The Carver's Almanac: Resources for carving

Websites

Top Carving sites

• BomberOnline includes a forum, reviews, tutorials, and a classifieds section for used gear.
• Freecarve.com is a good site for carving Q and A.
• ExtremeCarving in English and French. They manufacture a specialized carving board, the SWOARD ExtremeCarver.

Regional carving sites

You can meet up with other carvers by connecting via a regional carving web site. Carvers are generally evangelistic, so you should have no problem getting advice and tracking down gear to borrow or buy. If you surf sites in various languages, you can use Babelfish or Langenberg to translate. You also may need to select a local character encoding to see special characters: Select View -> Encoding in Internet Explorer to set the text encoding.

• SwissCarving. A great site that includes photos, videos, and profiles of resorts in Europe that are good for ExtremeCarving.
• G-Force Carving, in Greece.
• CarvingUp, in Italian; quite extensive info/videos/fotos.
• OnEdge, in Russian. ExtremeCarving style with a FAQ, photos, videos, and forum.
• Carve.ru, in Russian: Forum, articles, and a Russian translation of The Carver's Almanac.
• TahoeCarvers, a forum for people who carve in the Lake Tahoe area.
• Hardbooter.com for Utah carvers. Their Utah session page has links to a travel guide for carvers visiting Utah.
• Ontario Carvers mailing list
• Ojankaivajat, in Finnish, also with English and Swedish forums. Also see the Flegmatic carving site with photos and videos.
• PureBoarding, a Swiss site, in English and German. They manufacture two specialized carving boards: the #ONE, and the #TWO
• Frozen-Backside, in German.
• Alpinesurfer, in French.
• Alpinepunk, in Swedish. Also a retailer for F2 and Bomber.
• Korean extremecarving club
• AlpineRider, in Korean.
• SpeedAndCarving, in Korean.
• Soul Boarders, in Dutch.
• Raceriders, for French Canadian carvers.
• Chacaltaya, a Dutch racing site. Their motto is "We are Chacaltaya, resistance is futile, you must Carve"
• Sigi Grabner's website has a forum.
• Carveitup.net, a Canadian carving site with a mailing list.
• CarvingBoard, in Czech

Regional snowboard sites which often include carving discussion

• Snowboard.at, in German
• Snowboard-Community.de, in German
• OnBoard, in Russian.
• Skipass, in French.
• Freestyler.it, In Italian. Despite the name, they have hardboot info on style, gear, and boards.
• Ski.com.au, in Australia

General carving info

• Catek has a forum.
• Raceboarders has a bunch of tips, with a Maxim-esque writing style.
• Carving info for Finland
• Stoked.at in English and German
• The rec.skiing.snowboard FAQ has some info on carving.
• There is a page that covers snowboard stance for alpine, freeride and freestyle boards.
• For a look at vintage alpine boards, check out OldSnowboards
• The Outsiderary has an overview of carving.

Blogs, Home pages, photo galleries

• Derf's homepage has catalogs of older board manufacturers, and tips on carving in Quebec.
• There is a pretty good Italian homepage/blog on carving, with great photos.
• Chris Webster's web page of carving
• Robert has a web page showing hard boot technique
• The Wigglesworld web site. Check out the reviews of the powder boards.
• Kalle's page on carving in Tahoe
• Arthur's page on carving in Canada
• Bruce's page
• Pro racer Fred Ansara
• Tom Palka's site
• Pokkis has a vast photo gallery of carving
• Zadja's carving page, in Czech.
• The Oxess photo gallery
• Pat Moore's global map of hardbooters
• A great blog entry from the Czech republic, on the 2006 Extreme Carving Session .
• On Myspace, there's Gleb's page. There is also Karl, who's into racing.

