assymetric boards

[Guest boogieman]

My question is why arnt assymetric boards more popular then regular boards?

isnt it so that you can have your pressure points on the board in the middle of your board on both sides (front and back side turn) with an assymetric board wich logicly should be better then what you have on a regular board if the assymetricy is adjusted to your stance

or does the binding make the forces being equally or almoast equally disperced over the board on both sides what would make the diffrence to small to be noticed?

(i hope that im using the right words here)

or am i getting this completely wrong

[NateW]

There were two variables in asym boards - some used different sidecut radius on each edge; some (what you're talking about) shifted the effective edge so that your toes and heels were in the same positions relatiive to the tip, tail, and center of the edge; some did both.

The edge offset only makes sense if you are actually shifting your weight forward (centering over your toes) and backward (centering over your heels) as you shift from edge to edge. I don't think anyone actually does that. :) Boards are stiff enough that it doesn't matter. And with bindings like the TDs or Cateks, the force is transmitted to the board through a symmatrical contact patch anyhow - the forces all go through a circular mounting disc. So there's no reason to offset the toeside and heelside edges.

A few years ago I really liked boards with tighter a heelside radius, on the theory that me knees do not bend symmetrically. That kinda makes sense if you use low stance angles and a softbooter's technique, but after I bought into the 'keep your ass over the tail' school of thought I found no reason to use a tighter heelside radius anymore.

I still think the tighter heelside radius makes sense for freestyle stance angles - your body bends asymmetrically, so it makes sense to balance that with a board that turns asymmetrically. But not many people who ride with a symmetrical stance care about carving. If you care about carving, you're better off with a stance that makes your body symmetrical, and a board that behaves symmetrically as well.

[D-Sub]

check the bomber files, boogieman. theres an article on one man's take on the whole thing

[philfell]

If you were using soft boots than yes asyms would be the way to go if you were riding high angles.

But since we ride in hard boots we can pressure out of the side of the boot.

[CarvCanada]

I've seen a few people carving it up well on asyms, but the style is odd. In the transitions it looks like their hips move a lot, forward and inside on toeside, and backwards and inwards on heelside, like a wiggly dance all the way down the mountain :)

[skywalker]

Hi,

most of the pureboarding-riding is done on their asymmetrical board. There are two issues about the shift of effective edge:

Theory behind that was, that the rider's CG moves along the axis of his feet. I know some measurement of the move of the rider's CG and in fact it moves almost orthogonal to the board axis. So there is no sense in shifting the effective edge, as this would force the rider to adjust his riding style inn unnatural way.

Second point is, that toeside nose and heelside tail are weakened, as there is some material missing to support the edge. Caused by the shift of effective edge, the running length becomes shorter in relationship to board's overall length. The weakness of some areas of the edge makes this even worse. So, although I realy like the old school look of (my) asymmetric boards, IMHO it's nonsense.

[CarvCanada]

I think it's a really cool concept, maybe eventually a boardmaker can get the design right, a longer board with solid construction and maybe only a tiny bit of difference between edges.

Although, the pureboarding #1 riders can really carve it up!

[D-Sub]

Originally posted by CarvCanada

I've seen a few people carving it up well on asyms, but the style is odd. In the transitions it looks like their hips move a lot, forward and inside on toeside, and backwards and inwards on heelside, like a wiggly dance all the way down the mountain :)

I started on an asym and no one ever mentioned anything like this

[Chris Houghton]

Hey I remember crossing straight over to heelside, and the nose augurs in without effort, try the same going to toeside and you're in trouble. That's where the hip wigglies come in, you have to move almost an unnatural amount forward going to toeside to compensate for the edge offset. It was fun at the time, but now riding syms and looking back, I'm glad that fad is over.

[Guest Randy S.]

Stick around. Sooner or later asym boards will come back. Heck, my kids are wearing bell-bottoms, why not.

[Jack M]

http://www.bomberonline.com//articles/asymetric.cfm

[Derf]

Back when asyms were popular, at first, it seemed logical, but when I analyzed my movement, I noticed my center of gravity went the other way around: on my heel side, the weight is on the front heel and on my toe side, the weight is on the rear toes, so when looking at the movement of the Center of Gravity, it looks like it's going almost straight across.

And from wht I read, the asyms were designed by riders with a specific style to suit their aformentionned specific style.

[Guest christoph]

I've been riding a lot of boards. First for a long time aymetrical ones and later on the symetricals. Just because there where no asymetricals available anymore.

Now I'm riding the PureBoarding #one and it works perfect ... ;-)

The discussion about symetrical or asymetrical is clear for me. I ride what I like and what works best for my way of riding.

The #one is manufactured by Kessler Snowboards for PureBoarding. www.pureboarding.com

PS: Hi skywalker, the problems you described with the asyboards where true with the old ones. On the #one they don't exist enymore. Why don't you testride this board one day on a PureBoarding or a Carving-Session event.

[skywalker]

Hi Christoph,

although I still don't believe in asyms, as what I described was pure physics, I really would like to testride a #1. Maybe we can manage it at the ECS, where I will be for sure. There's only little chance for me to be at the carvingsession in St. Moritz, so the ECS will be the place to change boards. MAYBE you can have some runs on my Virus, too, so you will see, what I think is a really really good board.

