dgCarve

Yep, that video indeed is very structured and really good! Alexey has another tutorial for free ride adaptation of racing technique. If you do not mind using translator from Russian, you can find it here: http://www.onedge.ru/forum/viewforum.php?f=34&sid=f1949d875c15f552fa3af50c64d68338

Can't agree more. Enjoy the process of learning. Keep working - there will be good days and bad days. It is OK. Do not think that if you can not carve clean on blues or blacks, that it is a problem. No it is NOT! Winning Olympics is not your goal. You do not need to prove anything to anyone. Choose the slope you comfortable with, and keep learning and practicing specific things. Enjoy the process. Sooner or later it will come to you.

I agree here. I personally think about CMC as extreme Bomber substyle (even though this technically may not be correct ). You still can ride Bomber style just fine with more straight legs, upright body, and good angulation. Your quads will be much happier .

Using this style your quads always will be a problem, period. If you ride 100% like that, your quads will be done in 2 hours, if you are really strong. For most people quads will be done in 30 min... This style is not safe, as you will not be able to quickly change direction of travel, and you will have to slow down by going perpendicular (or up the hill) to the fall line. Bumpy surface always will be a problem, as this style promotes "direct" pressure on edge, every bump will be hitting your legs quite hard. This style requires good flat surface, if there are bumps - just go home.... Soft snow always will be a problem, as this style tends to overload the nose of the board (for this style better order a board with very stiff nose). You have to be very flexible for this style - if you can not rest your breast on your front knee, your never will ride well using this style. Just some of my learnings (including from personal experience) about this CMC style... Carve Curt Master is the first who introduced this style of carving: P.S. If you want to be good at CMC, concentrate on moving shoulders - all movements initiated by moving shoulders in this style. In the video you can see that very well when Curt is dong fast small turns.

This is Alexey from this forum. He is great rider, but even he admits that this style has too many limitations. He is promoting more "like" racing style (free ride adaptation of racing style) now. And I do share same view with him...

I am interested too! I really want to have some experienced coach to help me with my racing "like" technique :-), especially on SL boards, as I find it more difficult than GS. SL short turns requires more precision and strength. Are you doing private lessons only, or group lessons too?

I assume from that phrase that your technique is requiring you to lean forward (bend ankles). To be honest, I can only image one situation when it is really required - when you do transition perpendicular to a fall line at very slow speed. This helps you not to fall into the next turn. Is that correct assumption? If assumption above is correct please consider following: Actually any style of carving except maybe CMC style (Bomber variant) can be ridden using "upright" (or very close to "upright") boots settings. Even extreme carving style (which I actually think is more of a trick than riding style :-)) can be ridden in boots with no lean at all (but softer boots or springs would be beneficial of cause). You may simply increase speed of your carving which may mean more open turns, more angulation, put board higher on edge in apex of a turn. Another problem with doing slow transitions is that you legs constantly under load - pressure from your weight is always there. Your legs do not rest. If you do faster carving, you do very little or no pressure at all during transition. So your legs working very hard only in apex of a turn, where they are extended. This is similar to cycling where your legs mostly work when you push pedals down, and "rest" when they go up. These short periods of "rest" improves blood/oxygen flow and keeps your muscle fresh for very long time. P.S. Just because your ankles are fixed in "upright" position does not mean that you will not have any flexibility. You still have lots of joints which you can (and should) flex. P.S2. For reference I personally ride very stiff UPZ RCR boots with stiffest springs and stiffest tongues (I can not flex them at all). Front foot is in most upright position. Rear - second most "upright" position. I have F2 toe lift at front, and heel lift at rear.

Altera (Ikon Pass) does not care about Covid and crowds. They use reservations to limit attendance of pass holders to sell more day tickets. Crowds at the Crystal for example are much bigger than at any previous season. All parking lots (including additional new parking lot) are full at weekends and almost full during meed week. This season they park cars much closer than ever before. Altera does not care abut safety of the people. They are simply too greedy and use Covid just to make more money. To be frank officials must close this resort right away, if they care about people safety (even thought I do not want that). The only good thing about having such non restricted crowds is that my "avoidance" skills on my SL board are improving very fast .

I had several bad crashes (very entertaining for viewers ) with lots flips and rolls, even broke a shoulder like that LOL. One crash due to overloading the nose, others because of the hitting soft patches of snow (under what looked like hard packed groomed surface) in very high speed turns ... My legs around ankles were hurting for several days after such crashes, but in "walk mode", I am sure, ankles would be simply broken... I do not advice to ride in walk mode ever.

Love the video. All racers can "free carve", but very few "free carvers" can ride using racing technique (or at least similar to racing technique) LOL. Love the racing technique - stability, speed, ease of changing direction at any time, safety, riding down the hill, not across the hill, controlling speed by putting board very high on edge in apex of the turn... Well, at that point you probably can guess my preference in riding style LOL.

I tend to agree with this statement, most probably it is not your muscles, but technique. I used to ride very low stance - my quads were done by end of two hour riding session. I have changed my technique. When my legs requires most of their strength (in apex of the turn), I keep them bent just enough to have some room for adjustment during the turn. This does not mean that I ride straight - I use angulation as much as I can. I do not use pressure to make my turns smaller - I just put board higher on edge if needed. This way my cardio usually becomes problem sooner than my leg strength :-).

Crystal Mountain has opened couple days ago, requiring wearing mask when you are "near other people". In practice it means using masks in lift lines, while you ride lifts, go to bathrooms, etc. I use regular medical masks in situations I have described above. It is impossible to ride in such mask. Simply not enough air. Mask become wet quite fast, what makes even harder to breath. However it still works for lifts and lines.

