Why are boards getting wider?

[Ernie00]

I've been riding hardboots for 6 years now and over the past 2 years I've seen a tendency for boards to become wider. 20-21 and even 23 cm. It used to be 18 cm wide?

Beside lower boots angle what are the pro and cons of wider boards?

[mr_roboteye]

I have read elsewhere on the forum that it's because the wider the board is the more stable it is. IMHO a wider board is only more stable when you're travelling in a straight line. I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't spend very much time with my base flat on the ground.

I don't like wider boards because:

-they are inherently weaker torsionally (unless it's a metal board)

-they are going to be heavier (more material)

-much slower edge to edge.

So if someone wants to tell me their take on "more stable", I'd like to hear it.

L8R,

Dave R.

[b0ardski]

A wider board allows lower angles which allows greater control/adjustability of torsional flex at any stage of the turn be the flex soft or stiff.

[RCrobar]

For me boards are getting wider because of the size of my boots and my preferred stance angles.

Gone, for me, are the days of having a boards’ waist width dictate my stance angles.

My mondo point 28.5 boots, a preference for standard toe-bail bindings and carving angles set at 50 Front and 45 Rear, require a board with a 23 cm waist.

If I had smaller feet, I would require a board with a 22 or 21 cm waist width.

The faster or slower edge to edge time are not nearly as important as having the balance and stability I feel I get when my feet and knees are where I want them to to be rather than being forced into a position dictated by a board that is too narrow for my foot size.

[snowboardfast]

I think a wider board is more stable because you can run much mellower angles which gives you more leverage for turning and the wider platform requires less effort to maintain balance.Also the mellower stance angles make it eaiser to stay balanced. I am only running angles of 45 front and 40 rear on my Donek 180 blade and it is easier to ride than a narrow race board. This board won't turn as quick as a super narrow race board but I don't care as I am not racing and I can turn quick enough. The waist on this board is 23.5 cm. Even though it is a 180 it doesn't feel that long becuase it is softer in flex although it is not a noodle but it is softer than a lot of race boards which makes it eaiser to turn and less effort to maintain balance when riding. The race board would be more stable at higher speeds due to the stiffer flex but I do'nt ride super fast anymore anyway. I think the wider waist width on a race deck would be more stable in a rutted race course when you are being thrown around and trying to maitain your line. I think 23.5 would be too wide for racing - that is why the wider decks are 19.5-21cm. Of course if you want super narrow you could buy a Virus with a 14 cm waist which is almost like a skwal. For general free carving on groomed snow I think waist width is a matter of personal preference just like the other factors in board specs. It is nice today to be able to choose what you want. Part of the reason I went to a wider board again was because I ride soft boots also and I wanted to not have such a huge variance between my 2 sets of gear. I have ridden both narrow and wide boards and I am also considering riding soft boots only as I can carve almost as good on them and like them better for all around use. I can't afford to keep funding all this gear. We will see what happens in a year or 2.

[Dave ESPI]

Answer: ............People like me with Size 12 or larger feet ( Mondo 30+ ) and hate toe/heel drag or having to ride high angles and sacrafice power.

[mr_roboteye]

A wider board allows lower angles which allows greater control/adjustability of torsional flex at any stage of the turn be the flex soft or stiff.

Stance angles have absolutely nothing to do with torsional flex. Board construction method, materials used, and sidecut depth have everything to do with how well a board can resist torsional deflection.

[mr_roboteye]

For general free carving on groomed snow I think waist width is a matter of personal preference just like the other factors in board specs.

I guess it just comes down to that. Dave ESPI makes a good point as well. Since he has bigger feet, he needs a wider board to ride livable angles.

L8R,

Dave R.

[b0ardski]

wider board + lower angles = greater torsional leverage

I didn't mean to imply lowering angles will change a boards flex, just the leverage over it.

[pokkis]

Required stability has turned race boards to be wider and now with new materials it is possble build good wide boards. Same applies also for us mortals, sunday carvers :rolleyes:

Wider board gives more stability and force for us to ride like Duracell bunny

[Arnaud]

Wider boards are also more versatile when slopes aren't perfectly groomed. Wide board floats better in fresh snow, soft / spring snow and powder.

[nils]

I've been riding hardboots for 6 years now and over the past 2 years I've seen a tendency for boards to become wider.

you mean since 2003 when we launched the Extremecarver i guess....

Pros:

- easier to built soft flex combine with high torsion resistance

- more stable at low speeds

- more versatile ( crud, pow, bumby terrains)

- less tiring

- easier to make a board able to carve AND slide when needed

- more leverage = less power needed

- more comfort for the knees ( lower angles)

- no more need for cant and lift

- more adapted to rotation technique( facing the boots rather than facing the nose of the board)

- more efficient for EC with ease

Cons:

- slower edge changing speeds

- sometimes can be heavier

- harder to turn when not using rotation technique

- need more push pull work

The first thing to be noticed when you try a 23cm board is the stability, followed by the need to adapt riding technique to rotation, otherwise it feels like the board is heavy to tilt on the edge...and feels like a log...

