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Hehe, yeah I'm surprised I could ride that setup. Those bindings don't allow less than 25°. Normally I ride -21/+21 with softboots and -24/+24 is too much, but for some reason -25/+25 didn't feel bad at all with that setup, strange. Here's how it rides:

Enjoying some soft cord today:

Oh, the last comment was just regarding how the graphics would have looked. I mean the blunt nosed wide board aesthetics. If you mean this part though, I can elaborate a bit more. If you go for extreme edge angles and think about what kind of line the board would like to draw, the shape depends on how much you muscle the board and thus decamber it. Now if you think about what happens in nose section of the board where the nose is raised, it rises even more. That's not a problem if the sidecut of that part doesn't engage but if it does, the nose will bite and turn the board more than what might be intended. Of course it's also possible to do this intentionally but the way I want to ride, I want to control the turn shape by bending the mid part of the board and load the nose to maximize grip. Thus I specifically asked Bruce for a nose shape that doesn't rise much until it's narrow enough to not contribute in the turn by nose biting even if I load the nose quite a bit. Long pointed nose does this wonderfully so I can get more nose rise without the nose bite. I still don't have enough runs with this new board to say for sure but it looks like I can load the nose a lot more without nose biting too much. Blunt nose would have worked as well but the rise would have needed to be less than with this new CFR. I'm not saying that blunt nose with a lot of rise is bad, just that it doesn't work for me (this is pretty much the only thing I would change about Contra ECC if I was ordering it now). Contra ECC has 36mm nose rise and CFR has 40mm. As mentioned, detune helped with the Contra ECC nose bite but looks like this CFR doesn't need it so looks like a successful design change.

Interesting. I did think the shape had an old-school vibe but didn't realize it was that close to real vintage boards. I started snowboarding in the mid nineties so haven't ridden any of those classics. At first I thought of a different shape and graphics but didn't like how blunter noses worked in a wide board so I made new graphics that worked with this kind of shape. Actually these graphics would have worked better with a longer board but I wanted to keep the board short.

182cm, 82kg and mondo 270 shoe. Remember that shorter the board, the bigger the flex number with the same "stiffness" since there's less displacement. I didn't ask Bruce to go for any specific flex number but just told him how I want to ride the board. I did ask for a stiff nose and tail and mid soft between the bindings. I also ride the board with rather wide stance (58cm). Tail is raised less than I thought it would be. 15mm from the floor to the base when I'm standing on top of the board. Though I did tell Bruce not to raise the tail and nose too much because this board is designed to carve with the flex so a lot of tip rise would make the tips contribute in bending the board too much. This is one thing I dislike about the Contra ECC nose. It makes the board turn too fast if I load the nose. I did detune the nose though and now it's much better. Didn't do any detunes with this new board and no problems with the tips at least so far. I tried to ride switch a bit as well and that worked pretty well. I don't really ride switch though (yet). I would also like to hear more about these hybrids. I only know this works really really well for what I wanted and the 80/20 figure but everything else is pretty much mystery for me. I have Lib Tech Short & Fat as well and I'm going to sell that board now (or hang it on the wall). This birdie does everything better and so much more.

Got confirmation from Bruce. It's 7.6 flex. Some pics from today: Too soft to drag my body too much so I'm afraid I have to disappoint by not posting any butt up pics.

Agreed, too narrow. It all comes down to preferences, some like laid down style, others like something else. Personally I find even sub-optimal laid down turns way more impressive aesthetically than pristine freecarve turns. That doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate pencil line freecarving, it's just that I appreciate EC more.

In order to not spam the board porn thread with too much info, I'll post some specs for discussion about my new wide Contra here. So the Contra I just received two days ago is some kind of space age hybrid design. I don't know specifically what Bruce did but the result is spectacular. He said the design of the board is about 80% hardboot and 20% softboot design. I haven't ridden a softboot Contra so don't have any idea how they ride but I do have a 247mm wide hardboot Contra ECC and this new hybrid design is way more forgiving without having lost any of the carving performance (first impression). I didn't think it would be possible that rather short (136cm ee) 300mm wide stiff carver with 16m scr could be fun to ride in slush but it is! Just magical. Yesterday was slush and today we got some 10-15cm of fresh snow (rare this late) on top of icy groomers (slush was groomed after freezing yesterday evening) and the board worked great on "pow" as well. I just didn't expect that. Also when I hit an icy spot where the fresh snow was wiped clean, the edge would bite like crazy. I did expect the board to have crazy good edge hold though so that wasn't surprising. Carving performance seems to be very similar to my hardboot Contra (also with 16m scr) but I haven't had a chance to really do consecutive turns yet because of the fresh snow forming too many moguls. So jury is still out but first impressions are looking really really good. Does anyone else here have these hybrid designs? Bruce said he has made some but I hear it's pretty new thing. Sidewall specs say this is 7.6 (or 7.8, it's a bit smudged) + 9. Contra ECC is 6.7 + 9 (but it's 10cm longer overall and I think the difference in ee is even larger).

