skogs

OK, so if I understand, I should be contracting my legs as I approach the end of the heelside turn so I have enough travel to compress a little bit and then pop the edge out. I run a 3 degree cant plate on both front and back so it should keep me centered on the board. However, I did notice I was weighting the back of the board more on heelsides which probably led to the thigh burn. I'm going back out on Saturday, so I'll try to not compress as much during the turn so I have more leg length to compress and then do a quick retract of the edge. I was thinking yesterday that this sport is like golf, every once in a while you lay down some solid linked carves (great shots) and then you don't (hooks, slices, whiffs, etc). But those solid carves are so addictive and keep us in the game.

OK, so I tried a bunch of the suggestions today with success. First, I made sure my left hand pointed in the direction I wanted to go and kept my trailing hand close to my knee or upper boot cuff during the heelside turn. It helped keep the board from chattering and carved a smoother line. I also used a ski pole to keep my hands parallel to the snow surface at all times. I also kept my head pointed in the direction that I wanted to go. On heelside, this was taken to an extreme where I kept looking uphill and stayed locked into the turn and almost didn't make the transition to toeside before I hit the side of the trail. It proves how powerful looking where you want to go will take you. On the same topic, I found it hard to unlock the heelside turn. I had to force my body to lean down the fallline to initiate the toeside turn. I guess that's what I'm supposed to do. The other take away from today was by driving my trailing knee into the back of my leading knee, my right quad got a hell of a work out on heelside turns. I could only ride for about 2 1/2 -3 hours as my right quad was cooked. Is that normal?

Carvedog - yes, the stiffness of the boots definitely affects my ability to get low. I weigh 175 lbs, am riding Head Stratus Pro boots (mondo 29) and usually tighten up the buckles pretty tight as well as the top strap. It's definitely resulted in a rigid setup. I tried loosening up the buckles and strap and got on the board in my apartment to experiment. It definitely gives more range of motion. l'll have to try it out on the hill. Thanks

OK, thanks for all the great advice. I have to get my eyes, chest and hands pointing in the direction of travel. I'm also going to dial up the angle on the back foot to get my back knee more in line with the front knee. As an FYI, my stance width is 19.25". I love the gunslinger position that you guys talk about on the forum as that is exactly what it looks like. Carvedog is right about me counter-rotating my upper body at the end of the toeside turn to initiate the heel side turn. I'm attaching a couple pictures of my toe side turns and a picture of the transition point between toe and heel side. The second after the shot was taken, I threw my left arm across the board which resulted in me sitting on the toilet. In one of the toe side turn photos, I actually tried to hold my hands together so that I kept my upper body pointed down the length of the board. I had to laugh at the holding the bar and riding the bike art. :) That's more motivation to fix the problem.

OK. Thanks for the great suggestions. I've been missing the lean into the turn first and then bending the knees. I really need to force myself to turn my body to face the length of the board. I'll try this stuff the next time I'm on the hill. Thanks

OK, so I've been carving for a year (spent 20 years in soft boots before that) and have been able to improve my technique considerably since day 1. I'm running a Donek Axis 172 with TD2 bindings set at 55/45. However, at the end of last season, my brother took a bunch of photos of me coming downhill so I could see my form. My toe side turns look and feel good, but my heel side turns look like I'm trying to hang my butt out and throw my hands in front of me. It seems like I have to do that to balance the board on edge. However, the technique doesn't look very good. I've attached several photos showing this. Any ideas for how to improve this? Many Thanks

Yes, I think I was trying to drive the board yesterday with toes and heels. On the first day, I was more consciously trying to drive with the knees and it responded accordingly. I was on green wide trails that day and it was a lot easier to try this technique. I also was able to get down low as my boots had a lot more flex due to the warmer temps that day (45 degrees). I think the steeper terrain and colder temps/stiffer boots yesterday forced me back to toe/heel turning. Riding yesterday was like night and day from the first day. Good suggestion on standing on the board without bindings to find the most comfortable position. I'll try centering the boots across the board and riding without cant/lift. Thanks P.S. Similar to Allee, I felt the board wanted to run me right into the trees at the higher angles.

OK. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll stick with the lower angles until I become more comfortable riding varied terrain. First day I rode greens and blues (Stratton) and yesterday I rode mostly blues with some steeper sections (Sunapee). I resigned myself to riding the lower sections of Flying Goose and Egg beater as the slope was more consistent and with less people than Bonanza/Chipmunk. At angles of 50/45, I definitely have more toe overhang than heel overhang, so I may adjust the bias so that the overhang is equal on toe side and heel side. The weirdest thing about running the 60/55 angles was it was so easy to wind up riding backwards, when all I wanted to do was initiate a toe side turn. At times, I had to twist my upper body to get the toeside turn to initiate, which I know is particularly bad technique. It was a little scary to initiate turns on steep sections only by leaning into the turn. As an FYI, I've been riding 40/30 angles on my freeride board/softboots for years and was pretty comfortable. I may monkey around with the stance width (may go 20-21") and cant angles (maybe 0 on front and 3 on back) to see if that provides a more comfortable stance. As an FYI, I'm 6'0" and 175 lbs.

OK, I recently took the plunge and got into hard boot boarding. I've been riding soft boots/freeride boards for 20 years, but never got to my goal - true carving. So, I bought an Axxess 172 with 21.5 waist as I figured an AM board would be a great way to get into carving. I'm riding Stratos Pro boots mondo 29 and TD2 standard bindings. I also set up the board with 3 degree cant/lift on the back and the same in front. The first day I rode the board, I was using a 50/45 binding angles and was able to rail some pretty good carves (on soft hard pack, temp was 45 degrees). I experienced boot out a couple of times (toe-side) though and realized I needed to steepen the angles. So, yesterday (day 2) I dialed in 60/55 and had a tough time initiating toe side turns. It was pretty unmanageable on both toe side and heel-side. So, I dialed it back down to 50/45 and was able to get back into a little bit of a groove. It was a lot colder yesterday (temp was 15 degrees) and the boots felt a lot stiffer. To prevent toe drag, my back foot needs to be at least 55 degrees, although at that angle, it seem pretty difficult to turn the board. I'm running a centered stance - 19.25 inches. What should I do? I'm thinking I might run at 55/45 the next time I go out and maybe work up to 60/50. Thoughts? Thanks, New HBooter