Rob Stevens

That differential is massive. For just about everyone, it won’t matter and the convenience will outweigh the performance loss. For others beyond a size 9 who are really tipping the board to high edge angle, it will dig in. Don’t think of it only as going from edging to on your ass either… most of the time, it’s just the feeling of drag in softer groom. A thin, metal heel loop (like a Drake Podium), a very high heel loop (like a Now), or none at all (like the Flow) is ideal.

Asmo Fish 165. If you fall down, you stand up, get back on and ride away.

ISF… catchy.

There’s a small distinction between letting it happen and making it happen.

Leaving the arm behind means for a moment, you’re not needing to carry it forward with you. That moment is sped up. It may also have you on the new edge a bit more across the fall line, instead of in it, if you were to hold that lead or trailing arm forward. you might also see the lead or trailing arm in a more effective place if it’s coming from behind advancing to between the stance, instead of starting between the stance and moving forward of the front foot. I get it that the feeling of launching into the new turn is enhanced by leaving that arm behind… it accentuates the acceleration feeling. On the other “hand”, I’d want to be careful of developing a habit that you might take into freeriding steeps… it’s fine if your locking into a predictable carve right away, but if your edge is drifting and you try to pull your arm forward, it’ll slow your rotation, taking you longer to get to the fall line (and out of it) which wouldn’t be something you’d want in that scenario. This is probably one of those things that stress through a group of people trying very hard to copy one another… someone really good did it and now it’s moving out to the periphery where others don’t do it as well, inviting critique. In this arena (wide groomed slopes with no sliding) it’s fine and these riders probably don’t care what knock on effects it has in other terrain they don’t have.

Stranda Cheater 170 W. Done.

Yeah buddy.

That’s a great point. The outside hand moving forward for many goes along with pressure staying up front, or shifting up front, when ideally pressure shifts rearward, either from your mass moving back, the board moving forward under you, or both. For me, while I know that as I move to a heelside turn that I’m going to be a bit more centred over my front foot during a moderate carved turn, when I set the heel edge, I try to feel pressure on the heel of my back foot first, before making the move to the fall line. This has the effect of keeping me from standing up too tall, waving my back hand high in the air and moving to the fall line by inclining. As said earlier, front foot weight bias, inclining and being high handed with the trailing / outside arm is fine when conditions are mint, but won’t work on very hard snow or ice.

I find not having a head to be the least stylish. to get around that, If I know I’m going to eat up ground on my next heel turn, I’ll check it uphill before I’ve left my toes. If I’ve got a decent field of vision, I can usually spot even the most pinned, gaping straightliner.

I wouldn’t get into the habit of letting your lead arm go behind your back like that. It’s not such a big deal in this context and there’s an argument to be made for doing it (less resistance to transition), but will be a block for freeriding and downright dangerous in proper steeps.

As a two term president of CASI, I extend my most genuine appreciation for that heel turn.

I think that strapping in standing up is a skill missing from lots of people’s repertoires. I’ve had more than a few people who weren’t able to do it without discomfort doing it just fine with a few pointers. If you say you can’t, you can’t, so I’ll take your word for it. In its current design, I’d say that if you have to bend over to release it, it’s not where it needs to be. The mod shown earlier in the thread should be an add on you can buy at POS. going back to my original statement though, to use any binding properly, you need to clear the snow out of the baseplate first, so you should stop at the top to do it right. Unless you’re carrying a broom, you’ve got to bend over to do that, so I really don’t see any step in system as removing the bending over part.

A solution without a problem.

What you probably need are Phantom touring boots, or something like that. The flex is controlled by a spring, so you can set it where you want it. It’s also made of plastic, so when you hit its limit, it should stop, where a softboot would just keep going.

Your ability to carve properly in soft boots at low angles is not dependent on the stiffness in forward lean. Baseplate stiffness, strap hold, the boots heel hold down mechanism and overhang are far more critical. Learn to use internal forces to maintain ankle flexion and you get to keep the versatility soft boots were meant to provide.

Nice1, my guy.

I go back and forth between my 61 Optimistic and my Donek Sasquatch. the chatter I’ve had with Carl from Exegi is to build an inflated Optimistic, which would basically be my Sasquatch with a slightly shorter tail, longer and wider nose, with decamber up front in a 170. Essentially, if I use the Donek’s 28 waist as the starting point, I’d establish Optimistic dimensions off that, and go longer. To Jack’s point, if your bare foot is a 28, you pretty much need to be at least close to 30 underfoot if you want to get high edge angles with low binding angles. To the cat butt talk, if you stand those riders up straight, they’re performing a proper hip hinge squat, modified to be slightly open to the direction of travel (depending on binding angles).

