History of Snowboard Race Technique?

[RCrobar]

Hi 

 

Who is the Father of Snowboard Race Technique?  

 

What is the history?  

 

Was it an organic grass roots development or was it based on an ISF vs FIS type controversy? 

 

Did ski racers move to snowboard racing? Etc.

 

Is there a Sims vs Burton type story within the race community?

 

Who was the first to start producing narrow snowboards?

 

Flipping through an old Burton catalogue inspired my curiosity.

 

Thanks in advance for your stories.

Cheers

Rob

Edited November 27, 2015 by RCrobar

[Pat Donnelly]

Some of these clips have been posted before . . .

 

 

Tom Sims

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGm1Xy_1xHY

 

http://snowboarding8090.com/rubrika/tom-sims/

 

 

Jake Burton

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q8-Nni-U5o

[RCrobar]

Thanks Pat

 

 

The Burton Catalogue that inspired the history question is from the 1995-96 season.  

 

I am not sure if you can tell from the picture of the Factory-Prime page, but near the bottom is explains that they make boards of the same length, with different widths, for different styles.  

 

For GS they had a wide and a narrow symetriacal board.  For SL they had a narrow symetrical board and a wide asymetrical board.

 

"Similar lengths, but designed for two distinctly different riding styles."

 

Thanks

Rob

 

[pegtal]

95-96 season is the second year of the FP range, and one year before the first FP, Burton introduced the Stat family, high performance symetrical boards, but finally not so narrow.

The first really narrow board i've seen (about 18 cm) was a Hooger Booger, and probably at the same period (about 1993, not sure) the Aggression Stealth, both asymetrical.

[nils]

Keep in mind the tech and level gap brought by Hot when it entered the races...Hot race team won most races in 86-87-88...Serge told me in 86(?) in Beckenridge when they first entered US competitions the domination was so big that they eventually created sub categories to leave Sims and Burton some room...Comparing an 86-87 Hot board and the Burton counterpart is an explanation by itself...Only when the Safari series began did Burton gained back some race level, then the gold years of the PJ :)

 

 

I guess the first real step in racing is the 86 winter with hardboots, hardbindings and stiff boards with narrower waists begin to appear..

[philw]

My recollection..

 

I remember the Aggression Stealth (1992?), although I never had one. At the time all "race" boards had those awkward asymmetrical designs which I never liked.

 

I think it was 1993-4 or so when the "new race method" arrived. I read about it in a magazine (remember those). Possibly the same magazine I saw the Stealth reviewed in.

 

The "new race method" was a more forward facing stance and *importantly* symmetrical boards. It did not come, in Europe at least, from Burton, who never really seemed to get the whole race thing. My first symmetrical board was the Nitro Scorpion, which I suppose was an SL board although I wasn't using it to race with, it was a side-effect of the fashions of the time.

 

I remember Burton hanging on with those old weird PJ things for a while, then the "stat" and the "FP" business, but those seemed lame to me as a consumer (I was not a racer). I dare say Burton invested in racing, and perhaps the stats will show that people used boards which looked like those in their catalog, and maybe they even won things, but their consumer race gear never had a chance because it never had a heart, in my opinion.

[softbootsurfer]

Here is Nico on a Hot in 88...

 

 

[gnarfy]

I still use my 6.7 180s FP.. It was a great board, nearly 20 years ago !

[RCrobar]

Thanks Nils

Surge Dupraz is 'perhaps' the guy that started the narrower board trend, how ironic!  

I say ironic because he was so inspired by Hawaii and Surfing.  Ironic when you look at his boards of today that are totally and completely made to simulate a surf feel and vibe.

Who were the Hot riders winning all the races in the mid 80's?

It would be my guess that they were ski racers as kids, who moved to snowboarding as boarding grew.  It seems to make sense, when you watch a modern racers technique, that these HOT riders applied all the ski race knowledge that they picked up as young kids.

Does this ski theory, for the history of the snowboard race technique, hold water?

