Xargo

Hawx is also an option. I broke two pairs of Backland Carbons last season. Now I'm trying Hawx Ultra XTDs and they have lasted longer already than those two pairs I broke, combined. Really happy with this setup. The Backlands I broke were versions with BOA. I'm pretty sure it's the BOA support bracket inside the boot that causes a break line if the cuff of the boot is engaged with too much force laterally. My riding style can be pretty aggressive though so maybe even BOA Backlands can handle some casual riding. The second pair broke when I was riding casually though. Just for a reference this is the type of riding I did with Backlands and now with Hawx Ultras: I really liked how Backlands rode and was really sad when I broke the second pair exactly the same way as the first one but these Hawx Ultras ride even better. Really happy with the setup and I hope they will last.

Here you go: I've been riding these for 8 sessions now I think and this is the most versatile snowboarding boot I've ever used. As you can see I replaced the stock liner with a Palau overlap liner.

Yeah that lower body steering drill is very useful. However, I struggle to do that with positive angles. With duck stance I do it all the time. Speaking of which, I did the duck stance steep riding video I mentioned about above: At first I had trouble with heelside but pretty quickly remembered how it works. I've been riding almost exclusively alpine setups for the last two seasons or such. Toe overhang was too limiting though. Need a wider board (that was expected).

This is such an inspiring thread! I've been experimenting with different setups lately in order to figure out the specifications of a custom board. I like mellow angles a lot more than typical alpine angles. I think my dream setup would have around -15/+15 duck angles. However, the lack of carveable production boards, I've been forced to increase the angles all the way up to -21/+21. My legs can't handle more than that. I still bootout with those angles with a 275mm waist board. But now for the next experiment. 275mm ww Ride Timeless 167 with gecko style plates. I'll try to carve that Kelo slope with this setup and hoping the plates will lift me up enough not to boot out (there is some overhang): Also planning to test the Hawx Ultras with duck angles at some point. I already tried -20/+20 angles with Deeluxe T700 boots some two years ago (with that Timeless board). Even that worked surprisingly well. I do believe there's potential to carve steeps with a duck setup but the equipment needs to be just right.

The problem with short radius sidecuts is that they tend to cause the middle of the board to disengage in icy conditions and high edge angles. Like this (this is with 5.8m scr):That's why I now want to ride boards with long radius sidecuts and choose the flex according to the turn shape I'm looking for. Softer flex board can be more easily hammered into tighter turn with high edge angle. After riding the Eliminator (over 13m) and Tracer (under 8m) back to back, I'm pretty sure about this. Of course this only applies to kind of riding where you go for high edge angles.

EC type of riding suits the steeps great though and does work with softboots. What I particularly like about what James (and some others) are doing is breaking the thinking that only hardboots and alpine stance can handle big edge angles and carving steeps. Of course softboot EC is nothing new but still there's no production EC board with around 30cm waist. Personally I want to learn EC so I can combine my riding as some kind of mix of "conventional" softboot carving and EC. Here's an example of a Matti riding EC type of turns through that around 33° (the steep part) Ukko slope at Koli with a softboot setup: ... and here's my try from last season so you can see how the slope is a little better. I'm all over the place since these were my first EC style turns on steep terrain: Note that even though I'm riding hardboots, the board is 247mm wide Contra and angles are pretty relaxed. Now I'd love as wide as possible Contra for my next board. Then there's the topic about boots/bindings as well. Like for an example my current setup (as shown in that Eliminator vid) is using Hawx Ultra XTD 95 flex boots, which are softer than many stiff softboots... So I feel like the whole softboot vs. hardboot divide is becoming a bit old and maybe it would be more relevant to think about stance angles.

Ah yeah, with that definition I do agree that 90 is impossible to reach. Then again, most riding doesn't qualify as carving with that same definition since in practice there is some amount of slip/skidding in every turn. Thank you for the link either way. I've been searching for that article couple of times actually because I do love to theorycraft and those formulas are great to get ballbark figures. I now notice that I also used the term angulation incorrectly, my bad. The thread SunSurfer linked to was an eye opener for me regarding all this flex stuff. Great info! Maybe it makes more sense to continue the flex talk there if there's more interest. My contribution from today. Both sections are around 27° steep. I measured the steepest part with a cellphone app today and got 31°: I got that board second hand just yesterday so was really interesting to see if I can ride that Pessari jyrkkä section with a 13.2m scr after having ridden it earlier this week with a 7.6/7.3m scr. For reference, I posted vid about that here earlier:

True most of the time, that's why I wrote "almost 90°".

