Snowboarding's declining popularity

[softbootsurfer]

Wait!!! there are some Mayan relics with images of Spacemen Snowboarding so maybe the End has already come and passed us by ... 99% of Snowboarders Don't Carve in the first place so who cares if that number goes down ? ;) Carving at Milk topped out in 1999 or 2000...many went back to Skis... the Motion of the Body Carving on a Snowboard is Different than Skiing... Not Better...Different, and for some the Difference of that Motion is not something they can or will give up...:) after 27 years I am looking forward to another 27 just to make sure it was as Good as I thought it was and of course no matter how many Miles one has Carved, there is a Progression in the Moshun, in the Line Drawn Fine and True from top to bottom...

[SoloSteve]

I have noticed this trend as well and it hit home this year. My 12 year old choose snowboarding when he started 4 years ago but his older brother went with skis. The first year the younger boy did better on the board but has since been passed in speed and skill by his skiing brother. All of his friends are skiers apparently and he asked this year if he could switch to skis. He confirmed for me that (softboot) snowboarding is no longer the cool thing at his school.

By chance, 2 of my long time softboot snowboarding friends asked my advice on buying skis and are learning to ski this year. Both are in their 40s and have been snowboarders all their lives.

I agree with the others above that if not for carving, I would be getting more use of the skis I bought 2 years ago and have used 3 times.

[lowrider]

I wonder what the last carrier pigeon tasted like ?

[charliekarr]

I gave up on softboots 20 years ago because I felt that after 2 seasons, I could do about all I wanted to do with a floppy freestyle board. I'm not into sliding handrails, boosting 20 meter airs, or dropping off cliffs.

But that (as has been stated already) is the only thing you're likely to see in any major snowboard magazine. The last time I opened one, I saw people dropping off rooftops, sliding (real) handrails, jumping out of helicopters, and using a bulldozer blade as a quarterpipe, and "tech" articles on setup, which consisted entirely of stance width and how much duck angle the pros use. There was almost nothing to connect with the 99% of us who buy lift tickets/passes and ride in resorts. I guess it's hard to sell the idea of sliding sideways and sitting in the snow, now that the rebellious image has evaporated.

Skis have undergone a major transformation in that time, and mainstream snowboard gear has remained nearly the same as it was in the neon days, save for rocker and toe-cap binding straps. Being the engineering type, I'm embarrassed at the lack of innovation.

I love carving boards more than anything, but if I ever want a different way down the hill, I'll try skiing for sure.

[scrapster]

Is it necessarily a bad thing that the numbers are declining? Nothing would make me happier than if the lame, side-slipping, no ambition to improve, crowd stopped snowboarding altogether. How can we get them to drop the sport and back on skis?

Ha Ha! I agree though. I'm not even sure what snowboarding is anymore. Skiing seems like a sport, and kids starting out treat it as such. Snowboarding is more of an excuse for teenagers to hang out--nothing wrong with that, but don't expect anyone to take it seriously. It's the difference between taking a sport after school and going to hang out at the mall. I think Sean has it nailed too. The snowboarding industry has become the equivalent of the fast food industry. I just hope resorts don't start banning us again if the tide turns too dramatically.

[energyrail]

In my small corner of the snow sliding world. Skiing has rebounded but only back to 50/50 on a soft powder hill. The ratio of skiers to boarders has always varied depending on the hill. Steepness and snow seems to dictate the ratio. What I can say is what is CASI thinking with the freestyle portion of a level three. To me it's like putting an age cap on their instructors. I'm more than fine with a freestyle endorsement but this is silly.

[leeho730]

In my small corner of the snow sliding world. Skiing has rebounded but only back to 50/50 on a soft powder hill. The ratio of skiers to boarders has always varied depending on the hill. Steepness and snow seems to dictate the ratio. What I can say is what is CASI thinking with the freestyle portion of a level three. To me it's like putting an age cap on their instructors. I'm more than fine with a freestyle endorsement but this is silly.

Agreed. In New Zealand it's worse; level 3 requirements are jibbing, 360 spin and riding whole mountain in switch... I agree that freestyle is fun but where is the carving discipline? Tell the ski instructors to ditch all their alpine ski gears and teach on free ski and see what ski instructors would say.... I personally would have gone to skiing were it not for alpine carving....

