Firstlight Splits

If you want to make a board harder to ride make it wide and give it a long radius.
As discovered by me.

I just made 5 boards with radii ranging from 12m to 18m and took them to japan for testing. I have a pretty good handle on the effects of sidecut radius now I feel and long radii sucks. I thought it would be awesome but it wasnt so its back to narrow waist and short radii for me.

Others my disagree, thats fine but if Im building a board for a mate to take to japan I will make it the best I can and with all the experience I have mustered. Hence changing adams shape to a shorter radius with a narrower waist. When it rides great he will be happy unlike me with my quiver of wide long radii boards that will never be ridden again lol.

Something got lost in translation. If I was going to Japan, to JaPow, if you will, I would be baking an 18m board, :bananas: hammock, and a split version of the first.

@permnation wrote:

Something got lost in translation. If I was going to Japan, to JaPow, if you will, I would be baking an 18m board, :bananas: hammock, and a split version of the first.

Thats was my thinking too, but when you build 5 decks, get to japan and start riding them only to find you just took a step backwards in board design its not a great feeling. Its a blow to your ego for sure.

The first lot of boards I made were incredible with 256mm waist and 8.7m sidecut.
The second lot sucked with wider waists and longer radii. The effects of these changes are blindingly obvious to me and have steered me in this direction. You never know how far you should push something till you go to far, and thats what happened.

@BobGnarly wrote:

@permnation wrote:

Something got lost in translation. If I was going to Japan, to JaPow, if you will, I would be baking an 18m board, :bananas: hammock, and a split version of the first.

Thats was my thinking too, but when you build 5 decks, get to japan and start riding them only to find you just took a step backwards in board design its not a great feeling. Its a blow to your ego for sure.

The first lot of boards I made were incredible with 256mm waist and 8.7m sidecut.
The second lot sucked with wider waists and longer radii. The effects of these changes are blindingly obvious to me and have steered me in this direction. You never know how far you should push something till you go to far, and thats what happened.

Bob: when you note wide waists along with the straighter sidecut, I am interested in how wide you went. My experience has shown that of course you need a wider waist when you go from 9 m to 20 m, but of course neither do you want to go too wide as then you lose your quickness. With my size 28/10.5 boots, the furberg 173 with a 20 m radius and 27 cm waist is perfect, and the board width at the boot positions is the same as my Venture Storm 166×26 (very similar taper to both boards). I find the furberg to be one of the most easy to ride boards I have ever been on. On the other hand, I test rode a Chimera Dum Dum, with a 18 m radius, and a wider 27.5 cm waist, and it just was not maneuverable enough, despite being only a 160! Also, the furberg has a subtle rocker between the feet. I have talked to some designers who get all weird about the tip and tail ending up a little narrower than on a traditional 8-9 m radius board, so they want to widen a long radius board even more, but the boards I have ridden which work really well are those which keep the width the same at the bindings, allow the waist to be a bit wider, and the tip and tail to be a little narrower, with the “average” width being about the same, the edge to edge response and boot leverage over the board remains the same. The performance is due to the balance between all the design elements (duh, and of course you realize this), but my bottom line point is that long radius does not have to be hard to ride at all.

Taylor, right with ya on the DPS stuff, I know skiers who love theirs. furberg is it, but of course you need a bigger one…

@Taylor wrote:

Barrows, do you think the Dum Dum’s lack of maneuverability attributes to its width, or a lack of rocker sufficient to supplement the long scr, or some combination thereof? (Edit: Or something else, like taper, or lack thereof…)

Carefully matching the rocker profile to the long taper and long scr in shapes such as these is really, really critical for all pieces to work together nicely.

Taylor. Probably a combination. I found the Dum Dum to be a fun ride, but not as easy to maneuver in trees. Interesting considering the Dum Dum was a 160 and furberg is a 173. Both boards have very similar taper, and the flex patterns were not different enough to explain the difference. I suspect the extra width of the Dum Dum, was the main cause, and the lack of rocker was also a contributing factor. The DD proto I rode had slight early rise tip and tails, and slight camber between the feet. Chimera calls it flat between the feet, but they build it with slight camber, as they feel it goes flat with break in. The DD was noticeably wide at the feet…

Not afraid of change, just trying everything to find the happy place. My boards have always been rocker between the feet and camber outside. Adams boards is the first one to use camber all the way.