Quote:
Your first stance from the board shop is called duck stance. Many freestyle riders use this because it gives them better control when riding fakie (switch).

Gah. I tried to explain to the guy that I wasn't a freestyler, I only did downhill. But he still tried to set me up like I was some kind of stunt pilot.

Well, today I spent a LOT of time fiddling and adjusting the bindings, and I'm not sure if I was doing the right things or not. I couldn't get everything quite comfortable. I kept trying different angles and stances and NOTHING felt right to me.

I didn't try extreme forward angles. I only tried maximum of 15 back and 20 front, and it felt extremely wrong to me so I dialed all the way back to 0 0 and started working from there again. Actually, 0 0 didn't feel so bad. As long as I had my stance narrow enough. The guy at the shop had set it way too wide to start with.

By the end of the day I was at 0 back and 10 front with a farily narrow stance and that felt almost right. My real problem is fatigue, not being able to really REST upon my feet and board when moving. On the rental boards with the step-in boots, there were times when I could just relax my stance and not exert any muscle pressure in any direction and I would just cruise straight. When I did that today, that relaxation made my board catch and turn and mess up and such. I wanted to get my weight onto my front foot so I could relax a bit, but I ended up having to pull and twist my front foot's position so much, so hard, for so long, just to go straight, that my legs just ache after each run.

So I'm still trying to decide what to do about my stance. Simple question, but perhaps a not so simple answer: Which is better, stance forward on the board, or stance backward on the board? i.e., center of gravity mostly forward or mostly backward?

And I don't mean whether my feet hang farther off the toe edge or the heel edge. I mean forward or backward along the travel direction of the board. For instance, I'm goofy foot so I travel to my right. Should my stance be more towards the right end of the board, thus making the tail of the board longer, or just the opposite?

Aside from my stance problems, though, I had a great day. Took my daughter with me (she played hookey from school today) and we had a great time. She's learning how to ski and she did really well today. She can go down all the beginner runs unassisted without falling, making nice big turns and stops.

Overall, my reviews of the equipment after one days' use, are as follows:

Arbor Element Board:
Wow. This is one fantastic board. It felt good all day (when my stance adjustment issues are subtracted from the equation that is), was stable on both ice and powder and everything in between. And it got a compliment from some younger boarders, too. "Duuuuude, that's a sweet board. The wood and all? Something to be proud of."

Very very happy with the choice of that board.

Burton Freestyle Boots:
Loren is right, these are very comfortable. Stiff enough to transmit my commands to the board, but flexible enough to keep me comfortable.

I had the pain and tiredness in my feet, ankles, and calves, but I'm pretty sure it was my need to find a good stance adjustment, and not the boots. The way my legs/feet felt would change with each stance adjustment I made.

K2 Cinch Bindings:
Okay, these are a lot more fiddly than I thought they would be. They're not as easy to step into as the Flows. It takes some doing to step into these. Perhaps I just need practice.

One thing you quickly learn is that there is absolutely no way to step into these things when sitting down. You must be standing flat to get into them and must crouch while standing to close that back latch. This is not that big of a deal because, truthfully, that's the whole reason I got them is because I didn't WANT to have to sit down to get into my bindings.

Another thing... Since the back doesn't fold back perfectly flat, you could theoretically run into trouble if your chairlift is very low to the ground. As you're getting onto the lift, your back binding is underneath the chair. The backs of these bindings could get literally snapped off if the chairlift is all the way to the ground.

So you absolutely have to get in the habit of folding the heel plate fully forward into its packing/travel position before getting onto the lift. Now, I didn't run into that problem at the place I went to today, because their lifts had at least 12 inches clearance with the ground at the load point. But I could see it might be a problem in some situations.

The next thing is, I was hoping that I could just step into the binding (leaving it open but stepping into it loosely) as I got off the chair lift. Thus giving me more control when I got off the lift and less likely to fall. (I hate using the stomp pad, I have zero control over the board when my back foot is there.) Well, that sort of worked and sort of didn't. Yes, I have the ability to slip my foot loosely into the binding before I get off the lift. Yes, it gives me control and balance as I'm getting off the lift so I don't fall when I do that. So, the bindings are a big success in that area.

Except...

The lift operators get mad when I do it. I don't know why. You'd think they'd want me to be less likely to fall and block the lift exit. I think that when they see me do it, they see it from a distance, so they think I'm latched in with both feet when I'm not really.

So I'm practicing the technique of watching the lift operator watch me. When I can tell they've gotten a good look at my free dangling back foot, and then look away, then I can start to slip my foot into that back binding at the last moment just before getting off the lift. Then they have nothing to complain about. That seemed to work for me today.

So why do I say these bindings are "fiddly"? Two reasons.

1. I may be able to slip my foot easily in there partially in a casual way just to get off the lift. But when I really go to get my foot in for real and clamp that back latch, it takes a bit of doing. You really have to jam your foot in there pretty seriously to get the toe to move all the way forward. It's not like air, it's like kind of snug as you might expect. With a little practice, I think I can get this down to a science where I really can just step in, reach down, flip the latch into place, and go. But right now it takes some foot wiggling and a couple of latch flip attempts before it works.

2. The whole idea was that the ratcheted toe and instep straps would be a "set it and forget it" affair. I'd set them once at the beginning of the day and then wouldn't have to undo them again for the rest of the day. At least that's what I expected. Instead, what happens is, when you've got your back foot out of the binding and walking around getting on and off lifts and such, somehow those ratchets just loosen up and come completely undone. So you step into the binding, flip the back latch up, and... what? The instep strap is completely undone? WTF? When did that happen? So you're still back to bending over and ratcheting that into place. At that point I might as well have bought an ordinary strap-in binding because the thing hasn't saved me from any fiddling.

Now, that second thing didn't happen every time. Most of the time everything stayed in place and it was truly a snap-right-in situation. So what I need to do is figure out what I'm doing differently between the times it works right and the times it doesn't. Maybe it's when I fold the thing forward into the "travel" position that the instep strap comes undone. I'll have to look closer at it.

Bakoda Jimmy Driver Adjustment Tool:

Okay, this thing was pretty darn cool. Very cool field adjustment tool. Worked an absolute treat, it's handle is the perfect shape for operating from inside the binding. The thing fits into the space under the straps perfectly and just works. I know it's strange to be waxing poetic about a fricking screwdriver, but I'm serious, this is a cool little tool.

So, well, um, there it is.