Question- please help - stance or ...? Pain in the front leg

[Guest matjazprah]

Dear friends,

recently I switched from freeride/soft boots to alpine carving/hardboots and I find out that my first leg (I am goofy) is under much bigger load than during previous setup (freeride/soft boots). This is specially noticed (uh, uh, uh :( ) when I am trying to go straight right (faced to down hill - so I am on heels). My back foot are virtualy no under any load but front start to give me a big pain above the knee.

Does anybody can give me a tip what I should do with stance and/or angles?

Setback? ...

Currently angles are 47 degree (first leg) 40 degree (back leg).

Thanks for any advice,

Matjaz

[Jack M]

You should experiment with cant and lift. Generally it is more comfortable to use toe lift on the front foot, and heel lift on the back foot. At low angles like yours, you will probably also want to use some inward cant. You can do this if you have adjustable bindings like Bomber, Catek, or Phiokka.

[Sean]

If you haven't done so already, you should check the welcome section on the main Bomber page. It has some great advice on intitial setup. FWIW, I train alot of new riders, I generally start out with some rear heel lift and flat to a bit of front toe lift with the front foot. I have also stopped running any inward cant altogether. I keep the front and rear feet angles within 3-5 degrees of each other. For stance width, a little over 1/2 of your inseam is a good place to start. I am always prepared to tweak things as we get some mileage and often do so during the first day.

I will assume your boots fit OK and you don't have any severe mechanical issues (very bow legged/knock kneed, one leg longer than the other...). If none of that is the case, a good bet on why you have pain in your front leg is that there may be too much splay between your front and back angles and/or the stance may be too wide. This can create alot of tension and pain around the knee joint because the legs may be too twisted against each other. For instance, I am 5'11" and weigh 170 lbs. On my Axis, I run 45 front foot w/ toe lift, 43 rear foot with heel lift and a bit less than 19inches stance width. This is a very comfortable setup for me as it allows my legs to work together and also keeps my heels and toes oriented over the edges.

This is by no means definitive, so play around with the setup and spend plenty of time on more mellow terrain until the tension goes away.

Hope this helps.

-Sean

[Guest matjazprah]

Thanks for your replys!

My boots fits excellent and I haven't any problem with tension, or other possible problems with boots. The main problem is pain in the musles above the knee (front foot) because of great load (overload) of the front foot. As I told before, this problems were not noticed before when NITRO instinct 157 (all around mount. carv., board and soft boots are used - angles 43 and 30 degrees). Both legs are loaded similar.

With this setup I started to carv but because of relatively narrow board and such setup of bindings and soft boots, the back foot started to drag over the snow and the results were, of course, diving in to the snow. Then I decided to switch to the alpine carve, with hard boots and hard bindings because of higher possible angles and claenr carvings.

As I am relatively new in the sport (I started last winter with freestyle/freeride board, then switched to previously mentioned board and right now I am using (well, only once) NITRO GTR 63 and Nidecker Carbon plate bindings and Oxygen hard boots). So, maybe some of the terms used in the answers are not very undenstandable to me.

If I understand, I should rise a little back foot heel and also rise a bit a front foot toe? I am not sure that can be done on my bindings.?!? I know that thewre is on both (front and back) bindings there are one small plate which provide smal angle of the binding give them small inclination to the center of the board (like that: (back of board (tail) \ center of the board / front (nose).

The characters \ and / represents the inclination of the bindings (is that connected to the "cant"). I will check the bindings in the morning to see if there are any possibility to rise the toe or heel side.

Also, I will try to decrease the distance between bindings. As well I will change the angles as per your recommendations.

Should I change the setback? Right now, the bindings are fasten on the four holes in the center of the front and back group of holes (for screws).

oxxo oxxo

oxxo oxxo

(the x represent the places of the screws)

Thanks again for your replys.

Best regards,

Matjaz

[Guest junecarver]

generally when carving your weight should be on the front leg, so it sounds like you are on the right track. if your quad is burning you must be carving good and hard. my carving lessons consisted of my friend riding by at 60kmh yelling "gewicht forne!" (weight forward!) as he went by. then he would yell down from the lift "gewicht forne!" on his ride back up. you will get into carving shape after a couple of days of riding. changing your stance won't effect the quad burn.

if it's not your quad then do beware of the twisting mentioned in the other responses, that can cause some problems which adjusting to a more forward stance with feet more parallel and at least some heel lift can remedy. if you do stay at the lower angles, then inward canting on the rear as jack suggests can take the twist off the back knee.

[Guest matjazprah]

Hi!

Yes, that is quad, as you said. It's realy burning. After few boarding/carving session (I hope) it will be better. The riding technique is very different from one with soft boots/soft bindings/freeride-freestyle board.

BTW, my bindings are NIDECKER CARBON COMP. I cannot find anything on the web about this bindings. Do you know anything about them (I bought new with the new board and in the store they mounted the bindings with angles as mentioned in my previous message (of course they check everything with my hard boots). I didn't get any manual for adjustment os something similar. Do you know if there are any possibility to rise the heel/toe side of the bindings?

Thanks,

Matjaz

p.s.

SPEED RULEZ!!! :D :D :D

[Steve Dold]

Originally posted by junecarver

generally when carving your weight should be on the front leg, so it sounds like you are on the right track.

What's the conventional wisdom here? I've been riding with my weight way to the rear (especially in turns) so much so that my rear quad is obviously bigger, I look like a freak. Are a lot of riders weighting the front instead? If it makes any difference, I usually ride conditions on the softer side.

[Jack M]

It is good to start your carves on the front leg and finish either in the middle or on the rear leg. Probably better for your body too!

[Guest AlpentalRider]

It may also have to do with your form. I notice that my friend uses much more force in his carving wheras I'm more of a finesse carver. So I end up expending alot less energy then he does and he ends up with quad burn way before I do.

Check out the great articles on bomber (written by Jack), as well as some of the other sites and maybe it will bring insight to your technique and riding style. It may also reveal some issues with your current style as it relates to alpine riding.

I can tell you that technique can vary some between softboot and alpine riding.