Here’s a rando stat for you. 8 out of 10 concussions come through the jaw.

I just scrolled until I saw the video. Feedback isn’t much good without it... especially if you link your issues with your equipment, and your equipment is complicated. Starting off, this is good terrain for you. Any steeper or faster and you wouldn’t be able to focus on improving... you’d just be surviving. While you might leave the plate on, you could really stand to ditch it. I’m not sure if you’d really be seeing any benefit from it. If you do take it off, set up your bindings at reference stance, with offset balanced. Let’s not worry about your knees, as your issue is coming pretty much entirely from the counter rotating move you make as you transition from toes to heels. You do it on your heels to toes too, but you feel the skid on your heels likely because you cant adjust your edge with the ankles on the heel turn, so you lose that ability to fine tune out the skid. As you exit the toe turn, you’re looking for rotational alignment. That is where in the moment you go from the last of the toe edge, to flat, to picking up the heel edge, your shoulders and hips must be aligned with your average stance angle. As you begin to raise the edge, you must feel a solid connection with the snow under both feet, balanced over both feet. To guide yourself, look out of the fall line and across the run as you’re changing edges. You can do that whole turn in total alignment and I bet you’ll skid less, then totally eliminate the skid. In this video, you continue to look downhill as you change edges. It’s making it so that your upper body is more aligned with the fall line than it is with your board and where you are going. To get onto your heels, you’re having to “unwind” your torso which imparts a rotational force into your board. As you don’t have any edge angle to resist that, the board skids. In other words, you’re twisting your body one way when the board and you want to go the other way,

Oh Buddy... it must feel bleak. You’ll ride again one day. I know it. Ive been thinking about this a lot lately... I was almost killed a few weeks back. The fella that strafed me, well he and I occupied the same space and time for a moment. Him at 120 and me at about 30... blind and blissed out in a heel turn. Right over the nose of my board. Our shoulders skimmed ffs. It was nuts. I tell you... he was the only novice on the mountain that day who thought he was going to win a World Cup. By the time I gave my head two shakes, he was 200 m away. F u c k I n guy... I saw him again the other day... gaper stance and all Mach 1.5. He skis with a crew too... I wonder what they think of him? If I get a chance to share some meaningful communications with him, I will tell your story. I can’t guarantee I won’t be very menacing when I do. Again Man... We’re pulling for you.

“Hug your Prinoth driver”. The pic needs to be restaged, with cat, groomed slope and trench in said groomed slope, all behind the huggers. As incentive to come again next year, it could be suggested that they use the opportunity to create ad copy.

Carpet carving, strapped in, standing in the doorframe so you don’t fall over. Also, don’t send Erik a PM with any video you take, or you’ll deny all of us the word salads that are made in these advice threads. Sure... you’ll get accurate feedback from him, getting to the root of your issues far more efficiently, but the entertainment value of an open discussion will be lost. Think of the children.

Sick shot Corey. Edit; I should also say sick shot to whoever that is behind you.

This is pretty common stuff here. You’re going fast, so at the end of your turn, forces are generated which “pop you up”. You may also even be trying to extend yourself to be taller (up unweighting as Erik calls it). Combine this with rotation into the new turn and you’re actually doing what I’d recommend to anyone who wanted to slide the turn. For free riding in the steeps, your current technique is pretty good. If you want to carve the whole turn, focus on where that actually happens, which is under the feet. At a moderate speed, carve across the hill. When you want to change edges, focus on a feeling under your back foot where the weight of your body transitions from toe to heel, or heel to toe. Don’t think about anything else. Just that feeling of your weight shifting across your back foot. With all that weight back there (plus you not moving up and away from the board, or twisting your body into the turn) and you’ll pretty much automatically carve. The rest of you is fine enough to not fall over when you do this because your balance looks good. You’re just trying to eliminate moves that aren’t doing anything, or worse, something you don’t want. You can reintroduce unweighting and rotating once you’ve more effectively learned to control the board with your feet better.

Don’t know why Lonbordin’ laughed at my comment... I wear contacts and Transitions lens goggles and it’s the best set up I’ve had. No need to swap out lenses.