, great conditions, well practiced skiers/riders and much better coverage than in Nov/Dec.

Are they installing 2 new rope tows? You can't really lap the pipe from a rope in rhodo or vice versa. Since rhodo is so flat hiking the features sucked, so it actually would be cool to have a tow in the park.

I would say mount them with limited or no setback, 15 degrees in the front -12 in the back at shoulder width or maybe a pinch wider. If you never want to ride switch, then you can knock off the negative angle in the back. However, if you ever want to start learning things will feel more comfortable if you've been riding like that all along.

Not too many musicians here. If I had money I'd ask to some of the stuff out. Good luck selling it though.

I'm not a skier but I know a little bit about this. I'm sure others will comment as well. First of all understand that everything has it's pros and cons. The problem with center mounting is it will make "all mountain" sking a pinch more difficult. Not the end of the world though. I've seen guys on center mounted skis makes some pretty good turns, and do some pretty impressive stuff. I'm sure a skier can provide better info on the downsides. The two reasons to center mount are better rail balance, which should be pretty obvious. The second would be better switch riding. Skis work best with lots of ski in front of you, so when you are switch riding you want to increase the amount of ski behind your heel. Center mountain does that. I'd say center mount if you ride park/twins, but I'm just a silly snowboarder.

Shawnee has a super friendly atmosphere and for a beginning boarder, especially if you are a little self conscious it's a great place to get on your feet. The lifties there are always friendly, none of the terrain is too difficult, and by the end of the season you should be able to ride everything there (exception being the terrain park). However... if you can ride off peak times regularly than I would say check out camelback as well. I don't have a problem with riding slow lifts, but taking laps on fast lifts is preferable, and camelback has two high speed lifts, shawnee doesn't have any. Shawnee is obviously the closest but CB isn't that much further. When I was living in stroudsburg I made the trip daily to CB, so its not much further for you. The downsides for CB are the crowds during the peak hours. Sat/Sun at 11-3 is crazyness. Friday nights with all the ski clubs is a real pain. Also the personality of the crowd will tend to irriatate you much more at CB. Off peak it's locals, but weekends it's the NYC crowd. Theres some other issues, the park which shouldn't be a big concern for you right now, and some random lift closings that seems to bother the Blue mountain passholders more than the CB passholders. Wherever you go, keep us posted how your season is going, and have fun!

Nope, I've never done risk it. I was talking about Little Cliff Huck. When I was there, no boulder was visible. It was a like a piece carved out of the left wall on the runout of the east side. Anyways, my favorite PA trails... Nile, Boomer, Cannonball, Main St (although it doesn't have much character, it's really the only thing in PA that sustianed and that wide), maybe pharoah on a sunny day. The whole east side at JF is pretty good, but I don't know all the names. I'm not sure any one pariticular trail there is consistantly a great run.

I've only seen it open once. It was like a 15-20 drop. But, you basically just had to make a jump to a super steep pitch 4-7 feet from the top which took you the rest of the way down, because otherwise the 15-20 foot drop would have a completely flat landing. It was fun, but not really hard, or scary.

I wish I had money

I think my new snowboard money is going towards health insurance so I can actually ride this year

I don't know, we've seen a couple of mountains turn things around in one year, so it's not out of reach. CB just needs to get their focus on the right stuff. Towards the end of the season things weren't so bad, at CB. Certainly they could still be worlds better, and there could be a ton more features, but it looked like they were finally moving in the right direction. I guess I haven't ridden enough pipes to know the difference, but CB's seemed pretty decent to me. There were boulder kids coming to CB to ride pipe the whole year just to practice pipe. So I guess it was better than BB's attempt at a pipe. I'm not going to say the pipe didn't have it's good and bad days, but the good days far out numbered the bad. Cutters camp would make a huge difference if they follow through. Since they won't hire outside CB, then take your professional skilled groomers, and turn them into professional skilled park builders. All that to say... I'm not holding my breath.

I agree with this.

Well the situation is pretty lousy, and in general I really don't like Bode, I'm not sure I can get too pissed at him. I'm not sure he made the decision to grab an agent while considering it to be a move that would kill the sport he presumably loves. I'm not sure it was a conscience move to deprive kids of sponsorships. It may be the trend for the players to make the move to squeeze dry their employers in many other sports, but do you think that Bode knew his patricular moves would but ski companies at the breaking point, or at least where he is underminig the JR leagues by the trend he started in sking? Sure the high salaries in other sports have ill effects "down the line." Familes have to spend a ton of money to go to a baseball game, but... the sport is still alive. There is still little league and there is still talent moving through. I'm not knowledgeable enough about professional sports salaries, and the ski racing scene but... Do you think when Bode made the move to follow the other professional athletes by going with a "hardball agent" he fully understood the difference in dynamics and money between racing and other professional sports in America? I'm not going to say he didn't cause, or at least start all of this but, was it not inevitable, and was it intentional? I hate defending Bode so I'm going to stop now.

As soon as he stopped for his hat he was done.

Where are the guitars made? How about some ballpark figures on cost. What pickup configurations do you have?

When are they installing the 300 MPH zipline down white lightning? They could even have a splash landing in the bumper boats pond. I might have to visit if you can hike the headwalls to access the boats.

Links to the ebay sales?