My dreams are fulfilled. Softboot Coiler Contra with hybrid construction combining softboot and alpine constructions (gotta ask Bruce for more details), 164cm x 30cm waist, 16m sidecut, 136cm EE. Just came back from the first test ride and the board seems spectacular. Will add some Coiler logos next. I prefer stickers for the embossed look and placement versatility:

This is the key point for me. I'm not planning to EC all the time but rather learn that tool so I can use it when I want to. But in any case I'd like to give my massive thanks to alpine snowboarder communities (both here and locally in Finland) about promoting the technical aspects of riding. I'm not talking only about EC here. As I briefly mentioned, my background comes from softboot carving where I didn't have anyone to teach me. I bought alpine gear because I was already riding and booting out with the widest carving board I could buy (275mm wide Ride Timeless). I wanted to order a 300+ wide Donek and continue with softboot setup but that would have been way more expensive than buying second hand alpine gear (exporting Donek to Finland is crazy expensive). So the motivation was always to go for extreme edge angles but I'm so glad I decided to do that with alpine setup and not because of the gear but because of the technically oriented analytical rider community. I have learned so many useful techniques by reading these forums and discussing with other riders which I wouldn't have learned if I just went with a wider board and used the same technique than I was using earlier. In case someone is interested how my riding looked before going alpine, here's a vid with a nice view (my favorite weather, -25°C means empty slopes): The funny thing is that this week I'm actually getting a wide carver I longed for three years ago but the brand has changed to Coiler. I'm so excited to ride that and no, I won't be doing EC with that as a primary means of riding. But I will be using a lot of what I've learned while practicing riding with alpine gear.

Agreed, this happens a lot and it's easy to loose grip that way. However, isn't what you described here counter rotation? In EC the rider would be facing uphill if there was over rotation happening. What I see from the videos though is that at the end of the turn, EC riders are facing towards the nose of the board or slightly uphill.

100% agreed. My problem when I started to practice P&P was that as I usually didn't have anyone to tape or comment my riding, I tried to see from the helmet camera if I'm doing things right and while that footage is better than nothing, it's easy to misinterpret what you see. Especially when you don't quite know what you should be doing/seeing. So at some point I thought my P&P is good enough and moved to next step too early. I really did try to go through all steps because I'm highly motivated to learn the technique but it's hard to judge yourself when you are ready for the next step. Agreed, I practiced this today. Slopes were too icy to practice laid down turns anyways and the best groomed steep slope had a race on it.