Japanese Carving sites (Set your browser to use shift-JIS text encoding)

• In English and Japanese
  • Carvingmachine
  • The SkiJapan forum
  • The e-board blog in Japan
• In Japanese only:
  • Mac's Room He puts a plastic sheath over binding bails to eliminating the gaps between the boots and bails. He also shows power coils, which are additional springs that can be used with Head boots, available for sale.
  • A good index of Japan carving links
  • A good blog on Virus boards
  • PureCarve Lab
  • Real Carve
  • Soul discussion
  • Tuning and riding tutorials
  • AOSD

The Russian Connection

There are quite a few carving articles available in Cyrillic, some of which are familiar translations from English. You may need to set your browser to use Cyrilic text encoding.

• The Carver's Almanac
• Creating a homemade boot dryer out of CPU cooling fans. When your bank account is in rubles, you need to be flexible.
• Snowboard Camps in the US
• New: Carving technology
• Carving Technique
• General snowboard Technique
• Some Eurocarving advice
• Tuning: edge sharpening
• Tuning: setting up a home workshop
• Heat-molding Thermoflex liners
• Underwater Snowboarding
• A good reason to wear a helmet
• Snowboard Selection I
• Snowboard Selection II
• Snowboard Selection III
• Board Construction
• Carving Mini-Battle
• Alpinpunk: On the edge of snowboarding
• Basic Board construction
• Basic Types of Boards
• Detailed board construction
• Content from Bomber
  • Separate Zee Knees
  • Cross-over, Cross-under, Cross through
  • How to Buy an Alpine Snowboard
  • Feel the Carve, Ride "The Norm" (Part 1)
  • The "Norm" Part II
  • Physics of a Snowboard Carved Turn
  • Chris Klug Interview
  • Practice drills: a translation of a thread on Bomber. It also contains the original pictures, which are no longer on the Bomber thread.
  • Several articles are located on the Funcarver.ru article page

The Old Bomber

There were a few threads on the now-defunct old Bomber forum that are archived here:

• A really freaking long board
• Shred's frankenboard
• Intec-compatible pants
• Intec-compatible pants, part II
• Raichle cant fix
• Teaching kids to carve
• Using Snowpro bindings on 3D pattern boards
• Better living through arc welding

Magazines

There are two Japanese magazines that have extensive coverage of carving with a lot of meticulous step-by-step how-to photo spreads:

Snowboard Nippon, published by Ski Journal, often has extensive carving coverage. They have almost no advertising:

December 2003, #03
	7 pages: Interview with Peter Bauer with a photo spread 5 pages: Tips for hardbooting in powder 3 pages: Hardboot carving tips 8 pages: Mechanics of turning in hardboots 9 pages: Alpine carving buyers guide for '04 3 pages: Coverage of the FIS '03 world cup in Sapporo, world rankings and schedule of races for '04.

February 2004, #04
	14 pages: Carving and racing techniques of Dejan Kosir, with a photo spread 14 pages: Advanced tuning techniques for different types of boards (race, freeride, freestyle), for different areas of the hill (carving, halfpipe, park, etc)

November 2004, #05

17 pages: 4 steps for carving: positioning, weight transition, edging, and open / closed stances. These are 4 out of the 9 steps - the next 5 will be in issue #6. These photo spreads are a companion to the Carving Master 2 DVD, which shows all steps. 7 pages: Snowboard racing, with interviews and tips from pro riders 4 pages: '05 Board buyer's guide 26 pages: There is a carving competition. Carvers turn around pylons and are judged for their carving ability. Includes carving tips and step-by-step analysis 8 pages: Tuning, stance, base material

November 2004 supplement
	This issue is "Mathieu Bozzetto's Snowboard Carving Method". 132 pages of freecarving and racing techniques. Plus he goes over the techniques used by other pro riders.

January 2005, #06
	15 pages: A companion to the Carving Master 2 DVD, showing steps 5-9 for alpine riding: eye point, edging point, turn control, transition control, middle & Short turn. 12 pages: analysis of racing technique from top pros 1 page: world cup snowboard coverage

Snowstyle Magazine issues a single carving supplement each fall titled "Carve":

December 2003
	Lots of pictures. 8 pages of carving tips, including Vitelli turns, Interviews with three alpine industry leaders. 11 pages: Alpine buyer's guide for '04. 12 pages: Carving skills. 10 pages: Coverage of current alpine racers.