In any case, besides all the material-s..t, it would be great to meet you again one day to have some nice runs ond well-groomed steep slopes :) :)

[Jack M]

Hey, if it's fun and you enjoy it, then why not, right? However those stance angles say it all. The toeside hip-drop typical of the "new" carving technique would be very difficult if not impossible with duck-footed stances like those. I would also think that having your feet splayed apart like that would limit mobility because your knees would be going in different directions.

[kamran]

I agree with Randy. Assymetrical boards will be back in one way or other. Not to replace the symmetrical boards directly, but maybe to offer carving boards and possibilities for those with the "wrong" movements in their bodies, (which accounts for big number of riders out there compared to the "right" body movements group ).

I remember that the mass introduction of the assymetrical boards in 90s did attract a lot of buyers (or was that pure coincidence?), because suddenly you had boards that turned a lot easier than whatever was out there at the time for the average boarder's body movements and skills.

Hey, I vote for anything that would attract more people to the carving scene,...the small number of carvers on the hill make us look like a dark sided/forgotten brotherhood :o

[Guest boogieman]

Hey, I vote for anything that would attract more people to the carving scene,...the small number of carvers on the hill make us look like a dark sided/forgotten brotherhood

i like that, it makes us special, i personally wouldnt like it if everyone started carving i like it when theres like 1 % of carvers on a hill,

Im learning my sister to snowboards straight on the good stuff (my old slalom board) on a indoor slope on artificial snow and everybody is looking at my like im some kind of ailien its funny lol

and its cool to in a certain way

[John Gilmour]

Asyms make sense if you ride 45 45.

Or if you need to ride a wider board to stay afloat. in that case you'll have to decrease your stance angles-

Asyms for peole with big feet make little sense. Or if you have feet that are large for your height + weight. Or if you ride bindings that are mounted directly into the board.

otherwise the "flex distortions" introduced by asymetry aren't worth the advantages of asym.

The other good thing about asyms are for getting soft booters into carving. It feels much more natural for them. I used to perscribe the hot logical to cross over carvers from soft boots.

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[Guest christoph]

Hi John,

your thinking goes directly to the idea of our #one board.

Our angles are something like 54/24 ..... this gives the rider the freedom to ride all kind of slopes including extremecarving but you can also do all the tricks. :)

But it's the other way round. We want to ride these angles, because they work for us. Now we made a wider board so we can ride this way!

And yes it's true, the #one has a lot to do with the old hot logicals ........ it's just better.

We also figured, that sometimes people that's uses to softboots learn quicker to ride the #one then people with "raceboards".

keep on riding

and dont forget, life is to short for a straight line.

[John Gilmour]

Well in basis since we are inherrently Asymetrical asyms should be a good thing- but mostly they should be optimized in terms of flex and the angle of asymetry. If a board was designed for a particular riders asymetric needs then I think you could say the system was optimized.

But a different foot size or a different stance width would affect the ride of an asym board.

So the largest benefactors of Asyms are in fact the designers who rode them and optimized them for themselves in the hopes that their prefferences would also serve a wide range of others (only likely if the designers were near the middle of the bell curve for height , weight, foot size, and average stance angle- and of course the people not like the designer are sort of "designed away from in terms of optimization"). So if you were to look at say Peter Bauer, who rode an Asym for slalom. it could be said that he had a distinct advantage by riding an asym deck for that discipline because he was able to optimize the board to his specific asym needs. ie Weight, flex pattern, asym angle, width, length etc.

That is not to say someone can not optimize a symetric board for symetric riding...but in most terms the optimization of a symetric board is more structured in terms of width and flex longitudinal pattern. In truth- you can't design a Symetrical board as perfectly for a rider as an Asym.....but in general you won't miss hte mark by as far if you put a person on an asym that was not like the designer.

A asym has a smaller foot print across the longitudinal section so the placing of longitudinal stiffness is more critical than in a symetric board where the stance angles are higher. It's not just the longitudinal length of the foot in the asym either..it is the length of the part of the foot used to pressurize the turn which is much smaller (and of course the foot is shorter because of the flatter angle....with say a 0 ...0 stance being the shortest longitudinal foot. and say front stance angles around 42-55 degress being optimum for asym.)

In regards to wide boards..They can be a lot of fun. i tend to ride my front foot inbound on wider decks and really flatten out my rear angle. You can really power through slush with a stance like that. Ice, however, isn't much fun. But the ability to ride in deep snow is a major plus for some resorts with abundant POW.

I was very sorry to see Asyms disappear in the USA because they had a natural place in the carving continum and they did work as a feeder for Symetrical decks to get freestylers into alpine as opposed to depending on disenfranchised skiers or older snowboarders. Along with the occassional skier who chooses to ride alpine snowboards and still ski according to what conditions dictate.

We did for a short time have an ASYM Madd board which was incredibly easy for people to make the crossover from soft boots. I'd like to see a slightly softer flexing version make a come back.

Currently there are few sofer flexing asym boards with a wide ability range to help people make the transistion to carving.

I'd to see a medium soft Asym for people who find themselves in slush days and ocassional pow days. F2 made a couple of good all terrain asyms. So did Dynastar with the Hoodoo guru.

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Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America Specifications

[kamran]

Interesting points John.

[eastcoasticerider]

I knew if i waited long enough the asym would come back and be novel....... :lol: