Bucking the trend or setting it

[Przemek/Brooklyn]

Here is my 50 cents

Advantages of going wide:

1 Better EC i am not sure exaclywhy but that swoard think works

2 bigger feet and more comfortable position

3 less likely to be bother on the slope by others. (looks like more common snowboard)

4 Jumping (this one is big) it just feels beter on wider board

Disadvantges

1 Ice

[philfell]

Racers have been on wider equipment for many years now. Personally I think you can go too wide for carving performance. For me I wouldn't want a G.S. type board wider than 21.5, but I have a 25 mondo size foot.

A wider board is more stable, and you can ride lower angles which put you in better balance and have more power.

[Jon Dahl]

I believe this is neither bucking the trend nor setting it. I find that on hero snow I love my 173 Renntiger with its narrow waist. But I have been riding a 158 F2 Breezer all this season for steeps/trees/bumps and believe it or not for a foot and a half of resort freshies. This little guy has a 22.8 waist and I have been able to run down bigger guys on wider freestyle boards in the fresh. It's probably not the ideal stick for this but if I'm careful it works. It is way too tight of a radius for real carving, but it does beg that some questions be asked. Are we guilty of pushing huge length boards a little too much? Do we push the super skinny widths more than we should? What would make the ideal do all resort board for my conditions? Not that I would consider only one board for everything, but something that always makes the trip in the car when I go. I'm thinking something along the lines of a slightly narrower version of the 164 Rad-air LSD, 10-10.5 sidecut, 160-165 length, a small rounded tail ala the Axxess, a little more nose for resort pow, and enough stiffness to lay down the law on groomers w/o killing off groom performance too much. The perfect match for a 192 Tanker!

[BShaw]

I am currently riding a 169 Donek Wide with soft boots. I can't carve as good as I could on my Coiler, but still can definitely carve on it. It has a 10.2 side cut and a 5.5 on the Donek Scale for stiffness.

Although Next season I think I will have a different board built. I am looking for a 11.2 side cut with about the same stiffness and a little longer edge, still riding soft boots.

[Phil]

Here I go stealing Boostertwo's pictures again - I am going to have to pay him royalties.;)

Snowboards carve.

28 cm waist (I think):

[Kimo]

Here I go stealing Boostertwo's pictures again - I am going to have to pay him royalties.;)

Snowboards carve.

28 cm waist (I think):

My $0.02... yes, this is carving, but it's just not the same thing.

[BShaw]

Definetely not the same thing. But neither is carving on Narrow Virus compared to the Sword (EC). I don't think it matters what style of board you ride. As long as the running length, effective edge, stiffness and side cut match your carving style.

This all goes back to what angles feel correct to you.

Myself I am riding 39(f) 33® in softies. I cannot go to much further with my Rear foot without requiring a hardboot. My front I can ride all the way up to 45(f) with no issues.

All I can say is, if your carving trenches down the hill, People watch.

If your skidding, you look like all the rest.

I still get asked questions about my equipment all the time, from both hardboots and softies.

[Phil]

My $0.02... yes, this is carving, but it's just not the same thing.

I guess my point is that we get caught up in a lot of board tech when the bottom line is that a good carver is a good carver. It is about the rider more than it is about the board. An expert carver can outcarve most of us (hardbooters) on a soft setup. I have been outcarved by guys who are riding duck stances on freestyle noodles. I would bet that they would outcarve about 85% of the BOL'ers as well. They are just better athletes with better (more effective and efficient) technique. Would they carve better on hardboots? Of course, but if it ain't broke, they're not going to fix it. There are also hardbooters that can regularly outride park/pipe rats on their own turf.

It's not what you ride, but how you ride it.

That's my $0.02 - and I will be a hardbooter to the end.

[BlueB]

It's not what you ride, but how you ride it.

AMEN!

[crucible]

A drill instructor in the service once told me, "Be afraid of the man that as only one gun- it usually means he's had a LOT of practice with it and knows how to use it".

I think that might apply to snowboarders too....

[BShaw]

No, I have no intentions in turning hardbooters into softbooters. Although I do try to get everyone carving, no matter what the equipment.

[Steve Prokopiw]

I find that part of the addiction I seem to have developed recently for surfing this site is the tech stuff.I can see that of the appeal of the pure carving equipment and specs/angles has maybe as much to do with it as the actual riding.(I'm like that with bike stuff) I used to ride narrow carving boards (late80s-mid90s)all the time and eventually became more of a one board rider on an allmountain board,but never got out my hard boots.For me it's always been about the boots being more comfy and supportive and the heel hold of the boots being superior.The boards have been secondary.That said ,I am buying extra lotto tickets in the hopes of affording the type of pure carving steup from the new millenium that I read about here.P.S. It's alot of fun carving regular and switch on a 25-26 waist ,allterrain stick with 45 degree angles and an inch of underhang.(this is a shorter, slightly less self absorbed version of what I deleted yesterday)