[jtslalom]

My local ski resort is filled with snowboarders. I was on the hill last night and at one point at the lift line in a crowd of maybe 100 people I saw no more than 3 skiers. No kidding. Before reading this post I would have thought just the opposite, that snowboarding is on the upswing. My local resort is also about 55 miles from NYC and its patrons probably give a good representation of urban and suburban skiers and riders. Most of them are riders.

[Beckmann AG]

How can we make it easier for more folks to get into hardboots?

As per usual, attract attention, and reduce the barriers to entry.

On any given day, any number of skiers may comment on the attractive nature of hardbooting.

And some would surely give it a go.

"Oh, but wait, I need to use yet another pair of uncomfortable plastic boots?"

"...And there are none available at present?"

"...Yeah, sorry, gotta go squeeze some more value out of my overpriced lift pass. Later..."

Generate a suitable demo binding, one on which all parameters can be quickly adjusted to the nth, for use with a ski boot.

It can look funky, so long as it works. Paint 'Demo' all over it.

Mount that unit on a board especially suited for the task, again, clearly labeled.

If it looks experimental, nobody will judge if the user falls on their face. In fact, observers may want to step into the ring.

Tend to the details (see previous), and that crash may not happen at all, or at least not until the enjoyment of 'new' movement is sufficient to spackle over the insult.

Make available a slicy soft boot rig, one which bears no resemblance (in function, or appearance) to the rest of the misbegotten Banana-Hammocked, Moustache-Rockered, Tomato Knives.

This would do nicely when that brand new pair of painful ski boots are in the shop, being punched, yet again.

"Soft? Boots? Sure, why not."

Covertly manipulate the psyche.

One of the attractions to snowboarding, back when, was that it simply looked, well, 'different'.

Take a look at your average college campus, and it's obvious that almost everyone wants to stand apart, and yet belong.

Promote the sport outside of conventional channels. Converting skiers/softbooters is just taking a slice from the other side of the same pie; a pie gathering flyspecks on the windowsill.

Get after snowmobilers, moto-cyclists, velodromophiles, windsurfers, cyclocross champions, co-ed Naked LaCrossers etc.

Skillful movement in momentary defiance of gravitational consequence has broad appeal.

----

As to the fall of Rome...

As the saying goes, "When you're through learning, you're through...".

When the challenge of skill development has been sucked out of the picture, and the only barriers left to conquer are contrived rather than internal:

What next? And why bother?

Not everyone wants to grind their way over the urban landscape in an alpine setting in exchange for a fistful of dollars.

A point seemingly lost on the Big B. They're too busy playing Joe Camel with cutesy names for useless products, while applying pretzel logic to the learning process.

Learning to 'ride' at any age, is not even remotely complicated. We (no, not you; the other we) simply make it that way; perpetuating the cliche, leaving one more barrier to entry, driving another nail in the coffin.

The reward for the initial struggle? Well, there's the park...

---

Snowboarding used to be like kayaking, in that one needed tenacity and a bit of skill development to keep the head above water. There was risk, and with that risk, reward.

Snowboarding has become, or is becoming, like drifting a shallow rivulet in an inner tube. A big one, no less, spiffed up with Armorall. Not much skill involved, and no real options other than spinning lazily along.

Admittedly more fun than sitting in a cubicle, but by how much?

There are, of course, far more customers capable of filling an inner tube than piloting a kayak, so this model serves the industry well. Relying on adventurous types of athletic inclination to occupy your high speed lift maze is just so, limiting.

A quote from elsewhere:

"Businesses run in a vacuum tend to develop intellectual incest, get blindsided by the unexpected, miss-out on change and opportunity, and gradually die."

More or less sums up AASI, and to some extent PSIA, both of which have riding/skiing/teaching models hopelessly out of touch with the needs of the era...

Also much of the ski industry, operating on a business model intent on extracting the maximum profit from the fewest available clients, with no regard for the future.

But then there is consensus, so all must be well.

"By gummy, get those hands forward. And get out of the back seat. Bend those knees."

Does it occur that growing Alpine Sport requires new participants? And that novices don't need a mega-resort?

All they need is a way up, a way down; and a place to warm up. Maybe something that fits a family budget?

