Jack M
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Posts posted by Jack M
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Ask for Erik Beckman. The master.
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Originally posted by lonerider
On top of the hill
The first thing I encountered was that I had an extremely difficult tight getting into my back binding...
This is an acquired skill that comes with practice. I find it's easier to do standing up, either on flat ground or holding on to something. If you have to do it sitting down, it is easier if you turn your hips toward the nose and actually sit not on your buttcheeks, but on the side of your hip. Make sure you have no snow on the bottom of your boot too.
Turning on the board
After getting into the board, I could get down the hill more or less, but it still feels like I'm learning how snowboard all over again (I've been riding in softboots for 8 years now). I could swing the board left and right and could even half enter some hard turns both heelside and toeside, but it was very sloppy and I was liable to slip out of the turn and skid or dig my nose into the thick powder and fall over if I psuhed it too hard. I attribute this to not being used to the setup. I don't feel like I can get any leverage at all on my edges and my whole body feel overtwisted... is that due to the high stance angles?
Don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you may need to go back to your soft gear and make sure that you can really carve it. That is, can you do the Norm and carve your downhill edge on your soft gear? You should be able to carve thin tracks in your soft gear on the greens and maybe blues. Making the switch to a hard setup is much easier if you master carving your soft setup. Actually I'd say it's pretty much required. After you get that going, try some steeper angles on your soft gear, like 33/24. I remember the very first time I tried hardboots, I had only been boarding for 2 years on a Burton Elite 150. I hated them and swore I would never use them again. Then 2 years later after riding 3-strap bindings and a Burton Safari then a PJ, I tried them again and took off. I was in heaven. By that time, my softboots had been holding me back, and the hardboots opened the door to a new level. It doesn't sound like you've reached the limits of your soft gear yet. Of course, I could be wrong, I don't know how you ride.
Body Position
However, the binding stance felt really awkward, it felt like my back leg was completely twisted inside. What direction are my hips suppose to be facing? In softboards my hip are are aligned with my front foot (I think) which makes then point almost perpendicular to the board since my angles are 18,3. I assume I started with that, but I remembered reading that you should have your shoulders and hips pointing down the hill. I tried that as well neither felt quite right. Reading the newbie articles on Bomber and ExtremeCarving implied I should have them in line with the bindings.
Like I said, try to get carving on your soft gear and try steeper angles there first. Going from 18/3 to 55/50 cold-turkey is a quantum leap.
As for facing down the hill, that is technically incorrect. Relative to the hill, you want your alignment to rotate with the board as it travels along its arc. That is, either face your bindings or face the nose of the board, but whichever you do, maintain this alignment throughout the carve. It is a common mistake to simply face downhill for the duration of a heelside carve. This is bad for your balance.
Whether you align your body with your binding angles or with the nose of the board is personal preference. HOWEVER, people who have the bad habit of facing downhill deeply etched in memory, typically continue to face downhill when they think they're facing their bindings. The only way to overcome this is to exaggerate the forward rotation, meaning, face the nose of the board. A good way to get yourself to do this is to drive (what used to be) your trailing hand forward and down over the nose as you enter a heelside turn, and continue to drive it forward throughout the carve. This is how it's done (cmc):
Stance Angles
I played with the angles... 50, 45... still felt twisted, 50, 35 feeling better but couldn't get into the carve, 55, 40... 65-50... and then I realized what Jack Michaud meant about having my angle too far apart and my knees "fighting each other." Still not quite sure what my angles should be,
The "correct" angles to start with are those at which your boots do not protrude beyond the edges of the board. This often results in parallel or near parallel angles. Since you won't be tilting your board up super high as a newbie, you can get away with a little overhang.
I read that you have like a 12 degree separation and the guys as "extremecarving.com" have like a 7 degree separation.
I don't recall seeing anyone here recommending 12 degrees separation, and it certainly wasn't me. That's too much in my opinion, unless you are naturally extra duck-footed.
Since you mention the EC site so much, I have to say that I think their newbie info can be confusing. This is partly due to english being their second language, and also because the site overall is promoting a very advanced style of carving that has nothing to do with teaching people to carve. Do not even think of riding like those guys until you are well advanced. It seems to me that they give some conflicting advice. One one page they tell you never to face the nose of the board, while on another and in most of their pictures and movies they are totally facing the nose.
Boot/Binding Canting
Does that sound okay? I'm bowlegged and I'm naturally duck footed. As a result I tend to supinate (roll onto the outer edge of my foot) a lot - could the 3 degree disks be causing me problems since they might push my knees "together" more than I would want?
YES. Should have sprung for the TD2's, they have adjustable cant. But you can rig your TD1's to get you maybe what you want, or hopefully close to it. Since you have a Burton 3-hole pattern, you can rotate your TD discs in 60 degree increments. Rotate your back disc 60 degrees towards the toe edge. If you are super bow-legged, rotate the front disc 60 degrees as well. That is, you want your rear disc to be sloping towards the toe edge and the front disc towards the heel edge. If that is too much, you can return the disc(s) to the standard orientation (discs sloping towards each other), and sandwich pennies or nickels or dimes between the toe/heel pads and the baseplate. Do this on one side of the pads to achieve some canting. Only use one layer of coins. Do not stack any coins. NOTE: the manufacturer does not endorse the coin method. Make sure your screws are TOYGHT!!
Should I be adjusting the cant of my boots (I have Raichle SB224 boots)? What about the forward lean, I accidentally started out with 3 on the front and 3 on the back (I tried 4 on the back and it felt different, but my angles were all weird at the time).