Thank you for your thoughts guys!
Rob

 

Edited November 25, 2015 by RCrobar

[RCrobar]

Found the information below on the Dupraz web site, it seems to confirm the ski racer influence on technique in the 1980's.

 

Cheers

Rob

 

Competition

Early on, Hot chose to sponsor both races and racers. This is how the company won the first French National Championships. Having always had faith in the future and growth of the sport, Serge Dupraz worked hard to provide Hot Snowboards with as strong an image as the top brands at the time, all American. Hot created a stable of professional racers (coached by a former ski instructor trainer at France's legendary ENSA – National School for Skiing and Mountaineering – in Chamonix), which was in total contrast with the more typical laid-back approach at the time to this type of initiative.

 

The Hot Pro Team, which included two Swiss racers and their coach, worked all year long, and everyone was a Hot Snowboards employee. They were able to harvest the fruits of their labor, racers on team Hot took home national, European, and international titles. The brand image was clear: solid, high-performance, dynamic, and quality beyond reproach. In France and in several other countries, Hot Snowboards dominated the all-mountain and alpine snowboard markets (In France, sales five times higher than Burton, the N°2 brand). The Hot Snowboards brand continued to ride high on this image until 2005.

[tex1230]

The North American racing style was purely from the mind of Jerry Masterpool. Cross M dominated racing in the early 90s. I'm a little biased here but the agreeing dive for the nose technique and the first real disciplined training for most racers of the era came from Jerry and his crew.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[RCrobar]

Thanks Tex1230

 

I have to be honest, this is the first time I have ever heard of Jerry Masterpool; I don't come from a racing or skiing background, the Bones Brigade was my inspiration.

 

From the quote below it seems like Mr Dupraz's HOT team and hired French ski coach set the racing bar higher first, then a few years later others did the same.

 

Was Jerry Masterpool a world cup ski racer and coach? 

 

A quick google search and guys like Chris Klug and Mark Fawcett, a legend in my mind, mention Jerry as a key guy in their racing careers.

 

Found this section about race teams and Jerry Masterpool in a Chris Klug article on line:

Edited November 26, 2015 by RCrobar

[Beckmann AG]

Meanwhile, back on Hoth...

 

By 1990, Fawcett had already graduated from CVA . At that time the program was vibrant, run by Eric Webster, and Scott Palmer. Both had previously ridden for Burton. Word had it that Eric used to swipe napkins from the cafeteria to shim his bindings for a more secure closure. Counted among the athletes in residence were Adam Hostetter, Troy Collins, and of course Jeremy Jones.

Jones was on Rossi, Collins on Mistral, and Hostetter on Sims.  Modified ski boots were the footwear of choice, and there was an attempt to ‘angulate’ equally to both toe and heel sides without periodic rotation of the upper body. The watchword for training was shoulders ‘perpendicular to the board, parallel to the snow’. They didn’t necessarily run a course with that kind of rigidity, but it did enforce a particular, and effective, relationship to the point of contact.

Fawcett made an appearance from time to time. He was on Sims and the Fritshi Diablo binding. Met Jacoby at one point, and he was also on the Diablo and maybe Hot?.This just prior to the introduction of the original Caron Alpine Technologies (later Catek) clamper. Everyone more or less got on board with that, getting away from the fragile Emery Surf.

Bindings were 'free mount' without inserts. Generally toe and heel lift, no cant.

Those guys were hot, both fast and loose, (in a good way), riding compact and low as a means of not getting chucked off line.  Granted, there wasn’t much for suspension out of the legs, but the boards were fairly wide, and wouldn’t contain all that much energy.  It was a compromise that worked reasonably well, at least on eastern icepack.

I recall watching Jones forerun a J-0 GS course looking for all the world like a MagLev.

Scary fast, as though he might become orbital payload at any moment.

 

Asyms were still available, but were not used for the speed events, as the typically shorter heelside radius could get messy right quick.

On the other hand, there was a brief period where asyms ridden with more splay and flatter angles were the go-to for slalom. Presumably because the rider would be more upright, and the board wouldn’t see the higher edge angles of GS and Super G.

 

Courses were still set using ‘ski type’ breakaway plastic.

