BX soft-boot angles

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Well now that it's an upcoming Olympic sport, of course there's more TV hype and I've been watching a fair number of races lately (Jacobellis is not too bad...! ;) ).

Of course I can see why people are running in soft boots; just from the look of things I would think that having some ankle slop for steep drops and corrections would be necessary. But I've also noticed that people are riding some pretty park-style angles out there: a few looked to me like they were even running a slight duckfoot, but I just couldn't believe it! At the very least, it seemed that most had 0-15 rear and 15-30 front, although that was from quick mid-ride TV glimpses.

I've been getting a few runs in on my 168 F2 Eliminator with soft bindings up around 48/42; I tried running them lower to get more stability, but consistently got too much boot-out (mondo 27 Malamutes). It seems to me they avoid this by kinda just skidding the turns...?

Anyone got any explanation on this? Why are the angles so low, and why is that so much better?

greg

[dingbat]

What's the waist on your F2?

I run Salomon Synapses mondo 27.5 at much lower angles with no boot out issues at all on a 24cm waist.

[Gtanner]

If you are booting out, get some Burton Elevators or Palmer Power Plates. I use the Burtons and not only get rid of any pontential boot-out (at around 30f 10r angles), but the extra leverage is allows for more power to the edges.

-Gord

[philfell]

Most of the top guys are running around 27 degrees in the front foot and 9 degrees in the rear. Booting out in an SBX course is rare, because of the banks you never get too high of an edge angle.

Soft boots just don't provide the lateral support to run the high angles that you are running. SBX is more about gliding than being able to rail a GS type of carve. Lower angles and soft boots allow you to glide through uneven terrain much better than high angles and hardboots.

Definatly get some Palmer plates.

Trust me if Graham is skidding it's for an intended purpose, not to avoid booting out.

[ur13]

Burton Elevators or Palmer Power Plates are a MUST for BX. The leverage on your edges is key.

[WinterGold]

Plates a MUST??? I think that hardly any of the top guys in the World Cup use plates in the BX discipline. Just check the pictures on the fissnowboardworldcup site. Plates don´t really improve the handling of the board (when landing big jumps, etc.) ...

[philfell]

We are not talking Hangle plates or vist plates.

The Palmer plates are made for soft boots and YES most of the top guys on the World Cup are on them. They are pretty much considered standard SBX equipment.

Since you are so in tune with the FISSNOWBOARDWORLDCUP.com site watch the Sunday River World cup videos, Graham is on Palmer Plates as Ross is also on a riser plate system. Bobby Minghini who placed 8th is on Palmer plates. Pretty much all the US Team that I know of are on the plates except for some of the girls.

[philfell]

[philfell]

[ShortcutToMoncton]

The elevator plate is exactly what I was looking for! My Eliminator has a 24.5 waist or something like that.

Of course I'm not looking to run BX courses; I just use it as a do-anything freeride/carve board. As such I carve on flats instead of banks, and I love high-G freecarving. But I'm definitely going to get a set, as lower angles would surely help with off-trail stability....

greg

[bobdea]

just a BTW on the plates

I have no idea what the BXers are riding for palmer plates but they are not all created equal the low end ones that are a touch thicker don't work nearly as well as the the higher end ones. there's a few reasons but the main thing is some have more rubber than others and support the binding better.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Any recommendations to use with Burton bindings? Is their Elevator plate a good choice?

greg

[bobdea]

Any recommendations to use with Burton bindings? Is their Elevator plate a good choice?

greg

I did not like the burton plates.

the palmer plates work on burton boards.

these are the palmer plates that don't work for me http://www.sierrasnowboard.com/2009-Palmer-Standard-Plates-44140.asp

these below are the ones I liked.

http://www.activeoutfitters.com/p-1947-pls-shock.aspx

BTW, I played with the F2 sflex under my catek fr2s, that was heavy as all hell but felt good. I'm not racing BX tho and air with that much weight is scary.

did work well for blasting through chop on softies though

IMO, much better systems could be developed for this application a 24 cm wide sflex for example might be the ticket

dunno, just thinking out loud

Phil, there are other plates worth mention that we may have not heard about?

[philfell]

Those Shock Palmer Plates are pretty much the standard. The Elevators work to lift, but don't add any dampening, as do the lower end Palmer plates.

But I feel it's worth the extra money to get the good Palmer plates, they work better and they last long enough not to worry about needing to replace them anytime soon.

One hint when mounting them, you only need to screw the inserts in finger tight, because when you tighten the binding screws this snugs up the insert screws......Don't worry about understanding this now, it will make sense if you get the plate and see how they set-up.

I haven't played around with the S-Flex first hand so I can't comment on that, but I haven't seen any high end riders on them so my interest hasn't been caught by these. Plus the Plamer Plates work well and are so simple.

[bobdea]

Those Shock Palmer Plates are pretty much the standard. The Elevators work to lift, but don't add any dampening, as do the lower end Palmer plates.

But I feel it's worth the extra money to get the good Palmer plates, they work better and they last long enough not to worry about needing to replace them anytime soon.

One hint when mounting them, you only need to screw the inserts in finger tight, because when you tighten the binding screws this snugs up the insert screws......Don't worry about understanding this now, it will make sense if you get the plate and see how they set-up.

I haven't played around with the S-Flex first hand so I can't comment on that, but I haven't seen any high end riders on them so my interest hasn't been caught by these. Plus the Plamer Plates work well and are so simple.

right on, the Sflex has one limitation in that the only softboot binding I know of that it will work with is the catek due to the small foot print.

what's the BX binding of choice right now?

