Freeride boards getting harder to layover with growing stances

[John Gilmour]

What is odd is that I think some of the newer freeride boards are not as easy to carve.... in part because they are modifying the flex profiles for HUGE stances.

So if say for instance you make the thickest parts of the deck under foot... older stances were tighter so a 19-21 inch stance was about normal for use with hard boots or for carving...

But trying to lay it over with a 24.5 inch stance with an inseam of 30 inches... that's just plain difficult.

And not we are getting to the "inside" of the flex profiles... under foot instead of being nearly centered upon them.. (perfect centering may not be ideal... but we are getting way too far to the inside).

could someone draw what I am trying to explain?

[kieran]

you mean like hypothetical nodes 1/3 and 2/3rds of the way along the running length, and because the stance points are outwith those regions, the application of weight causes greater camber, and not decamber?

[Shred Gruumer]

could someone draw what I am trying to explain?

I think you mean this.. see drawing..

RSS

[DiveBomber]

, dont ride a freeride board:biggthump

[John Gilmour]

I don't ride freeride boards either much as I just ride powder boards when it is pow out or mixed pow and groomers. on hard snow with no powder.. GO HARDBOOTING!:)

But many people use the old freeride board with hardboots or softbots on Pow days or mixed pow and groomer days.. so they can follow their friends into powder without the overly rigid set up.

Shred you crack me up. Did you pass art? I failed..many times...

not the effective edge but the flex profile.. for instance skis are (Quote from Miss Ann Elk...."All brontosauruses are ...) "Skinny at one end, much much much thicker in the middle and skinny again at the far end...and this is the theory made by me.

So it's like your feet have the bulge in thickness to the outsides of them instead of being on top of them when you ride a carving stance.

[philw]

Well, remind me what "freeride" actually is? A marketing term at best, for something which isn't free and probably doesn't ride too well.

In the UK most boards sold I think are really for flatland things; probably the stance business doesn't matter for those? They're all called free-something-or-other.

Some manufacturers have worse (wider) stances than others, at least in the powder board business. For some reason Salomon, with their pedigree, is one of the worst.

I guess you could always ride one of these free-boards with a plate:rolleyes:

[John Gilmour]

, dont ride a freeride board:biggthump

BTW I hear Damian Saunders ran the Huntington Beach club scene- DJ friend of mine mentioned him...

[John Gilmour]

you mean like hypothetical nodes 1/3 and 2/3rds of the way along the running length, and because the stance points are outwith those regions, the application of weight causes greater camber, and not decamber?

I think you mean Inwidth... because they are now designed so wide.. your feet are inside the width of the peaks of those "1/3 and 2/3" regions. Which are now more like 1/4 and 3/4 regions.

So you end up with easy decamber with these weird stiff clunky sections fore and aft of your feet.

[newcarver]

That is why I'm still buying O.sin and Dynastar 3800's from < 2006. Normal stance. Great in powder. Carve real well too. I think Christian Fletcher had something to do with their design.

[CarvingScooby]

That is why I'm still buying O.sin and Dynastar 3800's from < 2006. Normal stance. Great in powder. Carve real well too. I think Christian Fletcher had something to do with their design.

+1. 3800 Great Board will stay for long time in my quiver...

RT

[Flywalker]

+2

Sweet board that excels at the soft stuff and can still rip a great carve.

Thanks Roy (^_^)

[b0ardski]

3800, Nice shape for pow and carves pretty good, but...

Actually I found my osin version to be a bit wider than I need with 27m boots (don't wear strappy lacey things) at 28*/40* and the insert stance was wider and somewhat forward of the sweet spot. I ride at 19+/- w/31 inseam.

I liked the ride of that board but could never get the stance happy enough. For a board that wide my eldos and Identitys carved better.

[mswebb]

I find "free ride" boards to be too generic and not really great at any particular task. For powder, I have a powder board. For icier, harder snow I have a board geared more for carving. For soft snow days, but not powder, I use the carver but do have access to a more flexible "free ride" style which works well enough on the soft stuff. Just getting started on hard boots and long boards.

