Stance width questions

[Guest]

Hey all,

Still a newbie at hardbooting, I've been on the hard setup for probably 5 days now. I am getting mixed up with what my stance width should be.

I'm riding a prior WCR 167, Raichle 324's (mp27) and TD2's. I'm 5'9, 145lbs.

When I first set up the bindings, I placed them on the center holes on the board, without any regard to how far apart they were. First run I did my calves were burning. And not a muscle fatigue kind of burning, more like a...almost like the muscle was seizing up or something. It was so bad I had to change something, so I moved the bindings both up 1 set of holes in the front and down 1 in the back. Much better.

Now, I see posted here some people that say your stance should be whatever you want, and others saying it should be some formula (pants inseam x .6 or distance from knee to floor, etc). Those formulas give me a stance width of about 18 inches or so, maybe 19. If I did 18/19, my calves would hurt again. I'm only comfortable at around 21".

Is this too wide? Am I losing something from being this wide? Is there something wrong with the way I'm standing if anything lower than that is just way too uncomfortable? I was thinking that possibly I am still trying to use softboot techniques and that is why a narrow stance would be so uncomfortable. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

My next question ties into this: because I'm running 21", I'm almost at the limits of the binding holes on the board...and I think I read somewhere you shouldn't go past the middle holes for the front binding? If I do that, I have to be in the farthest holes on the rear inserts. Bad?