testride, babe!

So, did they work, and how were they? Show everyone proof that your ride was a success (or even a complete failure)!

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mark
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Post by mark »

Beautiful photos!

Made my day, thanks. :D
davide
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Post by davide »

plywood wrote:...i skied the gunnars ...
Still on duck stance?
plywood
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Post by plywood »

an other bluebird day! an other powderday!

but well...it was a bit weird. the first day i experienced troubles with the gunnars. the snow was really strange, some windblown powder stuff with a bit of a crud mixed with an icy base. i had serious problems skiing through it, as i went slow the gunnars did hardly turn and felt clumsy. they just didn`t want to turn. furthermore the icy and tracked base threw me in every imaginable direction. was like rodeo.
so i went faster - and it did get a bit better, but i got afraid of the super high speed combined with the bumpy icy surface. dangerous mix ;)

anyway, we did find some sweet stuff though. and finally there is a picture of me riding the gunnars:

Image

tadaaa, may i present: switch powderturn with a little spray on a bluebird day.

@davide: you didn`t get my last email, did you? i`m still skiing duck and will keep it ;) i promised to do a little duckstance-review once, i`ll definately do this soon!
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
plywood
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Post by plywood »

finally there is justice! we received a good 30-40cm of fresh stuff, after 5 days of rain up to 2800m. so the conditions were kind of funny: 40cm of superlight on a either concrete like base or on no base at all.

but it was enough for some solid fun and solid riding. ideal conditions for testing some new boards: the attilas.

it`s strange, as i skied the cockaynes really a lot of other guys i met in the liftline asked me all sorts of questions about the skis. skiing the gunnars nearly no one. now back on the attilas there are a lot of questions again :D

so where should i start? they blew my mind!
they have not that much sidecut and an awesome shape, combined with the rockered tip. i think for the first time i`ve really experienced what they call "smearturns". it was amazing. just gliding sideways when doing a turn.
they feel pretty light. it took me some time to get used to the lenght, but after a few runs they skied totally sick. they are able to do really tight turns on steeper stuff. even in tracked pow they were pretty stable and easy to ski through. i skipped back to the gunnars for the last run, and compared to attila the gunnars are a tiny little bit of a pain to ski. i mean, they still outperform most skis, but i had more difficulties chasing them through the tracked stuff and they didn`t turn that easy.

the 55mm of rise were enough. it`s more than enough for open terrain, but there is a higher risk of getting stuck in trees or such things...but this is not such a problem if you keep it in mind when skiing. even some traditional powder skis don`t have higher tips than 55mm...

and now, a picture of a friend of mine i took today. he`s on a snowboard, but you may see the conditions we had. and by the way: the attilas sprayed really nice! ;)

Image

so all in all i`m still stoked, made 8600 vertical meters today and am really glad to rest now. i`ll keep the attilas for powder, maybe add 1-2cm of height in the tip on the next pair and develop a better version of the gunnars which i`ll take as my everyday skis.
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
plywood
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Post by plywood »

time for an other trip report.
weather is crazy...we had massive snowfalls for the last 2 weeks. there were about 50cm of powder twice and uncountable days with 20cm for solid fun.

well, i was too busy skiing and ripping the days we had 50, but yesterday i had my camera with me and took some pics.
i skied the attilas all the time, so now they`ve got about 12days on them and they still look as new. those skis are just amazingly sick to ski, really the best sticks i`ve made so far.
it`s kind of funny. a year ago i was totally into this "also short but fat skis rock in powder!"-thing. now this has changed to an "only long and even fatter skis rock powder!"-attitude. for most of the conditions i`ve had in the past two weeks the 190 attilas were great and fun an enough. but on those 50cm+ days i felt like a little more would be a little more better ;) so during summer i`m going to do some minor changes on the shape of the attilas (basically just one tiny little change) and start a new project for a 199cm long beast :D:D:D

but enough of talking and daydreaming for now, let`s start with some pics!
first of all finally a picture of me an the attilas:
Image
my girlfriend on the evil twins:
Image
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Image
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plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
rockaukum
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Post by rockaukum »

Thank You!
rockaukum
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Dutchjibber
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Post by Dutchjibber »

Looks like some stereotypical ego snow!
Pretty jealous... i was in austria in the same week, but couldn't ski because of a knee injury... extremely frustrating!
plywood
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Post by plywood »

it`s spring.
is it REALLY spring????

yes it is. but if you hear "spring" the things you associate with it in terms of skiing are wet snow, high temperatures and such stuff.

this year everything is slightly different. to summarize it: massive snowfalls came as early as never before (november), december-february were relatively dry, and then again in march there were snowfalls as never seen before. so surprisingly this year there is an exceptionally good end of season with some of the best snow i`ve had. this friday was a killer day once again.

so it`s really fun to make you all jealous ;)

Image

Image
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
billl
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Joined: Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:25 pm

jealous??

Post by billl »

man I'm not even jealous. In fact looking at your pix I can feel a little bit of that oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-how-f**ing-good-this-snow-is feeling that you get when it's light, deep and floaty all at the same time.