No offense taken. I did ask for technique tips after all. Regarding the butt up in the air thing, I agree 100%, not a great posture. The problem is that I don't have enough speed in those examples and then I just try to do my best with what speed I have and that leads to having to go with that butt up pose so that the board can pick up some speed from the early part of the turn which will then carry me through the rest of the turn (poorly in those examples). The goal of course is to start the turn lower and with more speed and that's something I'm working on. Also this example picture is from a too mellow slope. 0:44 to 1:39 is steep enough and butt up is not that much of a problem in those turns (but still not nearly optimal). The reason why my carving is decent when I'm not trying to do EC is because I did carve a lot with softboot setup prior to starting to practice EC with alpine gear. I can draw a clean pencil line no problem but EC is something different and at least for me, takes a long time to get right. Which brings me to this point: It's actually just the opposite. "Normal carving" is what I have to unlearn and that has taken me the past two seasons. Here's a video from my early days of trying alpine gear. This is 5th session and the first time I ride with someone who knows how to ride alpine gear (I mean the guy who did the taping): As you can see, here I do the basic edge change and compression the way you described (if I understood right). EC uses different timing as described above when @crackaddict asked what the technique is about. @redia also pointed out that the timing is the opposite in EC. I could argue that the problems I still have with toeside turns is more caused by having done "normal carving" for so long and having mostly practiced heelside EC turns that I still haven't unlearned all that I need to. Particularly that means unlearning the up-unweighted edge change. I can do a pretty good down-unweighted edge change heelside but fail to do that toeside (with softboot setup I can do it just fine), which puts me into too tall situation when I should be squatting close to the slope and then I have no other choice than to reach for the slope butt up if I want to still go for the laid down turn (at that point I shouldn't really because the turn is a fail anyways). If I did P&P as shown in the Ben's video, I would be close to the slope and wouldn't need to stick my butt up. If we then consider your video as a solution to the problem of getting as close to the slope as possible, I don't see how that would help. In a well executed EC turn, the rider's head should be couple of centimeters away from the slope when the board aligns with the fall line or a bit before that. If we take a look at your example, your head is still about a full arms length from the slope at that point (toeside, even more heelside). So I don't really see how I would achieve the goal of getting as close to the slope as possible (and as early as possible) with that technique. Smooth carving though, no argument about that. Just not as low as I'd like to get. The reason why EC preaches rotation is that if you don't do rotation when doing a heelside turn, your butt will drop like in your vid when you go for high edge angles, which makes it pretty much impossible to get your shoulders close to the slope (as clearly shown in your vid). Of course rotation also helps to steer your board. So my point is that how good the technique at doing something is a matter of how you measure that. I'm specifically interested in getting as close to the slope as possible and I find EC to be a great technique to get there. Also as @redia pointed out, you can use the core tool of EC, the push and pull, to ride all kinds of situations. However, it often seems to be a case that people (me included) don't practice P&P enough because they want to get to the laid down part of the technique as soon as possible and that causes all kinds of problems (like shown in my vid). Another thing about that particular vid is that it includes all the footage I have. Taped by someone else I mean, I have plenty of 360 helmet mount vids though. I like to include all the faults in the vid as well so I can then later go back and see if I have improved. ... and here's a vid from my first alpine season some two weeks after the first vid of this post. Here I try to practice P&P: Should have kept practicing P&P longer but I feel it's pretty impossible to judge yourself when you have it dialed in enough. No coach involved here.

This got me thinking that maybe this is what's happening with deeper sidecuts. Feels like a bootout but it's not. Here's an illustration of high edge angle carve where mid part of the board doesn't have any grip in icy conditions. This is with 5.8m scr: It's just that in hardpack/icy conditions the edge pressure might not be high enough to dig the nose and tail deep enough which will cause the mid part of the edge to not engage which feels a lot like bootout when the edge looses grip. With a big sidecut board the width difference between tips of the board compared to waist is smaller and thus the nose and tail don't have to dig as deep in order to engage the mid part of the sidecut as well. This is the biggest reason why I wanted my new softboot carver to have 16m scr.

Did 6km today and still had plenty of range left.

Just rode my new electric snowboard for the first time today: Production board too so not even off-topic. https://www.head.com/en_EE/sports/ski/technology/emc

Yep, I hope Bruce doesn't mind me quoting him but here goes: "Contra's have a softer mid section and a more forgiving flex than what is used in ECVCs. They actually measure stiffer on my measuring system as that only measures one spot in the flex but they like to keep bending farther due to the different materials used. Since they have more sidecut mid board, it also needs to flex more to use it." That is specifically about EC boards though and Bruce told that he makes stiffer tail for those. I haven't ridden "normal" alpine Contra, nor softboot Contra. I do have a second hand ECVC though. Nice board but too narrow for my liking. Agreed that this talk would be probably better moved to the Contra thread.

