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Freestyle on hard boots


Guest crikey

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Guest crikey

Due to an ankle injury I have recently changed to a hard boot set up.

It hasnt stopped me trying to do tricks though. I have tried to ride fakie at every opportunity when on my all mountain board and even can pop a frontside 180 from fakie without getting egg on my face.

I have bought a freestyle specific board for riding in our indoor slopes in the uk and was wondering the best way to set my cants up if at all.

Should I ride with no cant and no lifts or should I have both bindings canted in towards the centre to allow the widest stance possible? The board is pretty wide 264mm so I can ride flat angles.

Any ideas?

And no I dont want to ride softies again in case of aggravating the old injury.

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I do rotations 180 and 360 front and back , jumps, ride on swith and some easy rails,, my settings are just the same than riden on piste , I normally ride with the bindings flat, and my board is 19.5 wide, of course be careful.

Regards

Sito

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crikey

I encourage you to use the search function on this one, as it is a very common topic and there are a lot of answers. search for freestyle and freeride...

Id use the advanced search and titles only so you can get more specific results

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Hey crikey....

What did you do to your ankle?

I'm currently recovering from my second corrective surgery for my ankle injury.

I find that, due to scar tissue from my first, my medial, or inward side, of my heel is not contacting the ground fully when I'm walking(just in a pool now, but it was doing that before surgery #2). You got some good footbeds in those boots, right?

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Guest crikey
Hey crikey....

What did you do to your ankle?

I dislocated it after tumbling a few times on the board in soft boots.

I posted a few threads about this so I wont bore you with a refresh.

All ok now apart from I need insoles to correct my feet as I dont push off with the big toe side of my foot enough when I walk. Oh and I have reduced dorsiflexion. More stretching exercises required methinks.

I have been trying to ride fakie on my all mountain board, the angles arent the problem its most definitely the heel and toe lifts that are making it awkward. I will go for a flat stance for starters then worry about canting later.

I have a full set of body armour so will be prepared for any unexpected up ending due to excessive "buttering of ones muffin"

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i injured my rigt ankle 7 years ago and until now it still hurts whenever i ran...it also hurts when i'm on a snowboard, but what the heck...it's worth it:p

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Baka, you are too kind. :)

I use 3 degree cants front and back but I think it's a personal-preference issue and you should go with what is comfortable.

My feeling is that "flat angles" is not the way to go. Hard boots reduce my range of motion a bit compared to soft boots, but at higher angles it doesn't matter because most of the control comes from the hips and knees anyway. I haven't tried anything less than 45/30 in hard boots so maybe I shouldn't knock it but the idea does not seem attractive to me. :)

For a few seasons I rode with a 25cm waist and 45/30 angles but in retrospect I only wish I had gone to narrower boards sooner. I actually found switch riding at 55/50 slightly easier than 45/30 or 45/40 and someone else here felt the same way (that conversation was a while ago, I forgot who...). I have been riding all-mountain boards with 21cm and 17cm waists (55/50 and 70/65 angles) and I think 19cm will be the sweet spot for me so that's what I'm getting next year.

The only time hard boots at these angles feels restrictive is when I'm airborne, it's almost impossible to grab the nose. Other than that I feel like this setup is easier than soft boots for pretty much everything (except maybe rails, which I've barely begun to try).

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I came from the land of hard boots and wide freeride boards like Spike.sized.jpg

45/35 is where I used to live.

I ride a coiler AM 19 at 60s now with F2 intecs and the big heel lift.

I would say for riding fakey and doing freestyle type stuff ride the angles you like but stay away from lifts. Thinking about how I ended the season riding fakey :(

grade3_acrosep.gif I am fairly sure the big heel lift was making it harder to work the board backwards. I crashed because I caught my toe side of the board :nono: and that heel lift was forcing that foot to the toe side.

So for freeride and tricks I say Go Flat

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Been thinking 'bout this...I'd say the heel lift would probably NOT be needed with lower freestyle angles.....

I'd get the Catek OS2s and tweak as needed, starting off at some lower angles....but beware the board, you have to stick with the stiffer twin-tip boards

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Yes, anecdotal evidence is worthless, but.....