 

Greenwood was the first rider I saw to adopt the somewhat fallacious reasoning of ’shoulders facing down the fall line’, sitting into the heel side almost like a novice, and then diving head first into the toeside.   Palmer had moved on, I think, With Webster soon to follow.  The program was beginning to struggle a bit in the talent department, with riders not quite as intuitive/athletic/strong as the ‘originals’.

Obviously it worked for him (JG), but it was an odd move, given the forces at work, and biomechanical considerations.  Not sure where the concept originated, but then coaches come up with some quirky thoughts from time to time.

Like Masterpool at CrossM.

There were a couple of seasons when the team booked a week of training hill space.  I went up one day with a video camera in hopes of gaining insight.  Put the camera away after maybe 10 minutes, as they were up to some wacky action that just didn’t look right.  Way straight on the front leg, parked on the tail, and overly consumed with aerodynamic postures in parts of the course where a ‘looser’ composure would have been a better idea.  One of the riders came into the ski shop looking for some help for his toes, blackened by the constant leverage of the calf agains the cuff of that front boot. 

His shell already looked purpose-built for climbing chain-link fencing…

 

They were all convinced that Jerry had it figured out, but to be frank, it certainly didn’t look that way, and I’m convinced that some of the riders were better off prior to that period with CrossM.

But they did have sinister and rather intriguing stickers.

 

At this time, triangle panels were replacing, or had replaced, full-height gates for all events. Courses were still single format, and the boards had become narrower and longer.  

Tara Eberhard (I think she and Jerry were not yet an item?) had a Moss that was so narrow, she had cut the corners off her bindings for clearance. Fritchis, and she was on Lange XRI or some such, with a softer cuff on the rear boot. Either pink lower with blue upper, or the other way ‘round.

Rosie Fletcher had a small gemstone bonded to one of her front teeth. Don’t know that it made her faster, but it probably messed with a few heads.

Not too long after,(late 90’s?) the course format changed to dual, and the technique changed as well.  With less variation in turn size/depth/duration etc, riders could get away with the ’sit and dive’ mode, using the sidecut to ‘set it and forget it’, with little thought of, or need for, minute line adjustment. Triangle panels didn’t exactly enforce decent posture over the board to the toeside, though it was certainly possible to get whacked in the man-parts on a mistimed heel side.

Boards were getting better in some respects, in that they would contain more of the energy of a turn. This moved some focus to ‘strength’ of posture. It was common to pivot/slide the initiation of the turn, as the ‘hip-centric’ technique, combined with the stabilizing length of the board, generally precluded carving at ‘tip-in’. The result, something of a ‘hunker and skip’ approach to the course with a good bit of hand flapping.

Dissonance between board and surface, and a general lack of suspension, encouraged the move away from the stiffer bindings used in the nineties, to the ‘more forgiving’ interface that dominates to this day.

Strangely, while up-unweighting had long been discarded from alpine ski racing, it was still the standard for the snowboard events.

The introduction of Isocline plates has seen at least a few riders move forward with technique.  When the boards don’t twist, a rider has less stabilizing tension in the legs.  Muscles previously used for stability/support can now be used for the higher purpose of guiding inputs and more active suspension/pressure management.  As a result, there is some evidence of a subtle, but inevitable change in the dominant movement paradigm.  

 

The 'father' of snowboard race technique is simply circumstance.

Edited November 25, 2015 by Beckmann AG

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

Look for the "M"

[RCrobar]

Thanks Mr Beckmann

 

The 'father' of snowboard race technique is simply circumstance.

 

 

 

It has been very interesting reading some of the 'circumstances' from snowboardings racing past.

 

Cheers

Rob

Edited November 25, 2015 by RCrobar

[lordmetroland]

I have to be honest, this is the first time I have ever heard of Jerry Masterpool; I don't come from a racing or skiing background, the Bones Brigade was my inspiration.

Wasn't Cross M multidisciplinary? I seem to recall seeing those stickers on half pipe riders' gear in all the cool, early 90s snowboard mags. Or maybe they were just advertising their racing preference in the time before the Big Pants came and ate all of snowboarding.