[philfell]

Burton Co2's followed by the Burton c 60

[Kex]

...I use the Burtons and not only get rid of any pontential boot-out (at around 30f 10r angles), but the extra leverage is allows for more power to the edges.

-Gord

extra leverage? how do risers give you that? being higher up will actually give you no more leverage from my understanding of physics...

imagine you are on some crazy high risers(like a foot or more). you will get no more leverage from them than you would from being as close to the board as possible.

If you are thinking about exerting a lateral torque to the top of the riser, that could result in more pressure on the edges, but only if you have a fixed pivot position a certain distance from the edge, to provide more pressure on the edge (which, if there is anything that's close to a fixed pivot point, it would be the edge itself, making the above meaningless).

Even so, thats not how we pressure the edges anyway. We use angulation (a combination of exerting an upward force on one side of the board, e.g. with our toes, and exerting a downward force with the other side(heels in the example Im mentioning). This creates a special case of torque about the middle of the board, called a couple, which has nothing to do with the height you are off the ground, but has to do with the size of your feet, stance angles, and board width(distance from the center of rotation)

[surfinsmiley]

....... from my understanding of physics...

Hmmm... one of us needs to go back to class then:sleep:

[Kex]

Hmmm... one of us needs to go back to class then:sleep:

i agree, and it isnt myself

edit:

The more I think about it, the more I know I am correct.

if anything, more height means less pressure on the edges. because we want our edges to dig into the snow/ice, we want as much downward force as possible. by adding elevation(think back to the example earlier, about an insanely tall riser), we take away from the downward pressure and add in more of a horizontal pressure. this is the opposite of what we want

[surfinsmiley]

Kex, think about what the term "lever" actually means.

Think about how a lever works.

See folly of previous statement.

[Kex]

Kex, think about what the term "lever" actually means.

Think about how a lever works.

See folly of previous statement.

are you really trying to say that a riser makes your lever longer? because the "lever" you speak of is the width of your board, NOT the height of it.

[surfinsmiley]

I might be completely wrong.

I`m thinking along the lines of this visualization.

Take a 6 inch long stick and attach it to the center of the board. Use the stick to tilt the board up on edge and note the required force.

Now take that same stick and make it 6 feet long. Use the stick to tilt the board up on edge. The required force is substantially less due to the lever effect.

Does that same theory not hold true when talking about riser plates?

[twelsch42]

Burton Co2's followed by the Burton c 60

There are such better bindings - Is this a sponsorship thing? Why is nobody riding the FR2's?

[Kex]

I might be completely wrong.

I`m thinking along the lines of this visualization.

Take a 6 inch long stick and attach it to the center of the board. Use the stick to tilt the board up on edge and note the required force.

Now take that same stick and make it 6 feet long. Use the stick to tilt the board up on edge. The required force is substantially less due to the lever effect.

Does that same theory not hold true when talking about riser plates?

you are thinking in the wrong plane. with a snowboard, our lever is in the horizontal plane(when starting a carve), just call it the x plane. risers increase the distance in the vertical or y plane. since our force is along the y axis, increasing the length of the y axis changes nothing. (torque is equal to the force times the perpendicular (tangential) distance from our center of rotation. if you increase y, you are only increasing the parallel distance(radial). maybe this drawing of a board as seen from beind or from in front will help. Its rough and drawn in paint, but it gets the point across. the riser height is exaggerated for effect but even with a small riser height, the distance L2 will always be greater than L1

edit: just noticed a mistake in the drawing. the sum of M is not equal to M1 + M2. I was originally going to make the pulling force F1 and the pushing F2 but decided to set them equal for simplicity's sake. Then i made F2 the force for the second example, and forgot to correct the equation.

again, Ignore the lines that say sum M = M1 + M2.

edit 2: also please note that I am not advising against the use of risers. I am merely trying to show that I am correct in saying that risers result in a smaller downward force transferred to the snow.

As real life risers are nowhere near as tall as the one in my drawing, they have a much smaller effect on the downward force applied to the metal edges of the board, and the damping effects, in addition to the reduced bootout effects, usually outweigh the very small disadvantage they have

[Bullwings]

twelsh - Catek FR2s are good for carving, but they're pretty rough on me when i start jumping with them, probably why they're not used for SBX, i dunno. they're pretty stiff and rigid. probably the same reason why TD2s weren't really used on the racing scene either - TD3s are getting more attention though with that huge elastomer shock absorber.

Kex, risers are used on skateboards too, not only for wheelbite but also to increase leverage.

Also, your figure is wrong in that you're treating the snowboard as a first class lever. it's not. it's a third class lever. your fulcrum isn't at the center of the board. it's at the edge of the board, the edge not in contact with the snow. your force comes from the center of the board, and the load is the other edge, the one that's in contact with the snow.

it's actually a combination of levers. picture an upside down "T" the horizontal part is the board, and the vertical part is the riser/binding interface (you at the end of it).

based on how you've made your diagram (a first class lever), in order to put more force into the edge in contact with the snow, you need to PULL up on the edge not in contact with the snow in order to push the other edge down into the snow, while you at the center are the fulcrum (as a note, pulling my toes up doesn't do anything for me to set my heel edge in more, but driving my knees does)... or, if you put it the other way, where you push down on the edge in contact with the snow, then you don't have a lever at all anymore... you can't have your load, fulcrum, AND effort all in the same spot - that's not a lever...

if your force is into the snow, and your fulcrum is the center of the board, then you're technically doing work on the edge that up in the air and applying force on the air...

i might be completely wrong, and probably am. hell, i'm and idiot, i'm talking snowboard theory and jargon here - i should be out riding instead...

i'm sure someone with real knowledge will set us straight. they'll tell us that we're both idiots and that we're both wrong. haha