I remember reading a great study when I was in college about the power of the anecdote....

two study groups watching movies about how great Volvos were...

both groups have a 15 minute break between 2 short films

one group has a ringer giving stories about their Aunt Sally and her awful Volvo

attitude testing of both groups after both movies--the group with the bad-mouthing ringer placed had a substantially lower perception of Volvo

Snowboarding is a risky activity, like skiing...if you injure yourself....well, that happens...

You have to decide whether the injury is "enough" for you or not...I think a guy who's switching to hardboots to continue snowboarding despite multiple dislocated ankles threshold for quitting is pretty high....

I considered just skiing next year after dislocating my shoulder....that thought lasted only as long as my shoulder rehab lasted

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Yes, anecdotal evidence is worthless, but.....

I remember reading a great study when I was in college about the power of the anecdote....

two study groups watching movies about how great Volvos were...

both groups have a 15 minute break between 2 short films

one group has a ringer giving stories about their Aunt Sally and her awful Volvo

attitude testing of both groups after both movies--the group with the bad-mouthing ringer placed had a substantially lower perception of Volvo

Snowboarding is a risky activity, like skiing...if you injure yourself....well, that happens...

You have to decide whether the injury is "enough" for you or not...I think a guy who's switching to hardboots to continue snowboarding despite multiple dislocated ankles threshold for quitting is pretty high....

I considered just skiing next year after dislocating my shoulder....that thought lasted only as long as my shoulder rehab lasted

Right, anectodal evidence is worthless, but yet people stupidly believe it more than real scientific evidence.

True, snowboarding is an inherently dangerous activity. If you keep getting season-ending injuries year after year, that's because you are riding beyond your abilities. Changing gear from softboots to hardboots or crappy freestyle boards to alpine boards isn't going to change that - changing your mindset will (ok... if you bindings explode, maybe you need new gear). I'm all about pushing yourself to new levels, but ride smart, ride safe.

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Nothing stopping you from putting cross-country bindings on a freestyle board, either, just don't have too many expectations.

Switch riding, 1's, no grab airs and spins will all work out. If you want to grab anything but frontside or "suitcase" method, though, you'll wind up having to cut all the plastic out of your shells for some flexibility, but that would kind of defeat the purpose.

I'd ditch the cants, unless the wider stance aggravates your knees or ankles, but just try to let your knees rest apart the way they'll want to naturally. Don't try to ride with them together. You probably already knew that...

Angle wise, just turn the front a bit more than the back and stay away from the higher angles you used when you rode alpine. You might also want to try a bit of duck stance. Around -5 on the back might let you get closer to your board without bending at the waist too much, but only if the stance itself doesn't hurt.

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Not necessarily true Lonerider.

www.allboardssports.com

That's why I said "year after year." Sure, freak accidents can happen... but if you are run over by someone else more than twice, or have a "momentary lapse" three years, getting distracted by a girl mutiple times, you are riding beyond you abilities - physical AND mental.

This is the second time you have specifically called me out on a comments I've made and in both cases you didn't carefully read my original post before replying. I understand that my opinions differ from yours and sometimes I am wrong, but I just request in the future re-read my post first and give me the benefit of the doubt before releasing the hounds upon my poor self :) Sometimes the words don't come out quite in the way that I want them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, I broke my ankle 2/05 and it didn't end my season-I continued to snowboard because my original injury was misdiagnosed, hence my needing 2 surgeries to correct what should have been casted for 6 weeks-or even subject to a trip to the OR, I'll never know at this point....

Dislocating my shoulder was a combo of bad conditions, me not listening to my inner voice telling me to get back on the gondola, and a non-functioning ankle ( I had no proprioception or ability to correct my balance prior to the last surgery)....

I probably won't snowboard again if I'm unsteady on that ankle after the last surgery, but....I can walk barefooted again and I couldn't before, and I can walk on uneven ground and I couldn't before...

I've gotten 2 balance boards this year expressly for the purpose of getting ready for the next season-a simple round board on a semisphere balance and a bongo board

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