[sic t 2]

Yeah, I noticed that too with my new Rossi, 158, JDUB. Definitely spread eagle stance is too much for good carving. But the Rossi is VASTLY superior to anything I have ever ridden before and I managed to hook a 21.5 inch stance on the inner set of holes (perfectly centered on them too for max hold). It works so well for me it blows my mind. It used to be hard to pull one of these every 5 runs. Now I average 2 of these every run (in a continuous flow downhill). And my 2011 record is 4, off the 1,600 feet of Hunter mountain, in one run. FOUR !!!

I can't wait for next season.

http://www.tristateclub.com/hunter_racer1.jpg

Sic..

[Atom Ant]

I can lay a freeride softboot board over in a EC all day long in the right condition (obviously with the grip differences along with many other things ice can make things a little harder to impossible on a soft boot board for EC). I have a pic posted in the picture section for proof. Its a Burton Custom X, and I ride a 26 inch wide stance, ducked out.

[BlueB]

I can lay a freeride softboot board over in a EC... I have a pic posted in the picture section for proof. Its a Burton Custom X, and I ride a 26 inch wide stance, ducked out.

Now the heel side... ;)

[LambertoMI]

I too had this issue. I ride about 17" stance width with 55-60 degree angles on 27 mondo boots. So I had a hard time in 3-4 feet of powder with a 22-24 wide stance.

My solution was simple. Find an old school carving groomer board. My selection was a 164 burton asym air. I have not ridden one of these in 10+ years, so I was not sure what to expect. So I mounted up my new K2 cinch soft bindings at 45 degrees and went out.

Day one was challenging, but by the end I was laying over EC's dropping in steeps in powder and ripping up slush. So the best part of the whole thing is that I can get close to my desired angles, it has great camber and sidecut, and I can ride soft boots.

L-

[H2O]

My freeride board is a Pogo Shaman 193 swallowtail (23 cm wide) that I ride with hardboots (in walk-mode). For me it is the best freeride board I've ever had and with the long effective edge I havent problems for carving. I ride also 22,5 cm waist allround boards as Burton Speed and Pureboarding Two.

I set my bindings (F2 race titanium and Ibex) FLAT and I use a rotational style.

[Donek]

I think the majority of the industry has taken a path which abandons a large number of customers. Their goal is to cater primarily to the entry level to intermediate rider, and pigeon hole them into park and pipe riding (something that, in my experience, approximately 15% of riders actually engage in). While I do make park and pipe boards that people can stand on with stances that make carving all but impossible, the majority of the customers coming to me these days are grateful to find a brand that hasn't abandoned them. If you're expecting to find a board designed to meet the seasoned riders needs, it's unlikely to be found in a retail shop. Such an approach to the industry will likely drive a large number of experienced riders out of the sport, which means we need to be more vigilant as carvers in sending them to the right places, such as this community and web sites that cater to their needs. It would appear that not just carvers will have to go to the internet to find the tools they need.

[Bordy]

There are for sure a lot of great soft boot boards that make it happen, Sean builds a ton of them. A few years back he and I took out some of his wider toys at Buttermilk, and they worked great on toe and heel side. I rode 18f -9R and had no problems getting them to the edge smooth clean turns with real nice exit and energy into the next turn.

Carving used to be a niche but now it is just carving with Hardboots that is the niche. Snowboarding is still young and much to progressive to have a standard or a norm, one year later and everything "improved".

[Gcarve]

........ the majority of the customers coming to me these days are grateful to find a brand that hasn't abandoned them. If you're expecting to find a board designed to meet the seasoned riders needs, it's unlikely to be found in a retail shop. Such an approach to the industry will likely drive a large number of experienced riders out of the sport, which means we need to be more vigilant as carvers in sending them to the right places, such as this community and web sites that cater to their needs.

This literally describes where I found myself not all that long ago, until I found BOL and Donek Snowboards. I looked for new equipment, and could not find a store that stocked hard boots or plate bindings (or even knew what they were), let alone anything even resembling a carving board. It was only after I stumbled across Bomber online, and joined this forum, that I found exactly what I've been looking for.

[John Gilmour]

seems the boards also are getting to be too soft, and have waayyyyy too much sidecut as well.

As if to make them so easy to carve, that anyone could do so.

The problem is...

carving at 5-15mph gets boring pretty quickly.

