One little stance change

[rhaskins]

For background, I started hard booting in the middle of Feb this year. I had some real problems with stability at low speed, and some real problems with turn initiation. I can rip around very easily on my park board and soft boots, but on hard boots it is a completely different ballgame.

My stance was 19.25 inches, regular footed, 3 degree toe lift and 3 degree cant in front, 3 degree heel lift 0 cant in back. That felt very comfortable standing, very natural. I am 5 foot 7 inches tall. I arrived at that stance, cant and lift after a lot of trial and error. Mostly error but that is how it goes.

My issues at the start of this season were with slow speed stability again, but I had a difficult time on toe side initiation. Either it happened, or I could not start the turn. That happened about 10 to 40 percent of the time depending on how tired I am, and I could not figure it out. Extremely frustrating. Makes getting down the slope a very weird process. People point and laugh a lot.

I was out about 2 weeks ago with a group of carvers at Buck Hill, and was talking to Karl about how much I suck. He offered to look at how I ride. He made 2 observations. One, he said that I don’t look up enuf, which I was aware of; I tend to look off the end of the nose, not look off in direction I am going.

But the second observation was he thought my legs were too far apart. That night, I moved my stance 1 inch closer together from 19.25 inches to 18.25 inches. I left the cant and lift the same. Took that out for a session the next day, and my riding was much better, my comfort level was higher. Very good feeling. So, a few days later I moved my stance in to 17.25 inches and hit the slopes.

That changed my life. I feel completely stable on the board at any speed, and turn initiation is not even a problem. I have the front set up with 3 degrees toe lift, 0 cant, and the rear flat. I can put the board on an edge at lower speed now on a gentle slope or catwalk and feel stable.

It blows me away that just a 2 inch change in stance width can have such a dramatic effect on stability. My stance felt just as comfortable as at 19.25 inches, but I have a world more control. I still suck at hard boot riding, but I am all that more comfortable with riding. I don't have to think about turn initiation anymore.

But I got to give a lot of thanks to Karl, snowboard coach, for the great advice. Last Saturday I got to hang with BobD for a couple of hours and got some good advice also. Great stuff.

[Mike T]

It blows me away that just a 2 inch change in stance width can have such a dramatic effect on stability.

2" is huge! You decreased your stance with by almost 10%. That's a lot. It's not as much as moving your seat post up or down 2" on a road bike, but it's a lot. I've found 1/2" changes to be meaningful.

[Carp]

I just mounted my TD3's with 19.5" from center to center with a 3*lift (a bit of outward cant) on the front and 6* lift (little bit of outward cant) on the rear foot. I'm 6' and have a 32" inseam. I had heard the inseam is what you should go by for determining stance width. I'm just curious what people have for their inseams are and how it relates to their personal preferrance on stance width. You may recall, I had the heal side wash out issues last Friday with some F2's with 3* inward cant on a Schtubby. I'm pretty sure that was the issue. I look forward to getting out this weekend after the 8-12" we're supposed to get; although might be too much powder for serious carving?

Nice thread on how just a minor change can change riding.

[skategoat]

rhaskins:

What's your inseam? I'm at 32" and I go by the .6 X inseam rule. I've been riding at 19.5" and I find a narrower stance makes it harder to use my back knee to drive into the turn. I find that I have to use my hips more which I don't like.

[Istvan]

I'm not surprised. 2 inches is a lot.... actually 1/2 will change the riding characteristics significantly.... 2 inches +/- to the sweet spot would make riding VERY difficult and uncomfy for most of the people....

[Jack M]

Yes, 2" is a lot. But 17.25" may be the right answer for you. If you like it with a flat rear foot, you'd probably like 17.75" or 18" with a 3 degree heel lift on the back foot.

I think perhaps the Golden Ratio probably comes into play when selecting stance width. In other words, the triangle formed between your feet (in boots) and your taint should have base b and height h such that (b + h)/h = h/b. That works out to 1.618 rounded. Not far off from what skategoat said about b/h = 0.6.

