The Official Michigan Winter Thread

[sabatoa]

I'm antsy to get out tonight but I really can't until this Friday when I hit up Caberfae for the weekend.

Speaking of, Cab has this groupon going on for another 12 hours;

Caberfae Peaks Ski-Golf Resort Deal of the Day | Groupon Lansing

Okay so like I said, I'm going up to Cadillac on Friday/Saturday and coming back Sunday. Any tips on what I should or shouldnt do at Caberfae? I would call myself an advanced beginner at this point and had a blast on one of those blue runs at Holly last week. (no park though...yet)

[boardaddicktd]

well if you haven't tried riding switch yet, that might be your next step. it'll take more than a few times to feel comfortable riding switch but you could try it out on a green run or sumthin. caberfae has some really fun blue runs so you should like it. i'd stay away from the furthest lift to the right because that pretty much just services black and its a long flat run to get you back to the other lifts. you need a lot of speed or you'll be skating a lot (and i remember that skating was not fun as a beginner)!

[sabatoa]

Originally Posted by boardaddicktd

well if you haven't tried riding switch yet, that might be your next step. it'll take more than a few times to feel comfortable riding switch but you could try it out on a green run or sumthin.

That's a good idea.

I've mixed in brief switch riding during the course of a run but I'd like to work on that fancy little 180 spin people do to flip into switch smoother. You're right, it feels really weird and I usually chicken out and come back regular before I get very far.

The Olympia blue run at the far end of the trail map looks interesting on paper. Have you ridden it before?

[boardaddicktd]

idk, i don't recognize that run. now that i think about it, i remember them doing some work in the off season so that might be a new trail. i don't recognize that I-75 run either. looks like it might just be a glades run. they def have sum nice runs though. let us know how it is!

[Leo]

Originally Posted by boardaddicktd

okay i still think im goin tonight. i'm gunna try and go on thursday too.

@davidz and leo hows the demo going up north? lemme guess; you're calling that work too, right?? hah.

It really was work haha. We just got back from it. We demoed around 14 boards each, but got 2-4 runs on all of them. There are some overlaps in our boards, but that's because we were partnered and had a list to work off of. We both did get to try a good amount of bindings too. Still some more stuff I e wanted to ride, but can't get em all!

Reviews to come soon

[boardaddicktd]

Originally Posted by Leo

It really was work haha. We just got back from it. We demoed around 14 boards each, but got 2-4 runs on all of them. There are some overlaps in our boards, but that's because we were partnered and had a list to work off of. We both did get to try a good amount of bindings too. Still some more stuff I e wanted to ride, but can't get em all!

Reviews to come soon

dang thats a lot of boards! lookin forward to the reviews. went to PK last night. was cold as fu*k! snow was pretty hard. had sum good narrow boxes to choose from. the chairlift alongside the main kicker line wasn't running and i didn't see one person on that run the entire night. i figured everyone was avoiding them for a reason so i did the same. im sure they were solid ice.

[Leo]

Haha, so riding with David motivated me. I hit one of those really wide boxes. Funbox?

Edged out the first time and fell toeside. Remembered to keep flat the next time around and just 50ed it. Missed the third time, but was kind of cool because I briefly locked onto the rounded edge and hopped off. Last time was the best because on the right side rounded edge, I locked in all the way through. Wasn't even on the box part at all lol. So now I kind of understand what it feels like to lock onto a rail.

Also worked my courage back up to 15 footers. Maybe 20? Dunno, but it was a tall jump for sure. Overshot it the second time and landed on my ass halfway down the down ramp lol. Wish that was on video.

[david_z]

@boardaddicktd don't worry I took vacation days for this

got on 15 boards from Rome, Ride, Burton, K2, Lib Tech, Gnu, Salomon and Marhar. Bindings from Union, Burton, Flux, Ride and Rome. Lots to review!

One thing we both noticed is: anyone can make a banger of a board for $700 but the new trend seems to be delivering a quality board in the $350 price range. There were a few standouts in that budget/price-point category.

[Jay29]

Dave

No Capita??

[david_z]

Jay - no Capita. We were working off a "list" of boards, unfortunately there were no Capita on my list to choose from, I'm not sure if Summit/Snowboards.net doesn't carry them or if that brand just was on someone else's list. I wanted to try some of theirs, but just didn't have the time to do it after I hit the required number of reviews.

The only board I rode that wasn't on my list was Michigan-made Marhar snowboards out of Grand Rapids.

Spoiler alert:

Their all-mountain deck was the standout of Day 2 for me.