Instead they get sticker shock for lift access, and the cheapest boards money can buy, configured to confuse, confound, and, eventually, to crash.

Getting involved in winter sport is expensive, cold, uncomfortable, time consuming, awkward, fraught with frustration, potentially injurious, and it costs a lot of money.

Brilliant.

Skiing boomed in the early seventies in large part due to plastic boots, which gave those with iffy conformation something to lean on other than their wobbly bones. Those who might otherwise give up the struggle, or be broken for the trying.

Ski manufacture made use of more advanced materials, improving the collective grip on the white. Opening more of the mountains to a greater number.

And now we have skis and snowboards that have, by way of rocker, de-camber, base bevel, inferior materials and intellectual sloth, eroded the points of sharpest contact from the picture. Along with the skills that empower each participant to realize their own vision.

Leaving, if you will, a hazy shade of winter.

Small wonder, then.

[NSSage]

How can we make it easier for more folks to get into hardboots?

Well I think the big problem is its not so easy to get into. First its expensive and second its not easy find gear. I have met so many people (skiers and snowboarders) who are genuinely interested in trying it out but the problem is you cant walk into a shop and buy a good board and bindings for $450 and then just use the same boots, you cant even just rent some gear to try it out, no, you have to order everything and you cant even be sure you will like it. Then the skiers hear that they need another pair of $500 boots that seem the same as the ones they are wearing then buy a board with bindings for $800 it kinda turns people off because thats a lot of money. As long as there are still plenty of snowboarders I personally don't care if they are in hard boots or softies as long as they are having a good time, really I don't think I would like everyone to be in hard boots because people think the guys bombing down with no turns are bad now imagine them on their "race" boards (because they will always be around) plus i think it could get pretty crazy with a hundreds of carvers all trying to share the slopes at the same time.

I honestly don't think snowboarding will ever die out, I think we have established our place on the mountain by now and some years Im sure the growth will slow but it happens, I'm sure skiing has experienced the same thing

Edited January 19, 2013 by NSSage

[leeho730]

Barriers to hard booting I think...

1) lack of rental shops...

2) hard boots are "hard", no spring systems... For beginners or even intermediate snowboarders conventional locked forward lean mechanism can be prohibitively hard...

3) lack of instructor...

4) lack of representation on slope or in town...

I've got a project in mind... I'm going to collaborate with local ski shop (the owner is a good friend of mine) to maybe run a alpine snowboarding rental shop... I supply gear... He supplies spaces so I pay him small amount of rent... I get a spare large TV in front of the window and loop carve related videos... The resort next to me is the best carving resort in NZ with largest number with alpine carvers and biggest number of local carvers (3-4, myself included)...

Started this idea as a 'tax haven' for my snow/ski gears and snow related activities/properties... But since then the project has its budget gone up... Need at least 15 grand... Darn.... Might do it someday... Or if I win lotto...

[lowrider]

Better to have tried and failed then never to have tried at all. Have a Tbar sitting in crates in the yard waiting for the right time to set it up. Getting older think the time is close!

[Cousin of Beagle]

Been snowboarding for 16 years. Hardbooting 4 years. Have a Prior 4WD 169. Mondo Point 25 boots. Week #1, started with 35° front binding, 25° back binding. Easy. Now I ride 50° front, 45° back.

[kinpa]

What I can say is what is CASI thinking with the freestyle portion of a level three. To me it's like putting an age cap on their instructors. I'm more than fine with a freestyle endorsement but this is silly.

At 41 years old with 20+ years of ski and snowboard instruction under my belt, I have gone back to teaching almost exclusively ski lessons. I am so fed up with AASI and there lack of interest in my generation. I have no desire to jib and bonk and slide rails. Yes, I can ride switch, but see no reason to do so. I remember back in the day when snowboarding was still under PSIA. A lot of the top instructors came from a skiing background and hard boots were the norm with many instructors. Why was AASI formed? Because too many snowboarders didn't like being forced into a mold to ride a certain way. Guess what? Exactly as AASI is doing now... If you don't ride this certain way, we don't want you in our group! Ugh...

And today I had 4 1/2 hours of fun lesson with skiers! The kids were great! Keeps me young!