I would argue that with the kind of angulations demonstrated in the video, sidecut radius doesn't make as big of a difference as people would think. The point is that once you tilt the board almost 90°, it's the flex of the board that defines the turn shape (because whatever scr goes to infinity when looked at the side, assuming flat board). Sidecut radius of course matters when the turn is still initiating though. Also big scr means better grip in icy conditions when doing those close to 90° angulations, since there's less risk of the middle of the board losing contact.

Hawx Ultra XTD update. I modded the boots with DGSS springs and loving the setup. Thanks @DRUPI! Here's some footage from this morning with Nidecker Tracer: Heel edge of that board doesn't really suit this kinda of riding though. I was thinking about riding pow today but these two steep groomer parts were so much fun that I just ended up trenching them.

Really nice! Sounds like a similar slope than we have in Finland at Koli ski resort. The slope is Ukko and there are some extremecarving examples in youtube. I think Ukko steep part is 32 degrees (wiki says 33.8). Personally I'd really really like to go for the kind of steep softboot riding you are doing. Now I just need a wide enough board. Looks like you rode with JJA board but have you tried the same spot with your wide Contra?

Thanks for the info! I've been thinking about around 160cm x 30cm waist width with 16m sidecut so glad to hear even more extreme specs can work. Really appreciate people pushing boundaries!

Just for reference, this is the setup where the second pair broke: *edit* Also, I'm not the only one:

That might somewhat affect how it broke but it was quite clear after the crack had happened that it's the lateral force of leaning the back leg towards the front leg that causes a stretch where the crack happened. The boa support brace also helps that force to develop a clean crack line. When I tucked my back leg knee towards the front leg (engaging the cuff) after the crack had happened, the crack opened clearly. Also when I broke the second pair, I got it on (360) video and it was a heel side turn when it happened and there wasn't even that much force in that turn. So while rockered sole might have some effect, I'm pretty sure it's the lateral force when engaging the cuff that causes the shell to crack like that. Which also means that it shouldn't be a big problem with alpine angles. I like to ride with relaxed angles which is a problem for this kind of damage. Here's an example of a pose that stresses the boot like I described (these EC12 boots seem to be able to handle it): Now it's interesting to see if Hawx Ultra XTDs can handle this kind of riding. First session impressions were great. I do realize that tucking the back leg knee like that it's not the greatest idea to prevent knee injuries and I'm also working to improve my technique by not doing that.

Both broke in the same manner but not at the heel area. Here are two photos of the first cracked shell: As you can see, the boa support brace is the problem. I would assume pre-boa boots might not have this problem. This was 2020-2021 season pair and I got a 2021-2022 pair from warranty which has kind of reinforcements in that area so I thought maybe they had solved that problem but they broke exactly the same way. I'm goofy so this is a back leg boot.

I broke two backland carbons last season. The setup rode great but would be a tad expensive to buy around 4 set of boots each season. So now I'm trying this: I rode that setup once without any modifications in walk mode. Felt even better than backlands last season so I'm going to add DGSS springs for the next session. Boot are Hawx Ultra XTD 95 W. I'm 182cm 82kg male but I figured women's model softer flex would suit snowboarding better and the first test session would seem to agree. There's way less ankle movement with these compared to backlands. Fuego gives about the same angles when compared to Swoard EC12 boots. Both are size 27 mondo. Btw. those are F2 Carbon bindings. I've been riding those for around 10 sessions and no problems. Ofc can't recommend those without disclaimers for obvious reasons. That said, people have broken F2 bails anyways so I figured if baseplate breaks, that would probably result in easier to manage situation when it happens compared to bail breaking.