Yep, I just got a message from him too. So, glad that he is alright! We have a crazy and hard year, so I just was a bit worried. And I can not imagine not riding Coiler's boards. New Contra is amazing!

I have tried to contact Bruce (using his personal email not "info at coiler dot com") couple of times during last two weeks with no luck. Usually he was getting back to me quite fast. Does anyone heard from him recently? Is he alright?

My son started when he had size 6. I have bought him smallest UPZ shell and use Palau liners. Depending on liner thickness this shell size covers everything from 5.5 to 8.5. Works very well for my son. No issues with heel lift.

There are some interesting points with proofs. There is a proof that when you ride fast and aggressive (and put your snowboard high on edge) you can control speed very efficiently in open turns, so you do not need to go perpendicular to the fall line (I love that :-)). As a result of this: 1) You must ride relatively fast to control speed by doing only open turns, because you have to put board high on edge. But you can do that even at very steep slopes. However for beginners it could be very challenging to start with this technique. (I personally started with "bomber" style going perpendicular to fall line, then started to move more to a "race" style and still do that :-)). 2) Do more smaller and tight turns to control the speed on steep slopes - it is more efficient than doing big turns perpendicular to the fall line (as you have to go extended time up/perpendicular to the slope to decrease the speed). This something what Galmarini mentioned in his video (see below). 3) Bigger SCR helps you to put board higher on edge (and go faster :-)), which ultimately helps you to control the speed. Something what I found with my SG Full Race 185cm board (which is ~20 SCR) - I ride open turns, quite fast, but after archiving certain speed, it stays stable. 4) When you ride SL boards (small SCR) turns must be super tight and quick to control speed in apex. Otherwise the board will not be high on edge, and you will have to go perpendicular to the fall line to drop the speed. This is just my thoughts, correct me please, if I am wrong. The article states amazing fact - racers can "brake" in (open) carving turn faster than car on tarmac... Amazing! Another great point - if you can not control speed in (open) carving turn without sideslipping, it is not because it is impossible, it is because your technique is not good enough It is not necessary that track must be "pencil" line wide - at high speed clean carving tracks can be more than half ft wide (because of high speed/force). Efficient speed control in open turns - archived when you put lots of pressure on the board in apex, which means that between turns you want to put as little pressure on the board as possible. This explains why racers on steep slopes do small tight turns and between turns go almost at straight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjW2RLz9cvc&ab_channel=WorldSport

If you carve well in softboots, it will help you to start riding alpine board. But don't be discouraged if in the beginning board will feel too fast and will make too big turns. I started with 11m SCR - small for alpine, but quite big for beginner. Just keep riding. In a months or two you will be doing nice low and tight turns. Read articles at https://www.alpinecarving.com/index.html and http://bomberonline.3dcartstores.com/Manuals-Tech-Articles-and-Help_ep_82-1.html (Norm 1 and Norm 2) - very helpful in the beginning.

170 is great length - very versatile and not long for alpine board. Coilers ride amazing. One of my Coiler's boards is 189cm and 12m-16m SCR - every time I ride it, I can not believe how amazingly agile the board is.

Indeed some 'powers' through the turn. However it looks like racers do not really do that as speed and their mass pressure the board much more than you can pressure it with your legs. It looks like racers control turn size just by edge/board angle. Would be nice if some real "racer" could confirm reject this ...

This was true some years ago, nowadays situation is reversed. Racers mostly do very clean carving, and very little sideslipping - which called "drifting" in their term. Which btw is very different from regular slipping/drifting turn... Please note that sometimes people by mistake think that after "air" time racers sideslipping, in really it is edge digging into snow with huge force after "landing" . Example of very clean racing carving:

GS race coarse has "standard" size turns. This means that "perfect" SCR will depend on abilities of the racer, which determine the how fast racer rides and how high on edge racer can put the board in apex. Even 20m SCR board makes very tight turns if you put it at 85+ deg angle. Racer do not care so much about long round turns with constant radius. Usually turns are very tight only near apex, and then they "fly" straight to the next tight turn. P.S. I am not "pro", this is just my observation, which maybe not be valid...

BTW, If you just want to try hardboots, just do it on your current board or buy any used (as cheap as possible) alpine board with SCR not greater than 11 m. You do not need to have fancy board to start using hardboots. If you like it, in few months you will have very good idea (or most probably lots of ideas LOL) what your next board should be.

Do not know much about SG Speed board. Currently they sell SG Full Speed (this could be different board?). SG Full Speed is made for kids. I own few SG boards. One of them Force 165 (other boards are pure alpine boards). It is versatile board, which can be used as all-mountain board and carves great. Works great with hardboots, and should work well with softboots too (have not tried myself). For icy conditions I would buy Force 165 v15. But be aware that sidecut radius is large, so you should know how to put the board very high on edge. P.S. Many people may not agree with me, but I think that boards made for racers usually rides much better (like SG Force - it is SBX board) than "freeride" boards, as manufactures simply paying way more attention to developing and improving race boards. Many think that "race" board requires perfect grooming - I do not think that it is the case with modern boards. My SG Full Race boards are great even when conditions are very far from perfect. "Freeride" board development usually is not priority for manufactures (even though there are many great freeride boards). Downside is that "race" boards usually have large SCR, and it is hard to learn carving on such boards.

You can ride any board in hard boots. I do that myself. I have "softer" hard boots to ride regular boards and SBX boards. Even regular boards I can carve much harder in my hard boots than I can in soft boots. Plus still can ride all mountain regardless of conditions. And I ride my alpine boards using very stiff hard boot setup (I do not use any rotational or much of vertical movement in my riding on alpine boards).

SG has some great softboot carving boards too. SG Force can be used with soft and hard boots. They have Titanal version of this board too: SG Force V15/V17. Just be aware of very large sidecut radius - need to put them really high on edge.