(Ok, thank you for your time, I will get off my soapbox now! I will ride hard boots when I can and leave the soft boot setup in the locker room just in case...)

[Aracan]

There's no date listed for Berkshire East on the Pureboarding site. But according to the site, Jörg will be at Labrador and Toggenburg Mountain the coming weekend, then in Aspen on Monday, then in Aspen again at the beginning of April. BTW, the PB crew typically ride with high angle spreads, around 12-17° (e.g. 35/50).

[lafcadio]

There's no date listed for Berkshire East on the Pureboarding site. But according to the site, Jörg will be at Labrador and Toggenburg Mountain the coming weekend, then in Aspen on Monday, then in Aspen again at the beginning of April.

Just got an email from Joerg this morning. Unfortunately, he will NOT be able to make it to Berkshire East this year. :-( I'll be at Toggenburg this coming Saturday.

BTW, the PB crew typically ride with high angle spreads, around 12-17° (e.g. 35/50).

Right on. Except I think you mean 50/35 (lower angle on rear foot).

[dingbat]

[blah blah blah, advice and what-not.....]

In particular, Berkshire East hosts an annual mini carving session each year the weekend after Presidents' Day in February. Joerg Egli from Pure Boarding was there the last two years to offer free carving clinics. No confirmation yet, if he's going to be there this year, but there's a session in Mont Blanc Quebec Feb 8-9:

http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?37773-Pureboarding-Event-Mont-Blanc-Quebec-%96-February-9-10-2013

.....[blah blah blah]

Info for the Rally is up: http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?39078-Rally-at-the-Thunder-Dome-13

[Beckmann AG]

Seasoned Softbooter Seeks Help With Hardbooting

Degree of difficulty.

Perspective from a soft boot rider, alpine wannabe:

I've been wanting to get into carving for years but find it too difficult compared to soft boot riding. Probably doing something wrong (technique or set up) but have tried and failed. I ride 100 days a year in the NE in softies and have ridden for 22 years, so experience is not the problem, and I work at a resort. Bought a Donek Axxess 172 with OS2 (55/55) and older Raichle 123 boots that are comfortable enough if a bit soft. Actually bought 3 alpine boards to use but sold them in frustration. The Donek is roughly 5 years old and has perhaps 10 hours of use. Here's the problem in a nutshell: compared to my usual set up, the boots are less comfortable, the stance is awkward, and it is hard to get the back foot in when starting off. Every year I take it out and try, every year I give up after a couple of hours. I am relieved to get back in my softies and stand at 21/12.

I bought Catek's FR2 and tried at steepish angles with my Driver Xs but did not work and they were overly fiddly, so sold them too. Was trying to find a compromise. I've read many set up threads here as well as advice on getting started.

Am I just lazy or is alpine snowboarding just hard to learn, even for the experienced? Nothing prettier than seeing a decent hard boot rider turn it uphill, and as many have said, even skiers are in awe of the carves.

There must be a reason you rarely see a hardbooter at Sugarbush. Would still like to learn one day. Any magic bullets?

While this quandry is worthy of a separate thread, it underscores the need for barrier reduction.

The quoted apparently has the means, the opportunity, and the desire to take up hardbooting. It sounds as though some effort has been made to get a foot in the door.

If this motor cranks but won't fire, what does that say about the odds of the less 'advantaged' getting involved?

[kinpa]

I have met a few bomber folks who actually collect gear with the intention of sharing with newbies.... I applaud your efforts! Was riding with one of those guys last week.... A conversation on the chair....

Me: where did she get the boots from? (Talking about a gal who works in the coffee shop in the lodge who got on an alpine setup for the first time the prior afternoon)

Him: I have a bunch of stuff in my van to loan to anyone who wants to try....

Me: very cool... Wish I could do something like that, but I'm pretty broke...

Him: yeah, someone asked me why I never get gear for myself... This year I finally did! :D

Awesome.... New respect for those who put others before themselves.....

I won't mention names.... I know that is not the reason you do what you do, but THANKS!

Edit... And oh yeah, I know there were at least two others he got setup during the 4 days I was there!

[crucible]

Blue B Boris and Carving Scooby Roy have been the grassroots ambassadors for our niche sport here- from loaning out gear and hooking people up, to successfully organizing expression sessions and advocating for a alpine carving program at our local hill, Cypress Mountain, these guys have made it happen.

