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varying sidecut radii


kieran

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something from a different thread stuck in my mind, and it's been slowly churning away for a while now.

conventional wisdom for snowboards says that the largest carved turn you can make on any snowboard will be that of the sidecut radius. so if you have a 12m radius, any turn larger than 12m is going to involve some skidding.

on say, a 12-16m VSR board though, if you're riding the nose and getting that 12m turn in, the tail must be skidding? surely there's not enough pressure back there to decamber the tail radius into holding a 12m curve.

and if you go back a bit to get a larger turn radius, nearer the tail, then surely the nose must be skidding now? it can't increase its radius to match what the tail is turning at.

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Radial SC carves rounder turn then VSR, without the rider trying to do it.

Riding the SC (tilting the board on the edge and balancing there) leaves thinner track on hard pack then any hihigly powered/steered turn.

On the other hand, once the nose of VSR has set a tight trench, the tail can follow through it, even if it had longer radius.

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The short answer to the original post is yes, with a VSR the pressure is enough to decamber and bend the board so that it assumes a shape with an effective radius that is very significantly smaller than the specified VSR.

The sidecut radius of a board (be it fixed, progressive or variable) is just a nominal specification that describes its geometry when it lays flat on a carpet. Tilting and bending the board to ride it will obviously distorts it very significantly in 3D, and not necessarily linearly from tip to tail. If ridden properly for the conditions the edge that carves through the snow then assumes a radius that appropriate for a clean trajectory (which is much smaller than the specified SCR/VSR).

Tinkering with miniature cardboard cutouts is very enlightnening. For example (in reference to another thread) if you mock up two little boards with the same SCR and different lengths and tilt them on a table you immediately see that the longer board will be turnier and less stable.

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Tinkering with miniature cardboard cutouts is very enlightnening. For example (in reference to another thread) if you mock up two little boards with the same SCR and different lengths and tilt them on a table you immediately see that the longer board will be turnier and less stable.

Nope. We've been through this already. Thread is here, including the cutout pic:

http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=15331

For people too lazy to read through it, the cutout pic on its own:

attachment.php?attachmentid=7532&stc=1&d=1173409105

The only difference is that longer board will have bigger sweet spot and MIGHT appear hookier. It also COULD be easier to decamber it in an arc deaper then a purest carved one.

[edit] For builder, it is harder to tame the torsion in the longer board, too. [/edit]

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You're right Blueb.

Bad choice of words in that example. I stand corrected. I should not have extrapolated beyond the fact that the longer board will bend to the same effective radius as the shorter one when the edge in contact with the snow.

BTW the thread I was referring to is: "Longer board, same sidecut?" at http://www.bomberonline.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=33723

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