December 2004

Lots of photos. 9 pages: analysis of Mathieu Bozzetto, Nicolas Huet, and Sigi Grabner's riding style, including graphs showing how the pressure changes during the turn. 4 pages: Covers a step-by-step how-to for 7 tricks on a carving board: 1-foot carving, switch carving, ollie to carving, ollie to vitelli, heel side hand slide 360 in bank, tail spin 270 stop, and tail press spin. 4 pages: a complete expose on grooming machines, how they work, and the different brands 14 pages: Alpine buyer's guide for '05.

December 2005

Lots of 2-page photo spreads 16 pages: Highly detailed techniques used by 4 different riders for carving and racing 5 pages: tips for BX racing. 13 pages: Alpine buyer's guide for '06 5 pages: tips on how to set up a stance, from the SettingMaster 3 pages: tricks on an alpine board 4 pages: waxing tips for racing 4 pages: common technique mistakes of alpine riders 9 pages: A list of 43 retail shops that sell carving gear. 11 pages: photos of carving on a huge mountain 4 pages: They interview Sigi about his new line of SG boards.

December 2006

Lots of 2-page photo spreads 3 pages: a pitch for a carve camp sponsored by CARVE magazine 4 pages: new carving products for 2007, including the IBEX bindings that use the Burton molds, and the Active Flex lifter system 20 pages: extremely detailed step-by-step carving instruction, showing all aspects of carving. Illustrated with photos of Sigi Grabner and Mathieu Bozzetto. Includes stance, equipment adjustment, force vectors, drills. 6 pages: interview with a Japanese racer Shota Yada 10 pages: Alpine buyer's guide for '07 4 pages: plyometric workout routine for carving 10 pages: photos and results of alpine races 2 pages: New Zealand TravelBlog 3 pages: profile of Sigi and Mathieu 9 pages: A list of 43 retail shops that sell carving gear 5 pages: photos from the Olympics in Torino 4 pages: profile of Koji Sugimoto

The Pro Rider Magazine is published yearly by the AASI, and may have alpine skills articles from time to time.

You might be able to get some tips from the better ski magazines like Powder, Ski or Skiing.

The Snowboard Journal is a quarterly magazine printed in September, November, January, and March. It's first issue was January 2004. Similar to The Surfer's Journal, it has very little advertising and does not sell out to the corporate marketing forces that are behind the jibber crowd. Carving has gotten some exposure in a few issues:

• 2004 Issue #1: Victoria Jealouse carving a deep trench on page 95.
• 2004 Issue #2: A few mountaineer riders hike up Greenland's Karale Glacier on splitboards and ride down in hard boots.
• 2004 Issue #3: A shot of Shannon Melheuse carving a turn on a race board at Vail on page 80, a small pic of Damian Sanders in the pipe with Koflach boots on page 83, and a shot of Mark Fawcett surfing really low in powder on page 95
• 2004 Issue #4: No hardbooting whatsoever, despite sending a photographer to the SES '04 in February.
• 2005 Issue #5: There is a huge carving shot on pages 92/93 from SES '04 Aspen: Scott Ubrick nailing a ultra-laid heel side at Ajax.
• 2005 Issue #6: A huge carving photo spread - 8 pages of shots taken at Ajax Mountain during the 2004 SES. The article consists of snippets taken from a Bomberonline thread discussion "Why Carve."
• 2005 Issue #7: No readily identifiable hard booting, except for a North Face ad.
• 2005 Issue #8: There is a shot of Damien Sanders doing slopestyle in Hardboots on page 94.
• 2006 Issue #9: Nothing
• 2006 Issue #10: Page 26: A profile of early snowboarding history in New Zealand, which shows some really ancient boards (all symmetric) used with hardboots.
• 2006 Issue #11: Nothing.
• 2006 Issue #12: Nothing. Though, there is one thing tangentially related to carving: Prior took out a full-page ad.
  

