dgCarve

Just to remove confusion. Videos do not contradict to what I said. Angles by them self do not define "racing" technique. I just said that often PSL races prefer to use somewhat lower angels, as PSL requires quicker movements than PGS. In PGS somewhat higher angels used by many racers. Your videos are PGS. Again. Angles by them self do not define racing technique. I think, Jasey Jay was running 60/60 when he won gold in PGS for example. More important is how body is aligned to the board and bindings. It is square to bindings always. How and when turns are initiated is another point what is very different from free carving styles. P.S. What is "toe/heel [racing] method"? It is limited and very wrong understanding of racing technique... Following this interesting way of defining racing technique it would be "knees/hips method"...

Just some food for thoughts: Styles with forward directional stance and high angles (55+) are less stable in bad conditions and less agile - it could be much harder to change your direction/switch edge or change size of the turn in case of emergency or just some people on the slope. Doing "racing" (it is not like I am pro :-)) carving on SL board I prefer to have something like from 45/50 to 50/55 max (the lower the better). SL requires much quicker moves and benefit from a lower angles and additional stability. On GS board I can go up to 55/60 and still feel very comfortable. With very high angles (60+) your ability to do aggressive fall line carving I feel will be compromised. In general I see racers use angles between 45/55. But some do go up to 60 on GS boards. Just decide what style you want to ride and choose appropriate setup. As SunSurfer said, the worst you can do is to start mixing styles.

Are these new Contras? If yes, what you think about them comparing to "older" models? I have one Contra coming, and currently enjoining my 189cm Nirvana VCAM 12m-16m. It is like a drug

@charliechocolate Why don't you want to try some Kessler with bigger SCR? Why only SL boards? P.S. BTW, Kessler 168 rocks Taking into account that it is made in Europe, it is probably BMW... M2 maybe...

Examples of typical fall line carving

Fall line carving does not mean that you does not do turns, they usually up to 3/4 complete. Ability to do perpendicular to the fall line carving will not help to master fall line carving that much. You actually will have to work on braking some of the habits. That what I was doing when started to ride/learn "race" style. Of cause it is the best to be able to ride all styles :-). With my race setup I cant even properly do carving perpendicular to the fall line on steep slopes, as my "racing" boots just does not bend. I can not get low enough :-). If I want to scrape the slope with my body, I use softer hardoots. Just a note that fall line carving is generally safer, as you will take less space and will be faster that average skier on the slope... For my area, ability to do fall line carving is necessity, if you do not want to be killed I feel that there are very few carvers who try to master fall line carving, as technically and physically it is more demanding. And speeds are higher...

Another important thing, learn to jump from one turn into another. Learn to jump forward not high. This will allow you to put the board at very high angle right from the start of the carve, and apply lots of pressure.

You can carve fall line and control the speed. It is the same as in ski carving. Lots of pressure on the board right from the start of the carve. Your board should do much bigger arc than your body. Always stay on the side of the board, never on top of it. I control the speed when doing fall line carving by doing fast quick turns. As soon as you entered the turn, already prepare for the next one. Do not try to slow down by waiting longer and going perpendicular the fall line. You will just pick up more speed and entry in your next turn will be too late, will result in counter rotation. You slow down by doing aggressive turns often. P.S. Looks like you like fall line carving, therefore I shared my experience as I prefer it too. For other carving styles obviously advice would be different. P.S2. Think about applying pressure before apex, not after - that what usually happens in "free carving" styles.

Looking down the fall like is ok and actually required for some styles. Look at this races. Racers look dow the fall like, but body is aligned to the board in the same way regardless of toe or heel edge. I love how Loginov rides. Very aggressive.

From my experience it saves only from some relatively minor bruises from hitting hard objects. But unfortunately It does not prevent bones from braking, muscles and ligaments from tearing. And this what usually happens when somebody hit you really hard. I use similar armor, but only to protect from falls in icy conditions.

I wonder if issues you experienced related to 4mm Lite plate. I use 5mm plate. I have 52cm stance and BP axels set to 59 cm. I do not experience any issues. Actually I was surprised that I adopted to fully isolation plate very fast without any issues, except one. The issue I had was related to position of the BP. I moved my BP forward a bit to put bindings in the same position were they been without plate. This was bad decision - the board behaved really weird. Now my BP is centered, therefore resulted position of the bindings related to board is a bit closer to the tail than before. No issues with agility of the board - very quick and predictable transitions.