[SunSurfer]

For the historians here, given the comments about the Hot team in this thread.

Hammer Snowboards have an online archive of Hot snowboards going back to pre 1994.

 

http://www.hammersnowboards.com/Archives/site2006_2007/products/hotsnowboards/hot_archives.php

[pegtal]

Nice. But they switched 90-92 and 92-93.

In France, the Logical was a dream board and much more affordable than the PJ.

[philw]

Good point, in Europe, American boards were extremely expensive - I remember Burton being twice what other boards would cost. Their marketing always felt more skate oriented. SIMS.. I have some bindings with the name, but I don't recall seeing the brand here. We had Mistral (windsurfing) and Hot and all that stuff, which I always assumed came from ski/monoski, rather than from skateboard as the US side appeared to be. We know who won, of course, but there it is.

[tex1230]

Wasn't Cross M multidisciplinary? I seem to recall seeing those stickers on half pipe riders' gear in all the cool, early 90s snowboard mags. Or maybe they were just advertising their racing preference in the time before the Big Pants came and ate all of snowboarding.

No - Cross M was all about racing, but we had a bunch of multidisciplinary riders. - so they kept the XM on all their stuff.

There used to be a cross m alumni page on Facebook...but I got kicked off after "disagreeing" with my favorite guy Jay W. [emoji867]

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Corey]

Tthat shot of Nico on the Hot is awesome!  

 

Thanks to all for the stories from those days.  

[RCrobar]

Thanks Everyone

The Snowboard Race Technique grew organically from the random 'circumstances' that many riders and coaches were involved in; this sounds about right for the evolution of many sports.

It also seems safe to say that the many of the riders and coaches involved in Snowboard Race Technique, ever evolving as it is, had there roots firmly planted in the influences of a ski racer technique and heritage.

I think it is cool how different riders can look at a mountain and see a 1/4 pipe, a race track or a big glassy wave.  It is also cool to see how they all grow organically via a series of circumstances .... that we can visit about years later.

Cheers
Rob

[LeeW]

Oh my goodness. This is jackpot and I'm gonna have to revisit this post. Yeah, two days ago I was watching old video via this forum and saw Tara Eberhard. I had a teenager crush on her and I was even more elated to learnt she married Jerry Masterpool years later. Imagine how delighted I was to see those names popping here as well as Cross M. Are they still active these days? Seems those elite race clubs are far and few these days. I miss training with Coach Will Garrow and Coach Sean MacCarron.

[Beckmann AG]

It also seems safe to say that the many of the riders and coaches involved in Snowboard Race Technique, ever evolving as it is, had there roots firmly planted in the influences of a ski racer technique and heritage.

 

That's probably a fair statement for the earlier years, but possibly not so much in the last decade or so. Back when snowboard gate racing was at it's peak, the focus was more on winning, rather than on being 'core'; the latter extending to regulations on clothing, and likely to coaching philosophy/ pedigree. 

 

The interesting thing is that, in the same time frame, Alpine ski racing technique advanced further and faster than it did for snowboarding.  One would think that ski and snowboard 'technique' might have followed similar/parallel paths, as the respective 'tools' have come so far in the last 30 years, and their handling characteristics are so similar.

Skiing events, despite periodic regulatory changes on gate offset and relative distance, have always been single format, and the competitors alter their approach based on those changes and also contemporary ski development.  Snowboarding, on the other hand, adapted the dual format, which, for all intents and purposes, has restricted/inhibited technique, despite the apparent 'gains' in hardgoods.

 

Whereas Bode Miller most likely looked to his snowboarding classmates for some of his early inspiration, it's less likely that snowboarders today will look to the World Cup and say "what if....?".

[Corey]

Snowboarding, on the other hand, adapted the dual format, which, for all intents and purposes, has restricted/inhibited technique, despite the apparent 'gains' in hardgoods.

Can you elaborate? I'm struggling to see how having two racers going down two (somewhat) parallel courses would have an effect on technique. If you're faster, you'd tend to win.