I don't have the empirical experience you have with different stiffness boards but I have thought a lot about the topic and came to the same conclusion than you. I also kept telling Bruce (and others ) that I don't think scr makes as much difference with high edge angle turns than a lot of people think but rather it's the flex that determines much of the turn shape. This is why I wanted 16m scr and rather stiff flex to make big turns. My 6.7 stiff 16m scr hardboot Contra turns pretty much the way I want or a bit too sharp. I also like how with the Contra design, it's the mid of the board that does a lot of the flexing. Should be interesting to see how that works with the rather wide 58cm stance I use when riding duck. I'm thinking the wide stance should give me more leverage to affect the turn shape even more than with my current setup. 164cm or thereabouts. 20cm pointed nose and rather stubby 7cm tail. I don't know the exact specs at this point because I wanted to give Bruce design headroom to aim for as much waist width as possible. That includes going for 132cm ee but if I understood right, 136 is what's happening. I will be really happy if the board carves great and handles everything else poorly but I'm pretty sure I will like it for pretty versatile riding as well. If not, I have plenty of other easier production boards to ride.

Agreed, I'll test Spark R&D Dyno DH + Hawx Ultra XTD with DGSS springs first. Another option is Nidecker Kaon-CX and Salomon Malamutes or Ride Insanos. Luckily I've been gathering a lot of options for years so I'm sure I can find something that'll work. At this point I don't know what stiffness rating the board will end up being but I should know soon enough. It's being built atm.

My vote goes for Atomic Hawx Ultra XTD modded with DGSS springs. Shorter sole than Prime but still longer than dedicated snowboarding hardboot (not a big difference though). I rode Backland Carbons last season but after breaking two shells, I gave up and switched to Hawx. No problems since after some 50 sessions. I mostly practice EC with those boots and prefer them over Swoard EC12 for everything else than racing (EC12 are soft hardboots but still too stiff for my liking). Bear in mind that compared to softboots, Hawx Ultras are about the same footprint or shorter with bindings because you don't have the heel loop + highback construction taking space. The videos I have posted the past month are all with Hawx Ultras. I ride both positive 46/55 and -25/+25 duck with the same boots (duck angles are that extreme to reduce bootout until I get wide enough board). Here's a photo of the current duck setup.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The board will be 300mm wide with 16m scr and 136cm ee but the construction will somehow mix soft and hardboot designs (I'm guessing flex patterns and such). I don't really know what that means but Bruce recommended that for me and thus I thought I'd ask if you (or someone else) has already ridden such a board since Bruce said he has made some. The result what I'm hoping for is a wide softboot carver with the power of an alpine board.

Agreed about the board width sizing. Btw. Bruce mentioned something about hybrid boards where he mixes soft and hardboot designs. Do your boards have this and/or have you tried such a board? My wide Contra is going to be a hybrid but not having ridden any softboot Coilers, I'm unsure what to expect other than it being awesome. My current Contra is 6.7 stiff hardboot design and the boot setup is quite soft. Softer than stock Malamutes for an example but with better lateral support. 46/55 angles.

Thanks for posting that vid. To me the Russian EC style is kinda the extreme of EC. They go for a lot of speed and don't use much compression at any point of the turn (oversimplification ofc). Personally I'm looking for a bit more relaxed style and there are some Finnish riders I have in mind to show what I'm talking about, here: Pretty old video but I still like the style. Though I would like to aim for a bit less chatter. That said, it's hard to do a clean pencil line on that kinda snow. Also boards have improved since that video. That brings me to the equipment. I like wide boards. This is why I ordered my Contra ECC 247mm wide. Bruce told me it won't be ideal for EC but I still love the board. Now I'm getting a rather short 300mm waist Contra with 16m scr and I'm really looking forward to trying softboot EC with that. Others do spectacular EC turns with GS boards. This is another reason why I like EC and snowboarding in general. You can mix and match different techniques and really end up with infinite possibilities. Fun never stops.

This is surprisingly good: https://elevatedsurfcraft.com/products/5-3-salmon I rode that only for 3 runs but it was enough to convince me. Not the cleanest riding but demonstrates the possibilities of the width pretty well. I rode the board with -18/+18 duck stance: @kverho owns the board and can probably give more info. Also, might want to add 167 Ride Timeless. 275 width and 12m scr. The scr value is a bit misleading though since it has much tighter radius near the nose and tail. Those can be annoying with high edge angles. Still one of my favorite boards. Could be wider though.