Maybe because plate is soft (4mm lite) and it just bents too much. I use BP plate too, but only in very bad bumpy conditions. I use 5mm, so it does not bend and I do not have that issue. In conditions you ride in the video, I prefer to use my Vist plates.

As well you said you like hard-charging fall line carving style. Try to minimize body rotation, preferably eliminate it. Look at Sigi, he is not rotating his body at all.

Looks like you put your hips in "minus" position on heel side. Your knees are too close to each other too. I have seen some amazing riders who do almost minus position on heel side, but they put their upper body in minus position too.

Best of luck to you. I hope you will get better soon. Danger of wide turns forced me to change my riding style, I had too many close calls even though I always was looking for big gaps in the crowd. I almost exclusively ride "racing" style now - relatively small quick open turns. Became much faster than average skier on the slope. This adds safety. Nevertheless 3 bombing down at straight line skiers managed to hit me from behind this season. In two case I was heart, and was out from riding for couple of weeks. In last case only skier was heart. So instant karma worked in one of three cases :-). Be safe everyone! The fun can change into disaster in a split of a second.

My personal problem on toe edge was bad weight distribution. Too much weight on front leg. I did not really feel that when conditions were fine. But recently I had to ride a lot in very icy conditions. I was loosing toe edge a lot and falling. It was not a problem on heel side. So that forced me to work on my weight balance, as a result I improved my toe edge. And another point what Gabe mentioned. When you start loosing heel slide edge, you always have an option to slide a bit and quickly lock the edge again. It is much harder to do on toe edge... When conditions are demanding and we are in trouble, many of us forget proper technique and start bending at waist on toe edge :-(... Interesting that most of the bad racers' crashes, I have seen on youtube, were actually on toe edge.

When I started to feel that my heel side became much stronger, I started to decrease my rear heel lift/boot lean. This helped me to increase toe side edging angle. At the same time heel side did not become much weaker, as I already know how to do it... For me the rule is - if i hit slope with my knee too much, time to decrease lift/lean. P.S. I do not think that anyone needs to be too concerned about imbalance, unless there are obvious problems. When you do "perfect" toe and heel side turns, heel side will be a bit better anyways - we can not completely eliminate physical properties of our bodies.

There was specific question about toe side turns.... Racing technique has most powerful toe side turns. I do not see how any "freecarve" style (CMC/EC/any custom made bomber style) can beat racing style on that particular aspect. Only PureBoarding can compare on toe side, I think, but has weaker heelside.

+1 @Freezer This is the the hardest part. When done right you will have a feeling of "flight" and board will be always catching up. When you feel that you are on the board or following it - this is done wrong. I am working on improving that myself. On steep icy terrain it is just too scary for me yet...

From my experience lower angles do not work well with forward directional stance. To make toe side turns more powerful, try to align your body with bindings (or maybe even a bit more towards "minus") and push knees down, more back knee. When you consistently will be touching the ground with your rear knee, it will be a time to start decreasing your rear heel lift / boot lean. This will make your toe carve even stronger. Your heel edge will not be an issue as if you know how to do a strong heel side carve, you will be able to do it with less lift / lean too. It is important not to rotate body during turning/edge transition, keep body position the same on toe and heel side. This speeds up edge transition considerably. Makes turns more powerful right from the edge transition. P.S.2. On my boards I run angles from 30/45 (all mountain) to 52/55 (race/free carve) now. I do not miss 60+ angles at all. I see only gains in power/speed/stability.

Short radius not necessary decreases G forces, actually I find that when rinding aggressively SL boards are more demanding physically than bigger boards and G forces are very high.

Not bad. But still not very challenging conditions...

Fore sure, but by some reason I could not find even a single video on youtube of free carving in bad conditions. Worst conditions I found were slightly bumpy soft or slushy snow, or perfectly flat but icy groomed runs... I look for that to see what I may need to practice...

Actually very interesting tracks and not very common for free carvers. More for racers. Reminds me skiers' carving - most of the pressure is done in the apex. Almost no pressure at the beginning and end of the turns. Good skiers can control speed very well by carving like that.

I should take at trip to Whistler or Cypress someday! It is very close to me. And I really want to meet some good carvers to learn from, as I learning everything by myself right now...