[Gecko]

2"s??? that's a big difference in just about any context I feel the .25" change that I usually add when I go to a hill with more than a 1000' drop. I feel it adds to my stablity. lift and cant are both personel preference and yet also linked to stance width. I like toe lift though I ride well flat in the front but I need heel lift in the back or I end up late on every turn

[BadBrad]

Interesting discussion. I am 5'7" with long legs and a short torso. My inseam is around 32". I used to ride with stances in the 16-17" range, which were the reference stance widths on my Burton UltraPrime and Alp. Since then the trend has gone to wider stances, so I am currently experimenting with wider stance widths along with different lift/cant options.

On my Madd 158 I am trying 18" width with just a tiny bit of front toe lift and rear heel lift (a couple of thin shims under the toe/heel plates on Burton raceplates). Stance angles are 63/60.

On my Prior 4Wd 164 I am trying 19.3" with the front binding flat and a 7-degree cant/lift on the rear binding (Burton plates). Angles are 48/45. I tried just a bit of rear heel lift, but got wavy heelside turns, which the rear cant fixed.

On my Prior WCR 173 I am trying 19.3" with 3 degrees front heel lift and 3 degrees rear heel lift (based on Jack's tech article). Bindings are TD2's with angles of around 60/55. Haven't ridden this yet, but I hope to this weekend.

I still feel more comfortable with the narrower stance widths, but that may be because that's what I've ridden for decades, so I'm going to try the wider widths for awhile and try not to tuck my rear knee as much and see if I can get used to that.

Brad B.

[Jack M]

On my Prior WCR 173 I am trying 19.3" with 3 degrees front heel lift and 3 degrees rear heel lift (based on Jack's tech article).

I recommend toe lift on the front foot.

[skategoat]

One time, I accidentally reversed my bindings and I had 3 degrees of heel lift on my front foot. I experienced searing pain in my front thigh until I figured out what was wrong. I think front heel lift creates an unnatural stance. I know some people like riding that way but I don't know how they do it.

[Mike T]

One time, I accidentally reversed my bindings and I had 3 degrees of heel lift on my front foot. I experienced searing pain in my front thigh until I figured out what was wrong. I think front heel lift creates an unnatural stance. I know some people like riding that way but I don't know how they do it.

One of the coaches at one of the Snowperformance camps I went to rode that way. It worked for him. I was sleepy one morning and set up that way and it hurt much like you were describing... I made it to the bottom and fixed it.

FWIW I find flat front foot allows me the most comfort and performance. Then again my front leg is 1cm longer than by back, so lifting the heel and flat front balances me out nicely.

[Jack M]

fixed.

One time, at band camp, I accidentally reversed my bindings...

[Mike T]

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[pokkis]

If someone remember seen this:

Binding setup is very important part here, we have developed very simple form for stance width:

(your shoe size as mondo * pi/2) + 2 inch

This form is scientic proven, simple to use and we have found it giving optimal results for all flegmatic carvers.

[Jack M]

If someone remember seen this:

"(your shoe size as mondo * pi/2) + 2 inch"

I generally don't like to mix English and Metric units, mondo being your foot length in centimeters. That formula would give me (28.5cm foot) a 44.75" stance if the end units are supposed to be English. Or if it's 44.75cm, that's 17.6", which is way too narrow for me.

[rhaskins]

I guess on of my points is that I really had no good reference point and needed the beta.

My softboot stance was a little over 20 inches (WAS, not now), and after rearching and reveiwing a lot of posts here and in the Carver's Alamanac, I came up with 19 inch stance because I didn't want to be too narrow. And because the way I had it set up at 19.25 inches felt very good. I tried working my carving form off that stance - I did juggle around stance, cant and lift, but really go nowhere.

Until Karl gave me the advice - he is a snowboard coach in town. After moving in 1 inch, it felt like such an improvement that I went 1 more inch, and WhooooHoooooo! Very much better at 17.25 inches. I am improving (at least in my own mind) every time I go out now, and my frusteration level has gone way down. Over the next 2 weeks I am going to try a little narrower stance and try to move the stance out a little to see if I can feel the change.