Articles on carving

• Cindy Kleh wrote the article "S'thorne manufacturers make their mark" in the Summit Daily News that included info on alpine board manufacturers in Colorado. Cindy wrote an article on the alpine snowboard industry and is shopping it around to various magazines.
• Nils wrote the online article "The Return of Style" in English and French
• Chris Klug wrote an article "Sit Down for Power," which gives tips for carving a heel side turn, in the March/April 2004 issue of Skiing. In a nutshell: when entering the turn, lift your toes up toward your kneecaps to get higher edge, then pressure your knees forward and into the turn to get your butt over the carving edge.
• The Denver Post did a brief write-up of the 2006 SES. It was published on Wednesday, February 22, 2006.
• The Bend Bulletin did a writeup of Doug Dryer's 252 cm long 'Big Kahuna' board. It was published on Monday, December 25, 2006
• Transworld Snowboarding had a short article on Rosey Fletcher's Bronze metal PGS win at Torino in the September 2006 issue, page 58. . It also includes a sidebar with brief info on alpine gear and a list of manufacturers (they forgot Bomber). Prior to this issue, TWS did not have a photo of a rider in hardboots since 1998.

Books

One manuscript stands out: "Snowboarding: A Practical Manual" a self-published book written in 1993 by Erik Beckman, a snowboard instructor at Sugarloaf. It's about 60 pages, and focuses almost entirely on carving. Chapter 13 is enlightening, since it goes into the bone/joint/muscle kinematics needed to execute cross-through turns on steep ice. To inquire about the status of the manuscript, contact:

Many other snowboard books include a few pages on basic carving, but none of them cover it in sufficient depth to be useful. Here are a few examples:

• "The Snowboard Book" by Lowell Hart: There is a short chapter on basic carving technique. Hardbooting is also sprinkled throughout the book, since Lowell always appears in plates when demonstrating technique.
• The AASI Snowboard Manual, which can be purchased from the AASI website. The book has a few pages of basic carving instruction, and the accompanying video also shows the basics.
• "The Illustrated Guide to Snowboarding" by Kevin Ryan: There are a few pages of basic carving instruction.
• "The Complete Snowboarder" by Jeff Bennett: There are a few pages of basic carving instruction.
• "Snowboarding Experts" by Christof Weiss is often recommended for carvers, but we wonder why. The book does not go into any depth as far as carving or racing techniques.

You might be able to get some tips from the better ski books:

• "The Physics of Skiing: Skiing at the Triple Point" by David Lind. This highly technical book goes into great detail on the physics of skiing and the dynamics of a carved turn. It also covers snow structure and base material properties.
• "The Skier's Edge" by Ron Lemaster. It covers the physics of how ski performance is affected by body dynamics. Also includes physics of binding setup and canting.
• "The Athletic Skier" by Darren Witherell covers a lot of detail on ski setup like fitting, canting, alignment, etc to achieve optimal balance when carving on skis.
• "Skiing and the Art of Carving" by Ellen Post Foster, for carving on skis.
• "Skiing Mechanics" available from the Claw Skis web site. In-depth mathematical analysis of ski dynamics.

The UK-based World Snowboard Guide is one of the few books that includes carving information in their resort descriptions. The info isn't very complete or accurate, but it's better than nothing. They also have info on summer boarding.

FAQs

There are none. In carving, there are more opinions than there are facts. Plus, even the facts are opinionated. Actually, there is a laminated FAQ:

Laminated FAQ

Print this out and hand it to people on the lift when they start pestering you with questions.

The Final Carving FAQ

There is actually one more FAQ: The Final Carving FAQ, and it makes sense of all other carving information. It is a bit of wisdom conjured by Patrice Fivat:

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