For my personnal point of view, appart from the EC i gained, i also gained less pains in knees and in my back (getting lower angles and no lift/cant) , and the ability to relax after a long riding day, not worrying about catching an edge or beeing aware of edge position all the time... I'm going in places with that board i wasn't trying to go to with my Proton etc...the loss of edge changing speed was no issue since i am too old anyway for snappy air changes... :)

Nils

[tex1230]

wow...you heard it here first...the only reason for wide boards is the Swoard...:lol::lol::lol::lol:

My race boards in the 80s & early 90s were 22-23 waist...of course that worked well on asyms with skinny stances.

I've ridden everything from the Fatbob to the skwal...I'll agree with the personal preference statement - I bought a Coiler EX early last season (23.5 waist I think) and was never comfortable on it. 18-19 waist is what I like and I'm sticking with it. I personally don't buy the "wide boards are more stable" argument - how often do you ride on the flat base? and once the board is on edge, the width doesn't matter.

[willywhit]

Wider boards are also more versatile when slopes aren't perfectly groomed. Wide board floats better in fresh snow, soft / spring snow and powder.

getting thru a mogul field on a skinny board is tough. Running thru some trees is crazy dangerous on an 18cm wide board. The wider board feels more surfy than cranking turns on a balance beam. Not that I don't enjoy ripping turns on freshy groom on the Madd 170,I just can't do it for more than a few hours or my legs are smoked.

thanks for that last post Nils, good beta

[Jack M]

The better you get at carving, the more you realize how important it is to be able to carve "from the ground up". This means changing edges starting with your toes, then ankles, then knees, then hips, etc. This is opposed to the practice of making big upper body movements and arm gesticulations. Carving this way allows you to be more dynamic and fluid, and it improves your ability to maintain and recover balance.

The higher your binding angles, the less leverage you have across the board with your ankles, therefore you can't use them as well for the advantages stated above. (On a Skwal, you have zero ankle leverage.)

I still love my Madd 158 (a hair under 18cm wide) but I'd probably like it better if it was 20cm. I've realized I like riding with binding angles of around 57-60 degrees.

I'm absolutely loving my Coiler Schtubby 170, 21cm wide. It feels like a snowboard again.

Wide boards actually never went away. Factory Primes and Speeds came in 20, 21cm widths until the end. People just started trying skinny boards and got hooked on the hyper quick edge changes for a while. Also, skinny boards and higher binding angles make it easier to stop the dreaded "toilet sit" technique problem. I think skinny boards helped a lot of people get over a hump in their technique progression, and now they're finding they can return to wider boards without returning to old habits.

It's all an evolution. Kind of like how boards went from sym to asym, back to sym.

[Mike T]

Wide boards actually never went away. Factory Primes and Speeds came in 20, 21cm widths until the end. People just started trying skinny boards and got hooked on the hyper quick edge changes for a while. Also, skinny boards and higher binding angles make it easier to stop the dreaded "toilet sit" technique problem. I think skinny boards helped a lot of people get over a hump in their technique progression, and now they're finding they can return to wider boards without returning to old habits.

This was certainly the case for me. Even more so because I was being mentored for a couple of years by someone who rode angles in the 65 - 70 range and who taught best my demonstrating and then I would try to imitate. And for a while, it was true that as soon as I went less then 60 on the angles I would toilet sit. Of course, I spent far too much time on low angles / skinny boards for my own good...

The better you get at carving, the more you realize how important it is to be able to carve "from the ground up". This means changing edges starting with your toes, then ankles, then knees, then hips, etc. This is opposed to the practice of making big upper body movements and arm gesticulations. Carving this way allows you to be more dynamic and fluid, and it improves your ability to maintain and recover balance.

.. and this is what Sean Cassidy and the Snowpeformance crew were telling me the whole time I was into my skinny boards!!! I've started riding boards wide enough to allow for angles in the 48 - 54 range and have seen the light. Is it just another step on the way to total enlioghtenment? Perhaps, but it was an important step for me.

____________________________

With modern metal boards, edge-to-edge transitions don't seem to suffer from wider decks the way they used to. My 21.5 waisted Coiler AM-T's have felt just as "flickable" as 18 waisted Doneks, and much more forgiving too.

[nils]

I'm not pretending swoard invented wide boards u silly :)

i was just saying that in 2000-2003 the widest you could find in alpine was 21cm at best, and most of the boards we could find were 18.5... ( maybe its not true but i don't know any alpine performance board of that time that was wide as 22-23cm!

Of course the logical, the eagle race etc in 92 were wide beasts, but they were kinda different flex pattern ( aka hard to bend and physically tiring )...

and the wide board is more stable at low speeds is not an argument, its just a fact! :) If you ever tried to take a teleski ( not sure of the name in english) on a skwal vs a 23cm board, you know the stability is there when its wide !!