Lib Tech Short & Fat 146 with 5.8m scr I believe. Well the board is rather wide (286mm) so it's possible to ride with pretty relaxed angles without too much boot outs. Still not wide enough though. The downside of trying to do laid down carves with that board is this: Basically just riding the nose and tail of the board there and if the snow is softer, you'll just carve a trench and boot out, like here:

I would say at least for me the biggest difference was/is the hip orientation. I ride -21/+21 angles when I softboot to reduce bootout (still not enough even though I have mondo 27 boot) so that really limits how I can use my hips. Here's a vid from the first time I tried hardboots and you can see the "sit into a heelside carve" move going on there (the board is Salomon Burner, so not ideal): The second vid is after a season of practicing with hardboots: I now ride with a wider stance than in that vid and also I progressed quite a bit late last season but I just wanted to post here a vid with similar perspective and type of riding so you can see the difference in hip orientation between where I was still using what I had learned by softbooting and then another vid where my riding is progressed towards hardbooting. Turning your hip into the turn is really important and in my opinion one of the biggest differences between duck and forward stance. Just by looking at the thumbnails of these two vids, I'm sure you can spot a difference. The interesting thing I found out late last season when I tried to ride duck again after riding just forward stance quite a bit, was that I could somewhat implement the hip orientation to help with duck riding as well. I still like to ride both ways.

Interesting topic! I've been doing a lot of experiments past 1½ seasons and I'm not done yet. Here's one of the setups I liked a lot: The problem with those boots was that the shell cracked and now I'm investigating if Hawx Ultra XTDs would fare better (I can use the same DGSS springs). I also tried -20/+20 duck stance with those boots/bindings and liked that as well (with 170cm Head Kizamu board). The main advantage over softboots is less overhang since the boot+binding combo is quite a bit shorter. There's a weight advantage is well. Then there's my earlier test of riding widish (275mm waist) Ride Timeless with -19/+19 duckfoot Deeluxe Track 700 boots: ... and I also tried to ride my 247mm wide 16m sidecut EC Contra with softboots and apart from binding canting ruining the riding pose, that worked great as well. At the moment I'm most interested in finding a AT boot based duckfoot setup and getting a wide enough board that there would be zero overhang with around -18/+18 duck stance. I will also continue to ride the EC Contra with around +45/+52 angles with hardboots but I like to be able to choose from wide variety of setups when I hit the slopes.

Thanks! Softboot setup + wide hardboot oriented board does feel like a sweet spot for me. So makes sense that it looks the smoothest as well. Which is why I'm hoping Bruce could make me a wide carver so I could ride it with same kind of vibe but more relaxed angles without having to worry about bootout. That last EC-type vid is tryharding really because that kinda turns on about 27deg. slope are way out of my comfort level but something I wanted to learn. In any case I feel like learning to ride with positive angles has also improved my duckfoot riding by a lot (don't really have good vids about that though). Before the hardboot times, I didn't really rotate my hips and now I can do it to some extent even with -21/+21 angles and that really really improves the heelside turn. Next season I hope I can tryhard less and enjoy riding more. In the last vid, the camera is mounted to the helmet by this kinda "unicorn bar" and aimed forward: ... anyways my advice to @mallory would be to try different setups and try to find out what kind of mix you enjoy the most. Considering you already have a nice Knapton twin, why not give it a go with positive angles and feel how it works for you. 29 board width is fine for positive angles, just use whatever angles that give you zero overhang for the back foot and around 7-15 more for the front foot. I did try that kind of setup with a Lib Tech Short&Fat which is 286mm wide. The problem with that board is the silly 5.8m sidecut which means if you really angulate hard, it only works in soft snow. The funny thing is that I still booted out with that setup when I tried to carve it in spring slush. I would imagine Knapton twin would work way better. I have mondo 270 feet. I've been thinking about Korean style carving myself but at the moment I feel like some kind of strange hybrid between EC and casual duckfoot style would work the best for me. As far as boots are concerned, it's also possible to go for spring modded touring hardboots + plate bindings and that way you can also use them for splitboarding. Just bear in mind that shells of some models can't handle the stress and will crack if you charge hard (has happened to me twice). The sad thing (for me) is that the touring boot setup has been the best setup for me as far as the ride quality is concerned but the back boot just can't handle it.

