Stance questions

[dafinga]

Don't give me crap because I am sporting soft boots....Now that I have that out of the way, I am setting up a new (to me) Donek Razor with some Flow NXT's. I have never had ridden a free carve setup so I have some questions. Should I be centered on the board for carving on groomers. More nose than tail? I will not be riding this in Pow. Stance is right around 19.5". I usually ride 22.5" on my freestyle and pow boards. Angles are around 38 front and 30 rear. The angles I can figure out pretty easily, it is actual binding placement that concerns me.

[b0ardski]

Start centered on the inserts, if it feels like your in the back surfin, bump forward a notch, if it feels like your goin over the nose bump it back.

[kjl]

Heh, with an opening like that you're just asking to have somebody give you crap :)

I'd start them centered or a little back. I am paranoid about stuffing the nose on the heelside carve when I'm on a soft turny deck (though the Razor I imagine is pretty stiff for a soft deck), so I'd rather start out back a little bit, especially as the season is getting late and the snow in the late morning and afterwards will soften up (looks like you get the sun baked slush of CA too). Also, when I'm really trying to carve, my weight is usually pretty forwards, so there's no problem with accidentally ending up in the back seat.

Angles seems fine - I ride 39/21. You may start losing a little toeside edge-holding power with your back foot at 30 - not sure.

[NateW]

I vote centered. I rode hard boots on freeride boards at 45/30 for a few seasons, but eventually my rear knee started to hurt. Maybe I just got old. :) But now I like less splay... I have a board with a 23cm waist set up with 45/40 angles and it works fine.

My intuition tells me that there's probably a range of stance angles that's too low for a proper alpine riding style (ass over the tail of the board) and too high for a proper soft boot riding style (ass to the inside of the turn). 45/40 works for alpine, 40/35 might... dunno about anything lower. I haven't tried it. But if you can't make it work, consider going up to 45/40.

[kjl]

My intuition tells me that there's probably a range of stance angles that's too low for a proper alpine riding style (ass over the tail of the board) and too high for a proper soft boot riding style (ass to the inside of the turn). 45/40 works for alpine, 40/35 might... dunno about anything lower. I haven't tried it. But if you can't make it work, consider going up to 45/40.

Yeah, the alpine style falls apart when your stance angle drops too low. A lot of people seem to think it's around 45 degrees. I think I can go lower by adding a few degrees of forward lean to my bindings. When carving in softies I think choosing stance angles is all about balancing your desire for a high stance angle for the heelside turn with your desire for a low angle so you can still pressure your toeside edge with your calf/ankle joint.

This is the reason I have a ~18 degree splay in my stance - weight goes forwards on the front foot on the heelside where the increased angle really helps out holding the edge, and weight shifts back to the back foot on the toesides, where the flatter angle of the back foot helps hold that edge.

Other people may have different solutions, of course. I think John Gilmour rides pretty flat angles (can't remember for sure), while Softbootsailer put 3rd straps on his bindings to mitigate the loss of toeside power at high angles, and then cranked his angles really high.