Newbie carving

[Guest vaguelyevilguy]

I started carving a little bit last year, on a salomon freeride board with switch highback bindings (ie soft boots). I'm looking to get into it a little more this year, but I'm not at the point yet (money-wise) to get a narrow board and/or hard boots.

Any advice for how to make my setup as carveable as possible?

-binding angles?

-binding positions?

-amount of lean?

-would booster straps work with hard boots?

[CarvCanada]

I started really carving on a Salomon Transfer 159, which was a great board to start on with soft boots! It was a wide board, and my angles were 50/45, so that's about the angles that you should run to develop the right technique. I ran a little forward lean on the front boot/binding, and more forward lean on the rear boot/binding.

To progress: Bend your knees a lot, rotate into your carves; and look ahead of your turns (in the direction they will be going the next second). Don't reach for the snow with your hands/arms, don't bend at your waist too much, and keep your shoulders parallel to the slope. Read the technique articles in the article section. The salomon will let you carve it up pretty hard, until one day you will be good enough that you'll just know, it's time to order an alpine board. :)

[Derf]

As CarvCanada says: angles! It pretty much what can give you the most carving out of a freestyle setup.

But beware, low angles (25 and under) are good for freestyle-freeride and high angles (above 40) are good for carving, but medium angles are kind of akward in my opinion. You can easily get some good toeside carves out of any angles, but for heelside, it's easy with low angles (traditionnal toe-heel weight transition) and with high angles (upper body rotation). With medum angles, you can't easily do any of those 2 techniques. SO I would suggest going with angles in the 40s at least, it my be tougher at first, but you'll learn the carving technique (and get a good carving feeling).

[jtslalom]

vaguelyevilguy

What angles are your bindings set at now? When I ride my freestyle board my back binding is at a six degree angle and the front is at a fifteen degree angle. (This helps to ride switch) All three of my carving decks are 69 degree back and 66 degree front. An extreme difference. Thats because hard riding takes a much different approach than soft. When riding soft its more work on flexing your ankles and applying pressure to the front of your boot. This is when you want low angle stances. When hard riding you tend to pressure the side of your boot and flexion is mainly concentrated on your knees. This is the time for higher angle stances. You should get real comfortable with the stance you have right now. If you're carving on soft boots Your angles should be low. I don't think it is a great idea to go changing to any thing over 30.

[NateW]

I rode freeride boards for quite a while with hard boots and 45/30 binding angles. You can do the 'ass over the tail of the board' carving technique with those angles, though I found 45/40 made my rear knee happier when I got into that.

With softer boots you might have an easier time using lower angles though, say 30/20 or something like that. It might be hard to keep from dropping your butt to the inside of the turn that way, but it's worth a try.

I say turn up your angles a few degrees at a time until you get a point where you're having trouble controlling your edge angle, then back down to a level where you can manage your edge pressure and tip the board on edge without too much work.

Then save all the $ you can, and see how quick you can get yourself into a proper carving setup. :)

[Guest AlpentalRider]

I do ALOT of carving in my softies, and my angles are 33/30 at 19" with a setback of 25mm on a Burton Johan 163. I can carve just as good of lines in my softies as I can in my hardboots, I just can't get as aggressive due to the board/binding limitations. To give you a comparison, I ride 54/51 on my alpine gear and hardboots.

I say start with what you have and incrementally move up binding angles and see how you like them. It's like an eye exam, is position 1 better then 2.... is position 2 better then 3... etc. Eventually you will find what works best for you. You might like angles in the 30s, you might like them in the 50s, or you might like them somewhere in-between. You won't know until you try them out.

The same basic rules apply as well though. You don't want boot overhang with your stance angles, so make sure your not dragging.