would appreciate any technique advice...

[Hunter]

Here's my situation: I have been riding my Burton Factory Prime 178 since the start of the season. I was doing pretty well on it and carving up the hill like a madman(sort of). The other day I dug out my old 156 Ultra Prime and thought I'd give that a try. So I switched my bindings over and went out to the hill. I've since been having the worst time getting back my carving capability. Every time I go to turn the nose washes out. This seems to happen more on my heelside turns. My first thought was that my body was over the nose too far, so I leaned back a bit. That helped a little, but now my butt is hanging out because of the backward leaning I'm doing, which is causing other problems. As of now, I'm working on geting my upper body back to a more forward direction on heelside turns. Since this board is causing me so much headache, I wanted to find out if anyone could shed some light on my problems. Also, another thing I thought of is that I might be too heavy for my board now, its rated up to 170 lbs, and I am about 185. Any advice you can lend would be greatly appreciated.

Allen Hunter

[neil sunday]

Allen, I seriuosly doubt the weight change would have that much of an effect on the shovel of your board washing out. The problem most likely is the starightneing of your front leg on a board that doesn't have near the edge contact of your FP 178.

Your slalom board would require a more upright riding technique, and will punish you by sliding out should you try to carve hard without staying centered over the board with your hips creating and driving pressure to the edge.

Another option may be the board is not tuned and detuned properly. The nose washing out could need a little sharpening, I doubt this is the real issue, as more than likely any proper form can compensate for the "wash-out."

I wouldnt focus too much on moving your body too far forward or backward on a board that is only 157cm long, instead I would focus on weight distribution on the front foot vs. mid and aft presure to the back foot, evenly throughout the phases of the turn.

I hope this helps, as heelside wash-out has plagued us all at some point...

[Jack M]

It is quite possible and easy to be going "too fast" for your board's sidecut radius. The UP156 must have a very short radius, as I remember the FP157 was about 9.5m which is quite short. Short boards in general want to make quick turns. If you're trying to lay out at high speed and carry a big turn across the hill, it's just not going to happen.

-Jack