Background:

Linda and I picked up season passed to Ragged Mountain, as you may know (or if you didn't, no big deal; you do now). However, they are not open yet.

Now, if you've done snowsports with me, you know that this is a bit of a departure from my standard method of downhill madness - I usually run K2 Fatty skiboards at a high rate of speed. This high rate of speed was a problem. Skis of course are capable of much higher velocities with less chatter than skiboards, but unfortunately, Linda isn't a very experienced skier, so her trying to keep up with me is like a bicyclist trying to keep up with a Ferrari.

So, in order to slow myself down, I decided to pick up snowboarding this winter. I purchased a used snowboard+bindings (K2 Zeppelin + Rossignol HC3000 bindings, if you're curious) and new entry-level boots in September. I spent probably 2 hours tinkering with the bindings before getting them to what seemed to be a widely recommended 19" width, 21-degree front angle, 0-degree rear angle

Linda bought some new Rossignol Passion Classic skis for a great price (and got some used boots for free) @ Ken Jones Ski Mart, in Nashua, NH (Don't bother with Sports Authority... they'll sell you a kitchen sink when you want a ski).

This past weekend, we went with my friend Jeff and his girlfriend Cindy to their rental place on the outskirts of Bethel, ME - near Sunday River.

My first run down the mountain on my new-to-me board only brought this image to mind:


I fell more times than I can reasonably count, so I won't try. The second run I fell maybe 10 times, and the the rest of the weekend was down to ~3 on average, with a couple of no-fall runs. I had three nasty falls over the course of the weekend:

* One where my knee got a little bruise (yes - it was nasty - I'll get to why in a minute)
* One where I fell sideways and smashed my helmet on the ground - my neck is sore from that one.
* One where I bruised my tailbone (helmet also hit here, but less hard, and no whiplash effect)

I wore my Cortech GX pants with CE hard armor in the knees... yes, motorcycling pants for snowboarding. Think about it: ballistic nylon, CE approved hard-shell impact armor, and mostly windproof - they were perfect, except they didn't close around my boots so well. So the reason the knee being bruised is weird is that I got bruised *through* the knee armor - it takes a really hard impact to do that. .

I learned that you really torque those bindings down - and carry a screwdriver and some extra hardware, too. My bindings got pretty loose, and I stripped a t-nut and bolt which held a binding on, but managed to make it hold with some moderate cross-threading for the rest of the weekend ... heh. Hail old bindings. Maybe I should replace them ...

The last few runs, I switched to my skiboards and tore down (relatively -- I hadn't been on them in years) some blues + blacks with Jeff and Cindy. Of course, the last 1/3 of the last run was on the green run that I'd bashed myself against the rest of the weekend while attempting to snowboard. It was kind of sad to be just happily cruising down on the skiboards, going as fast as they would go - and thinking "Man, I fell so many times on this run this weekend..."

However... I did accomplish my goal for the weekend: 1 run w/ no falls. :)

Also, snowboarding is a lot of fun. I totally recommend it.