So..... carving is "Quickly" (pun surely intended) abandoned for that dreaded high speed skid that snowboarders are so well known (dreaded) for.

It's is very hard to carve a softer snowboard with a tight sidecut radius at high speed. Pretty much the deck ends up over flexing and blowing out.

In the 1980's and 1990's racing MEANT CARVING.

In 2010's racing MEANS SKIDDING at high speed in a boardercross track...or on your local hill.

And it's reflected in the general populace referring to all hardboot boards- even a fresh Kessler right out of the wrapper- as "Antiques"...not even "old school".

I also agree with Sean...

With snowboards becoming harder to carve at speed. (And yes ...snowboards take skill to carve.... or this website of information exchange would likely not exist) it leaves people who do not hit the park who want to go fast with one option.... Skid....

Or hunt for powder.

In contrast... many of the newer rocker skis offer EXCELLENT powder performance, as well as solid performance on groomers- and YES THEY CARVE too! And you can hit parks with them as well.

They ride powder as well as commonly available snowboards - have more mobility, can do parks, and can carve at far higher speeds with ease than todays super tight sidecut, flexy fat stance decks. They are the TRS Lightning skate of our day- one thing does nearly everything, and remarkably well.

I see lots of people going back to skis because compared to most of todays readily available snowboards, they seem to offer more options and less hassle. Even the ski boots are getting lighter than our own hardboots! Look at these for instance...

http://www.momentskis.com/eldorado.php

And if you want a pure carving ski... look at the Palmer skis- that offer unbelievable easy carving at very high speeds- with simple turn initiation compared to snowboarding..

And neither of those are all around skis.

----

I see a scary parallel coming.

A blip in history. That may repeat.

The late 1970's skateboard slalom had died... people still loved to do slalom and downhill, but the manufacturers and magazine pushed poolriding. Slalom and downhill were looked at as Old School.

Outdoor Quad Rollerskating came onto the scene, but the gear was antiquated using old outdated truck geometries (Sounds familiar???) and they were limited for stunts being more fragile. Indoor roller disco had a short life span.

The manufacturers stopped promoting racing and the focus was on park tricks.

The parks got bigger...

and bigger....

The tricks got bigger too.

People started getting hurt and giving up on poolriding... if you stopped for too long.. you fell way behind...and if you were injured and were out an entire season... it was hard (nearly impossible) to catch up.

The skateparks got sued out of existence due to injuries. I used to see kids with broken arms all the time at the skateparks. (I see snowboarders airlifted from Mountain High nearly every time I go)

Skaters were stuck with wide decks, and hard wheels, and wide trucks, which were not any good for slalom or downhill (Which was deemed uncool and old). (that is like snowboarders decks getting less all around- and more for skidding and park)

Street skating was born... mostly out of boredom... but struggled with the ill matched old wide park gear. (as we see urban snowboarding)

Skating wasn't fun.... trying to grind a curb was lame, all the speed and power was sucked out of the sport. (urban snowboarding is lame (though creative) for the most part compared to the mega jumps0

And then... rollerskating was reborn as new technology was infused. Plastic ice skating boots were adapted to the streets- and inline skating was born. You didn't need a slalom board, a downhill board, a freestyle board, and a park board. With an inexpensive pair of Rollerblade TRS Lightnings you could downhill, run a tight slalom, carve like a longboarder, as well as go down stairs... even backwards down stairs (modern twin tip reverse camber skis)

That's where I see skiing poised right now. And it sucks to lose snowboarders to skiing... just when we are starting to approach parity.

http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090205/LIFE/902050301/-1/OREGONOUTDOORS01

I think Mammoth has one of higher proportion of snowboarders to skiers of any major resort... 37% of the ticket buyers are on snowboards. Mountain High... has the highest percentage- as snowboarders seem to outnumber skiers at least 5 to 1.

But with snowboarding catering increasingly to a tight demographic... it doesn't look so good.

Jocks are not stereotypically straight A students with majors in history. So the fact that they have trouble leading a sport with many facets.. is not surprising.