Interesting topic. I was in kinda similar situation two seasons ago and decided to buy hardboots and try them with my softboot boards. Later that season I bought a second hand Coiler ECVC to practice EC type of riding. For last season I got my first custom board which is 247mm wide EC optimized Coiler Contra. The Contra is for hardboot riding but I did try it with softboots as well. Softboots work fine but the board is too narrow for that ofc. Still, that experiment gave me an important lesson about canting. I used Nidecker Kaon-CX bindings and they have canted footbeds. This forced my knees together and I ended up with swollen back leg knee which hasn't filly recovered even after some 6 months. Stance was also too narrow. So take care with positive angles and canted bindings. Here's a video from that session where you can clearly see the problem. Don't do this: ... as far as my pre-hardboot riding is concerned, here's an example how it looked when I still only rode with duck stance (-21/+21 to reduce bootout): That board is Ride Timeless 167 (275 waist). Btw. I made a video showing that duckfoot is also possible with hardboots. These are Deeluxe Track 700 boots even (pretty stiff): That setup was actually surprisingly good. In any case I never had any knee problems with duckfoot setups even though my angles can be considered pretty extreme but I did have problems last season with different kinds of "alpine stances". I do know however, that many of my stance experiments were problematic and I learned from that. I would just like to give a heads up that with stiff setups, whatever settings you use will force you more into that position compared to more forgiving softboot setups (I use Malamutes, Insanos, Infuses). So take care when trying out different settings. Finally here's an example how my hardboot riding looked like near the end of the season (this is after half a season of trying out hardboots + a full season of dedicated EC practice): Personally I prefer to have options so I'm really glad I got into hardbooting but I'm by no means going to abandon duckfoot softboot carving. Actually I'm now looking for a 300+ waist board to try kinda EC type of carving with softboots.

This is so true. I actually sometimes ride my new Swoard EC12 boots with two top buckles and the booster open even though those boots are rather soft by hardboot standards in the first place. I'm still in the process of learning the art of EC though so I need the added support for that but my goal is to need less and less support the further I develop my technique. Another interesting option is to use AT boots. Here's my second favorite setup atm. (EC12 + Contra ECC being the #1): That's Nidecker Tracer 161G with F2 limited carbon bindings and Atomic backland carbon boots with DGSS springs. So damn fun board to ride and with the small footprint of those boots I can hug the slope even with pretty relaxed (30/37) angles (would have to go much higher angles with softboot setup). Also great for riding slush and pow. I did however crack the shell of earlier backland carbon model but it was covered by warranty and this 2022 model has the cracked area reinforced so apparently others had problems as well. I hope I can get a wide Contra to go back to my favorite softboot bindings but atm. I don't have a wide enough board for that so I'm stuck with this kind of experiments. That said I have tried a lot of softboot bindings here's my top 4 rating in order of preference: Nidecker Kaon-CX Salomon Quantum Nitro Machine (with Phantom carver ankle straps) Jones Apollo The problem with Kaon-CX and Apollo especially is that the heel loop is so thick that it increases the binding+boot length so much that it becomes a bootout hell even though both bindings are great. Quantum heel loop is much slimmer so that allows lower angles with the same board width. I ride Salomon Malamutes in size 270. I also have Insanos and Infuses but prefer Malamutes. About that custom binding... I don't know if this is already in the process but the main thing why I wouldn't want to ride that is the "heel loop" overhang. If the design could be refined so that the boot+binding length could be minimized, I would definitely be interested in such a setup.

Those bindings look dope but aren't those "heel loops" major pita for bootouts? In any case that setup sure looks like a lot of lift line conversations!

It can be also thought via different parameter, binding angle. Let's say you have a beginner with 19cm wide hardboot board and you setup bindings with 35/42 angles. Surely there will be overhang but the angles could be easier for beginners than going for 55/62 angles for an example. Beginner can then learn the basic posture of hardboot riding and such using those relaxed angles. Later on when the rider gains experience and bootout starts to become an issue, angles can gradually be changed towards 55/62'ish angles where there would be no boot overhang. The way people looking for wider and wider boards think is that they choose to keep the angles fixed and increase the board width when they gain more experience and start to bootout with their old board. Of course then the question is why don't they just increase angles... Well I can give my own answer which is that if I go higher negative angles than -21 for the back foot I'm using for softboot carving (-21/+21), my knees will probably disintegrate. I would prefer to ride -18/+18 or -15/+15 btw. but I'm able to do 21 and that means less bootouts. I know the follow up will be why I ride duck stance in the first place... Well.. because I want to, it's fun. Though these days I'm also enjoying alpine stance but I really like both styles.

Sweet! I have been pestering Bruce about wide builds as well and he mentioned your board last week. I hope it rides great and I hope Bruce can make an even wider board for me if it's shorter (around 160) and has higher scr (16m+) (narrower tail&nose for the same waist). The 24.7cm wide hardboot EC Contra Bruce built me late last year has been stellar and I'm confident these wide Contras will be awesome. The widest board I have ridden is 28.6cm and that's too narrow with the angles I'd like to ride (bootout).