So thank you, post some more
billl
plywood
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Post by plywood »

well well... i greatly announced it`s going to be a summer of skibuilding. in the end everything turned out a little different and i nearly had no time for skibuilding. sadly it continues and i won`t have time to build until february.
but even if i have no time for building i still found some time to ride. at least whenever the conditions are worth it. which means >30cm ;) our season started pretty well so i already had 5 pretty sweet powderdays. sadly at this time of the year there is little light to take pictures, so here`s the best shot:

Image

as i said, great days. i`m still skiing the attilas, my girl still on the evil twins and a friend of mine now got the gunnars. so i`m having a team, somehow: the Plywood Freeride Industries SuperStar Team, or shortly: PFISST haha sounds nasty, right?

Image

so we fooled around a little in the dark. hopefully we`ll find some time to shoot some pics/vids during the season...

well, 5 sweet days to get a little too excited. after the 3rd day a felt this confortable and was so stoked about all this fluffy pow, i completely forgot that there were rocks under the snow. so i managed to hit some in a pretty deep turn. the result was...not so exciting:

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in several areas the base got treated really badly and in small areas ripped out. of course in areas close to the inner edge of the outside ski with which i hit the rocks with all my weight on. funny. the repair of those base scratches was not a big deal of course. but it got me thinking:

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as i cut away the destroyed base i observated following: in the area where there was fibreglass underneath the base hold really really well. i wasn`t able to rip it away in one piece, i had to take it down with hammer and chisel. otherwise there were always parts of the base still sticking to the fibreglass beneath and i could only rip away small parts of the base while the still sticking parts bonded really well. hope you get what i mean.
anyway, the parts where the edges and the vds rubber was underneath were pretty weak. you can see in the picture: the vds got ripped apart. the vds bonded well to the base and to the fibreglass, but the vds itself is weak! so i`m still trying to figure out how to improve the edges...
1. the vds is weak
2. base/epoxy doesn`t bond that good to the metal edges
3. the only thing that bonds well is the epoxy between the teeths of the edges
those are my assumptions. any comments on this?

those scratches in the base weren`t the worst.

Image

the impact was quite massive. the edge deformed and busted my ash sidewalls. i think the areas with the "year rings" of the wood couldn`t withstand the forces and somehow cracked a little. there are no cracks or damages visible, it just looks like the wood got compressed. something like this. so my assumtions:
1. bad luck: i aligned the sidewalls in a way that those "year ring"-things are vertically positioned and therefore can`t withstand such an impact
2. i profiled the sidewalls a bit too much and additionally weakend them.

so actually i`m thinking about getting thicker edges and harder wood for the sidewalls. lession learnt :D until then the skis have to hold ;)
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
knightsofnii
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Post by knightsofnii »

are you going to use vds again? maybe some thinner stuff?
Doug
sammer
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Post by sammer »

Now that's a good scrape!!! 8)

I saw lots of core shots today while spending time at the local shop.
opening day with 15cm's fresh and nothing underneath.
But nothing like that.
Hope you can repair it.

sam
You don't even have a legit signature, nothing to reveal who you are and what you do...

Best of luck to you. (uneva)
plywood
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Post by plywood »

it`s just a scratch ;) already repaired and skied on them again. skis are built to be used, right?

so i`m not shure about the use of vds.... i can`t answer your question right now. on one hand i think it could probabely weaken the construction. using thinner stuff is nearly impossible, my vds-bands are already really thin. there has to be a minimal thickness, otherwise vds is useless and you can leave it right away....
so i`m really biased. my first pairs were built without any vds and they still hold up great. the evil twins now have 30 days on them and there is no problem at all. so why using vds?!
on the other hand everyone is using it, all the big players, and i can see some logic in the use of it.

i`ll let you know as soon as i found an answer ;) i could also imagine using thicker base material an thicker edges, reinforcing everything else and therefore keeping the vds...
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
davide
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Post by davide »

plywood wrote:... my first pairs were built without any vds and they still hold up great. the evil twins now have 30 days on them and there is no problem at all. so why using vds?!
Good question. Never used VDS for my skis. Using VDS just because the companies it is not such a good argument.
If the edges are well prepared, the epoxy will bond well even without VDS.
Just build more pairs without VDS. Maybe replace the VDS with kevlar tape...

Where did you get the green/black base?
plywood
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Post by plywood »

i recently visited the stockli ski factory.
they use vds too, but they put in quite a lot of metal. they got the base with the edges and put a metal sheet on top of the base with the same thickness as the teeth of the edges. this sheet runs over the whole lenght of the skis and fits right in between the edges. if i remember correctly afterwards there comes a vds sheet that runs over the whole width and lenght of the ski. so it covers the metal sheet and the edges. there i can see some logic in it, it could dampen the ski and take a little tension from the shear and tear of the metal vs all the other components of the ski.

i just had a closer look to everything, and surprisingly detected some bubbles. if you have a closer look to the 2nd last picture you can clearly see some empty spaces between the teeth of the edges, one is right in the focus of the picture. now that i discovered these i remember my first pair without VDS. there i had a similar scratch on which i also had to replace base material. as i did so 2 years ago there were absolutely no bubbles.
which is quite logical to me - the air between the teeth of the edges can`t fully escape through the rubber. by putting fibreglass on top of the edges there is a higher chance to get all the air out. so actually i`m tending towards leaving this vds away.
swiss composite has some special edge-tissue. some aramid/fibreglas combo. maybe i`ll try this out.

@davide: i got the base from RTC, he had some leftovers from his snowboard building days. you know rtc? a small factory in brig. sadly i have no idea where to get this stuff nowadays. looks pretty cool, right? ;)
are you coming to switzerland this christmas? or somewhen later on this year?
plywood freeride industries - go ply, ride wood!
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