I do know this..... lead an action sport into a single facet... and it typically dies. Inline skating dabbled in vert- and then went primarily to soft boots(racing skates disappeared) ... soft boots killed Inline. You couldn't be aggressive with soft boots- and you couldn't skate with your soft boot friends if you were in hard boots with tiny wheels. Skateboarding was pushed into vert... and downhill, slalom, and flatland freestyle were pushed aside by the media and manufacturers. It died a hard death...many times.

Back to the topic...

So whatever is simplest to figure out and delivers immediate fun…. Well that is going to be adopted quickly. And if it appears that you can perform at a high level within a year or so…well that is going to be a big draw.

It used to take 20 years to make a great skier. In contrast- Burt Lamar, a former skater, and hairdresser, won a world championship his first year snowboarding.

Now- with the new skis it takes less time to make a really good skier. A lot less time- I’d say less than 5 years for most.

To become a really good snowboarder… not just a good snowboarder, now seems to take a bit longer...ten years (of course there are pro exceptions). I think the flex patterns that limit your stance choices to a wide stance only are partly responsible. They get you stuck at an intermediate level…

Setting up a snowboard to work right for you… is a lot more complicated than going to a ski shop and saying (hey mount my sis, and while you are at it- set the alignment in my boots using all the gear you have- here’s my credit card.

Ask a snowboard shop to set you up…and its -6 + 12 and a whopper of a 23 inch stance and out the door--- not analysis of what actually works for your biomechanics. And there… skiers have a huge advantage.

One reason you are at Bomberonline… is to read about stance width- and board set up. Another reason is to learn technique… some to look at photos of new gear and hear reviews…. But I assume for the vast majority… we all want to get better at carving and that is why you are here.

So this thread is addressing the currently commercially avilable flex patterns and board designs..and asking….. How's it working out for you???

[BigBump]

I think most skiers you see aren't really much better than the snowboarders that you see. Both are generally somewhere on the intermediate curve. There are tons of reasons for this such as time on the hill, desire to improve...etc. Not everyone on the slopes want to get better. Some people are content cruising blues and greens. I think it's more a mindset than equipement problem. Not everyone cares about learning how to drag their hip in the snow just like not everyone cares about how to BS180 on to tail press tail tap FS180 off a box.

As far as equipement, I know several shops in my are that used to carry high end boards by Burton, Palmer, and some others but stopped because they simply didn't sell. In addition, a good freeride board should be more "scarvy" than carvy as many if the things that make a board good for carving can be not so good in the bumps and trees.

For me, I rode a Rossignol Decoy this season. It's a pure twin, all-mountain freestyle board and was one of the most versatile boards I've ever ridden. I could do a bump run, then carve some groomer, then hit the jumps and rails and then go do it all switch with no problem. For the record, I have a 23" stance with a duck stance. Could I carve better if my stance was a little narrower with more forward angles? Probably, but I don't want to kill my performance everywhere else on the mountain.

So for me, I would say the current boards work great for me. Before that I was on a Rome Anthem SS which is their freeride board. It carved ok, but was a great board in anything ungroomed and for tricking off bumps.

[kipstar]

I think you mean this.. see drawing..

RSS

awesome picture.... :_) (it says what it needs to say)

[slopestar]

I have been carving my standard freestyle boards in softboots for years. I was constantly breaking bindings or boards for years as my mechanics although worked at medium speeds did not work well in steeps or at speed. Thanks to John, I have been changing my ways as well as my stance to allow for a happy medium. Bringing good carving with fredom to play when things get sloppy or deep. I am looking for the best all around softboot board I can. A quiver killer! For years, it has been some version of a directional twin/ beginning around 1989. Last day of the season this year, I folded the nose on my trusty 08' burton custom 162 and yesterday, replaced it with a new/old stock 09' custom X 164. Its not the Donek I wanted to get but I needed to have "old Faithful" back in my quiver before it was too late. I plan to commission a custom Quiver Killer from Sean and his crew at Donek as soon as financially able. I know that today, and looking forward there is nothing from any manufacturer other than such great Boutique manufacturers like Donek(and others) available for me. Its a sad thing riding Mountain High every winter and seeing the masses stuck where they are/ forever intermediate. Capable and skilled acrobats however they will never know what it is to feel high speed g-forces whilst rocking it over. Carving, it's the only way to turn.