Here are some gear musings from today's riding...

I'm more and more impressed with the Arbor A-Frame every time I ride
it.  Great board for trail riding, even in crappy conditions.  I used
this board for my first four runs today, and really felt on my game.  I
wasn't thinking about the board, and that's a good sign for me.

My next two runs were on the Malolo.  I'm still pretty confident that
it will work great for it's designed purpose - packed powder and skied
off tree runs.  On boilerplate, it's very rideable, but has two
problems.  First, it has that Burton feel I just don't like on hard
snow.  Second, the tapered shape and set back stance, while less
drastic than the Fish, still take away some ability / confidence on
ice.

And now, for the capstraps - Burton's new binding toe strap.
Pre-season, I had said that I thought it would turn out to be a gimmick
and a solution to a problem that doesn't exist (at least for me).  The
old style toe straps never gave me any grief, so why change them.  I
rode a binding with "normal" straps for my first four runs, then
switched to the capstrap bindings for the next two runs.  On the first
lift ride, I was already mentally writing my retraction on the
capstraps.  They are much more comfortable.  But then, once I started
riding down the hill, everything changed.

I buy snowboard boots sized small - so that my big toe brushes the end
of the boot.  With the capstrap, there's now a strap going over the toe
of my boot, pulling it down and back towards my heel.  With a normal
binding, I can feel my toes against the end of the boot.  With the
capstrap, by toes were being jammed into the end of the boot on every
heelside turn.

I'm undecided on wether I will give them another day and see if I can
get things adjusted so this doesn't happen, or if I'm going to Burton
tomorrow to see if I can trade them in on some normal toe straps.

If your boots aren't that small, the capstrap might work great.  If you
size your boots like I do, beware.
--
Jason - "redraobwons"

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