Hi @crackaddict, I'll try my best. Hope this won't turn too much into can of worms discussion. I mean I don't have a problem talking about the topic, it's just that I've seen this escalate a few times. Anyways, I do agree with pretty much all your points and in my opinion they are very much valid. So I'll try to answer the "why" part. The simple answer is that it's fun and getting low as possible is indeed the key motivation for me. The bit you mentioned about down un-weighted turn is really interesting, since while EC push & pull (P&P) turn does indeed use down un-weighted edge change, a lot of EC videos demonstrate top un-weighted edge change followed by quick compression to get into position where you can extend your legs (especially the rear leg) for the laid-down part of the turn. This in my mind is a technique error, which I'm also doing myself. Especially my toe side turns suffers from this. Personally, I can do much better down un-weighted turns with a softboot duck setup because that's what I've been riding a lot more than positive angles. The important bit is that the down un-weighted edge change is what makes linking the turns smooth and that's why it's considered essential but hard to master (at least for me). This is also what differentiates "EC" from "Eurocarves", which are not linked and usually only done toeside. More experienced EC riders feel free to comment if I'm speaking rubbish. Anyways, I do agree that the EC technique aims to get the body as low possible. At least that's the main motivation for me to learn the technique. Personally I'm not trying to EC all the time but rather it's the technique I want to ride steep sections with. So I do agree with what you said that this kind of turn is best suited for steep sections. That's also the reason why EC riders search for well groomed steep slopes. Maintaining the position where you are really close to the steep slope is the interesting part for me. Of course ideally the board should still carve a pencil line but in practice it's really hard to accomplish and I do agree 100% that EC technique makes it harder to draw that perfect pencil line. The thing is, that it just makes the chase for that perfect turn even more interesting for me. Also having the front leg extended as much as I have is another technique error I need to clean up. EC riders generally like the aesthetics of almost fully extended laid-down turn pose, some others dislike it. Matter of preference imo but I do agree that it compromises the pencil line carve. That still doesn't mean it's not possible to do a pencil line EC turn. Makes for a nice challenge. Also, as others have pointed out, I still place too much weight on my arms so that's just part of the learning curve. At least for me it's a mind game basically. I know I should have more speed to get lower without having to load the arms too much but then it's harder to control the turn (with more speed I mean). So basically at this point, I try to ride as slow as possible while still getting as low as possible. So loading the arms as much as I'm now doing is not a proper EC technique and something I'm trying to improve. Also, I've gone over the handlebars a couple of times with the toeside turn when I've loaded the nose too much and had a nose bite too much and then fold. That's one of the reasons why my toeside has issues. I know what I should do but I'm a bit afraid to implement that. The ultimate goal is to find a balance where I can get as low as possible while just gracefully touching the slope and maintaining the perfect pencil line. A lot to ask but doable in great conditions with solid technique. Don't know if I'll ever get there, but I'll keep on trying. I do agree that 0:57 and 1:02 tracks don't look good. Too much tryharding to try to follow the advice given to me by that more experienced EC rider who did the taping. Here are some more successful tracks from the same place from yesterday (turns shown in the vid above): Pretty challenging place to practice EC on this 20m wide 27deg steep slope with a 16m scr board also. The slope in the first vid from 0 to 44sec isn't steep enough for my liking and the 44 to 55sec has been in pretty terrible condition lately. So I have to work with this rather narrow slope for now. Hehe, it's easy to see the different preferences here. The turn at 50sec is a failure in my book since the upper body is not close enough to the slope. 1:32 is better but shoulders still not close enough to the slope. I much prefer the 1:15 turn. 1:21 turn would have been the best out of the vid if I didn't hit a pile of loose snow with my hips, causing the edge to loose grip. That's also a good illustration of why you can only drag your body when groomers are still nice and intact. Anyways, my point is that to me it seems like the whole "why" comes down to preferences. So why not do it like you described? I'm planning to. It's just that I want to also learn the EC technique so I can first ride EC with my current Contra ECC when groomers are still perfect, and after a couple of runs switch to wide Contra (which Bruce is building now ) and ride in pretty much the way you described (with a duck stance though). So personally big part of the "why" is also versatility. Maybe I'll try to learn some butters and switch as well. Pretty much dead set. I've been thinking about that rotation aspect a lot. Finnish EC riders in general emphasize that more rotation, the better. I'm leaning towards thinking that it really is situational. More rotation results in more impressive pose but it also makes the board turn sharper, which might be too sharp for some conditions. For the slope I've been riding lately I really need a lot of rotation though. 16m scr board just doesn't make a c-turn pair on a steep 20m wide slope otherwise.