You should experiment. You should adjust the cant of your boots to suit your, um, bowlegged-ness. Most people like minimum forward lean on the front boot and more on your back boot.
To wrap up, I can't overemphasize the importance of being able to carve on your soft gear first. Knowing what a real carve feels like before you try completely different equipment will give you a huge head start. This may only happen on the steeper greens, but that's fine. And for the love of Pete, DON'T head for the top of the mountain when you set out to learn your new gear. Start on the greens (not the baby hill though). You can't learn to carve when you're scared by excessive speed. You need to practice on a slope that will give you enough speed to lean into a turn, but not so much that you slip into self-preservation mode.
I hope this helps, keep us posted.
-Jack
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Go for it. This is a great thing to do if you want to mix it up and switch skis/board midday. If your ski boots are super stiff race boots, yeah, they're not going to be <i>optimal</i>. Just get the soft e-rings with your TD2's. If the boots fit you well and you like them, chances are good you'll like them on the board. When you use them on your board, play around with any stiffness adjusters you have, and also give walk mode a try, if you have it.
Also be sure to check out the Welcome Center on the front page here.
-Jack
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Can You Start Snowboarding in Hardboots From Day One?
I taught my wife to board. She's never been in softboots.
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Good point. I've had this idea in the back of my head for a while. We'll try to make it happen soon.
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Yeah, Helmut took the liberty of rubbing my stick with that grease. Then he got that shot of me that I use for my avatar.
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this is getting steamy!
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"Jason Ford.... he's got a chick in every port. <i>Every</i> port." -Jeff Brushie
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It is crazy fast. It lasts far more than 20 feet. About half a day really. I've never felt my snowboard go so fast as the day I tried it. It's actually so fast, I don't even want to use it again!
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Shred Gruumer.... our own version of Jason Ford
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he knows what he's talking about! he is a veteran professional instructor.
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Originally posted by Randy S.
Also, where is that matrix that Jack promised outlining the various cant/lift equations?
Ask and ye shall receive:
-Jack
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Originally posted by Bob Jenney
Not to point out the obvious, but y'know boards don't have a "radius" per say?
A side cut is made up of a parabolic curve. Manufactures use the word radius because it’s easier to communicate.
Actually many mfr's use radial sidecuts, Burton for one. Some use parabolic (quadratic), some use elliptical, some use a blend of multiple radii, etc.
-Jack
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There is a simpler one that I forget, but I just doodled this out on a napkin:
R = X / (sin(180 - 2(arctan X/Y)))
X = half the running length
Y = sidecut depth
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Actually, the TD2's cant adjustment is nearly independent of lift for smallish changes in cant disc angle. If you set up your bindings for pure lift (cant disc angle = binding angle), each 5 degree rotation of the cant disc produces an insignificant change in lift, and a useful change in cant.
Consider the 3 degree cant disc.
At 60/60 (binding angle/cant disc angle), you have 3 degrees of lift and no cant.
At 60/65 you have 0.262 degrees of cant and 2.989 degrees of lift.
At 60/70 you have 0.521 degrees of cant and 2.954 degrees of lift.
So, changing from 60/60 to 60/70, half a degree of cant is significant and noticeable. 0.046 of a degree change in lift is insignificant.
The 6 degree disc produces bigger changes with each notch of the cant disc, but the results are still nearly independant.
Mathophobes stop reading now.
For the TD2, your cant and lift degrees can be calculated as such:
Cant = A * SIN(B - C)
Lift = A * COS(B - C)
where
A = slope of disc (0, 3, 6)
B = disc angle relative to board (90 degrees = nose)
C = binding angle relative to board.
The forthcoming matrix has the results of these equations for a range of settings.
Of course, you don't have to figure all this out when you're making adjustments. You'll be able to read the disc angle and binding angle off the binding, and realize that if you set the disc angle and binding angle the same, you'll have pure lift. Each notch on the cant disc is 5 degrees of rotation, so you'll know that you'll be getting a little bit more cant with each notch you move away from the pure lift setting. All you need to do is keep track of how many notches away from pure lift or pure cant you are.
If anyone wants the excel spreadsheet I worked out for this, email me.
-Jack
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Adam, which e-ring do you like the best?
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Originally posted by Ed Tostanoski
fin, or anyone else who might have measured,
do you how the stiffnesses of the td2 elastomers compare to the rubber ring on cateks?
thanks
I don't think it is meaningful to compare these features, because the Catek is not a floating system. The TD2 cant disc is not rigidly clamped to the board, rather it is merely held against the e-ring with a certain amount of preload. The soft and medium e-rings allow additional compression beyond that, so the cant disc has a little freedom to roll and pitch (but not yaw).
-Jack
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They're cheap enough to try them all - $15 each. When you buy a full set of TD2s, you get one pair of e-rings included. Unlike the TD1 bumpers (which imo were "install and forget" items), the TD2 e-rings will have a profound effect on the ride and feel of the bindings. I imagine riders of all abilities will find uses for more than just one e-ring hardness.
-Jack
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I'd like to offer my thanks to Fin & Michelle for providing us all with this new upgraded forum and overall site. I know it must have been a metric ton of effort to overhaul BOL while in the thick of production on the TD2. I also know it was a major team effort to accomplish the two simultaneously. Michelle has put a zillion hours into this project as well. And let's not forget it's free!
I know the sport of Alpine Snowboarding is bigger and better today thanks in large part to Fin. Dare I say it..... Fin is alpine's JBC???
-Jack
GS or SL?
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