That piece of advice from Karl is priceless for me at least.

Rick

[pokkis]

"(your shoe size as mondo * pi/2) + 2 inch"

I generally don't like to mix English and Metric units, mondo being your foot length in centimeters. That formula would give me (28.5cm foot) a 44.75" stance if the end units are supposed to be English. Or if it's 44.75cm, that's 17.6", which is way too narrow for me.

Jack, as i wrote that formula suites very well if you are flegmatic-carver

But i assume that you, as some/many others, are not aware/dont remeber this thing for 2-3 years back when we did joke version site of flegmatic-carving, it is now off-line but will be back one day, perhaps

[newcarver]

Does the age of the board make a difference? Seems like the older boards have a much narrower set of inserts than newer rides. Is it best to set up an older board with the narrower stance like they designed them for? Wondering because I have an older board (circa around 2000) that I will ride till conditions get premo for my new stick. Wanted to try a wider stance than I've been using on it.

[JJFluff]

I ride at just over 17 inches wide and I'm 6 feet tall, just over 180lbs. Angles around 60 degrees front and back.

Soft boot rides at 19 inches wide, 3, -3 for angles. It rips.

The key is to have a stance that allows the body to be put in the proper position to comfortably weight an edge when and where it needs to be.

Glad you found yours.

[BobD]

That changed my life. I feel completely stable on the board at any speed, and turn initiation is not even a problem. I have the front set up with 3 degrees toe lift, 0 cant, and the rear flat. I can put the board on an edge at lower speed now on a gentle slope or catwalk and feel stable.

Rick, could be that the narrower stance is helping you decamber the board more easily at low speeds. As you become more aggressive, putting more energy into your turns, you may find you can widen the stance up a little. For now though, it's whatever works for you.

BobD

[BadBrad]

I recommend toe lift on the front foot.

Yeah, I meant to type front toe lift.

[rhaskins]

On a related note:

My stance for my softboot board was set by the fine folks at "The House" at 21.5 inches. The House is local here in the Twin Cities, great selection of equipment (2000+ snowboard models, 1500+ Jacket styles etc. ad nausium) That is the stance I learned to ride on. After getting some slope time and feeling fairly stable on that, I moved my stance around and settled on about 20 inches. My son, who is about my height at 5 foot 7 inches, got a similar 21 inch stance by the same folks. I changed my softboot stance at random at the start of his year to 19 inches and it felt good.

Now, after changing my hardboot stance with good results, I tend to watch all the softbooters when I am on the lifts, and I have seen some humongous stance widths on some really short people. Honestly, it seems that there is such a huge variation on stance widths between different shops. When I was learning to snowboard, not once did the instructors talk about stance and setup other than to not let the toes and heels overhang too much.

After messing around these last couple of weeks with stance width, the narrower stances work better for me. If the half-pipe is open at Buck this next week, I am going to knock my softboot stance down to 17 inches and see how that reacts also.

I have never rented a snowboard, so I don't know how they set/recommend stance width.

Does anyone actually watch snowboard students and change their stance based on their performance or learning problems? Not in my experience.

Rick

[Jack M]

Does anyone actually watch snowboard students and change their stance based on their performance or learning problems? Not in my experience

OMG, we had to carry a Burton mini-driver when I was instructing. I turned thousands of screws on the hill mid-lesson, thanks to the mouth-breathing window-lickers in the rental shop. Idiots.

[Mike T]

Does anyone actually watch snowboard students and change their stance based on their performance or learning problems? Not in my experience.

Go to a SnowPeformance camp - they will put your stance under the microscope and help you get it working for you. My wife started hardbooting at that camp, and has never had to deal with stance problems!

[Steve Prokopiw]

OMG, we had to carry a Burton mini-driver when I was instructing. I turned thousands of screws on the hill mid-lesson, thanks to the mouth-breathing window-lickers in the rental shop. Idiots.

Nothing like setting up somebody's mom with a 25" duck stance on clickers.