N

[Jon Dahl]

getting thru a mogul field on a skinny board is tough.

You have obviously never ridden a mogul field with Mr. bumpyride. You would change your mind, possibly, after seeing him kill it in moguls on a 156 Prime. He has moguls down to a science. Getting through a mogul field on a LONG board is tough, not a SKINNY board. One of my two best days in the moguls was on a 167 with a 21.5 waist, other was a 156 with a 24.5. I may go skinny this year for bumps...need new board!

[BadBrad]

I probably don't ride enough days per year for my technique to progress to wide board/lower angle stage. I'm not even sure I've progressed at all since my Asym Alp days. :)

I've found that my sweet spot width seems to be around 20cm. With my mondo 26.5 boots, this gives angles of around 57f/54r, which for me is very comfortable and all-mountain versatile.

I bought a 21.4cm wide board last year, and it felt like a tank. The extra weight was very noticeable to me. I eventually got used to it, but I still prefer the quick response of a lightweight board.

[Arnaud]

it felt like a tank

Not only a width or weight problem, but also stiffness distibution ... I tried also lumbering wide board

As Jack said : "This means changing edges starting with your toes, then ankles", did you tried the wide board with same angles (57f/54r), or set the angles to have the boots extremities just over edges ?

[BadBrad]

Not only a width or weight problem, but also stiffness distibution ... I tried also lumbering wide board

As Jack said : "This means changing edges starting with your toes, then ankles", did you tried the wide board with same angles (57f/54r), or set the angles to have the boots extremities just over edges ?

No, I always set angles so my boots are at the edges, so the angles are more relaxed on the wider board. I think they are 54/51, or maybe even 51/48.

Like I said, I eventually got used to it. My previous board was an UltraPrime 156, which was exceptionally lightweight, so this made the extra weight of the new board quite noticeable.

[carvedog]

You have obviously never ridden a mogul field with Mr. bumpyride. You would change your mind, possibly, after seeing him kill it in moguls on a 156 Prime. He has moguls down to a science. Getting through a mogul field on a LONG board is tough, not a SKINNY board. One of my two best days in the moguls was on a 167 with a 21.5 waist, other was a 156 with a 24.5. I may go skinny this year for bumps...need new board!

Have to agree with this. I love little skinny boards in the bumps. Not my Burner, although I did this a time or two.

Low swing weight, quick edge to edge. And you rock it out.

One of my faves for this was an old broken down factory prime 173. This was for bigger spring time bumps but it was really fun. I think she will be turned out to pasture this year for good.

As far as the OP question "Why are boards getting wider?"

Cuz my Butt is getting bigger. :eplus2:

[mr_roboteye]

wow...you heard it here first...the only reason for wide boards is the Swoard...:lol::lol::lol::lol:

My race boards in the 80s & early 90s were 22-23 waist...of course that worked well on asyms with skinny stances.

I've ridden everything from the Fatbob to the skwal...I'll agree with the personal preference statement - I bought a Coiler EX early last season (23.5 waist I think) and was never comfortable on it. 18-19 waist is what I like and I'm sticking with it. I personally don't buy the "wide boards are more stable" argument - how often do you ride on the flat base? and once the board is on edge, the width doesn't matter.

Could not have said it better. No one's post so far has even remotely convinced me that wider boards are "more stable". The one caveat is when you are going slow, a wider board will make it easier to maneuver without tipping over, other than that, you have been marketed to.

A note on "leverage". Some of you are saying that since your angles are lower with a wider board, you have more leverage. This is true, and it's not true. If you set up a wide board and a narrow board with toes and heels at reference angles (toes and heels at the edge, no bootout.) The amount of leverage you have is the same. The only way to get more "leverage" is to put your toes and heels past the edge of the board, but then you're going to boot out unless you start lifting. It's a self cancelling mechanical advantage. To tip over a narrow board will require less "leverage" because it's narrow, and a wider board will require more "leverage" because it's wider, but you compensate for this by lowerering your angles. In a nutshell, it's the same damn thing.

L8R,

Dave R.

[Jack M]

No one's post so far has even remotely convinced me that wider boards are "more stable".

It's simple. Wider boards = more moderate angles = more ankle leverage = better balance = more stable.

But that doesn't mean that we should all be riding barn doors at 0/0. It's just more likely that a stance angle somewhere between 45 and 60 (closer to 60, imo) will give you the most balance.

[mr_roboteye]

It's simple. Wider boards = more moderate angles = more ankle leverage = better balance = more stable.

But that doesn't mean that we should all be riding barn doors at 0/0. It's just more likely that a stance angle somewhere between 45 and 60 (closer to 60, imo) will give you the most balance.

Please define "ankle leverage".

Dave R.