Their friendliness, approachability, and positive can-do attitude both on line and on the hill have been hugely influential in growing the alpine carving tribe in Vancouver. They are a great example of how a dedicated grassroots program that is self funded and self reliant can gain traction against the tide.

I am grateful and honored to have them as friends and carving bretheren. They remind me that one of the reasons I fell in love with snowboarding 28 years ago was the close knit community it was back then- you knew and cared for every snowboarder that you met, because it was such a small close knit tribe.

As long as people like them exist and go the extra mile, then our part of the sport will be in good hands.

As for the original topic of the post, I agree that the biggest barriers to the continued health of snowboarding are affordabilty, lack of grassroots activism, demographics, and a race to the bottom paradigm with regards to snowboard technology and instruction.

While I applaud people like Jeremy Jones and the manufacturers attempting to expand the horizons of our sport in terms of backcountry riding and the development of split boards, I fear that this new snowboard sub culture willl be even smaller than alpine.

Edited January 24, 2013 by crucible

[tufty]

My slalom board is currently doing the rounds of the guys (and a girl) at work that want to have a shot at alpine. 2 of them are hooked already and searching for boards and boots of their own. My skwal is getting a fair bit of use as well. I may have to source another one for my own lunchtimes...

[BlueB]

Blue B Boris and Carving Scooby Roy have been the grassroots ambassadors for our niche sport here...

Thanks for the kind words, Geo!

Pretty much everyone in our group of h/booters are very good people and doing their share in supporting the alpine. I'm blessed to have found so many good friends through the sport.

[kmartshopper]

I have met a few bomber folks who actually collect gear with the intention of sharing with newbies.... I applaud your efforts!

On the contrary... I met a few really helpful hardbooters where I'm riding now. One of them was gracious enough to loan me his metal coiler for the day. I should have known nothing good would come of that, but I walked right into the trap. Thanks to his 'kindness', ignorance is no longer bliss as I face the rest of the season on my old fiberglass torture chamber. :(

With regard to the initial topic. I think most of the ideas discussed previously could go a long way to making it easier for a small subset of riders to get into alpine. Unfortunately, even if it was easy, I think that subset is very small. 90% of the battle in America is being fashionable, and alpine is not fashionable with the primary young demographic. Granted snowboarding has lost it's rebellious allure, but it still has those free laid-back unstructured characteristics that initially set it apart from skiers of the time. Now as skiing is coming back, it's more backcountry, freestyle, etc. Less gate bashing racers. Alpine boarding though is inherently structured and more analogous to ski racing in that it requires a somewhat formal (gasp!) technique. And you will never have that relaxed loose free feeling from the gear. So I think it's going to be a hard sell to the majority of the younger (bulk) population no matter what the accessibility.

If you could get Apple to partner with one of the board manufacturers and put the apple logo prominently on the nose of the board - that would go further to expand the sport than any other suggestion so far.

[Corey]

And you will never have that relaxed loose free feeling from the gear.

Tweak your set up some more! I definitely get a loose/relaxed feeling with my set up. Maybe I've just got used to it, or maybe I hit a sweet spot. Regardless, I don't feel like I'm fighting anything.

The limited dealings I've had with trying to convert people to hardboots, the willingness to have to adjust things to find that sweet spot was the deal-breaker. They just wanted to step into boots, strap on a board, and then ride pain and trouble free without ever touching a hex key or screwdriver.

[Jack M]

Maybe we just need to be honest and wonder if Alpine Snowboarding just doesn't look that appealing? That to the vast majority of people it just doesn't look as cool as we feel while carving?

If it did, don't you think we'd have already enjoyed explosive growth like, say, Kiteboarding? Kiteboarding is expensive, dangerous, difficult, time consuming, commitment requiring, and yet plenty of windsurfers, surfers and sailors are lining up to try it, as well as people who don't do those things. Why doesn't alpine snowboarding attract people like Kideboarding does? Is alpine just a victim of mass media and marketing? Or is the answer in the mirror? Burton gets a bad rap around here, but you know what? They tried very hard to make alpine look cool for a long time. It didn't take.

I don't see us attracting people who don't already come to ski resorts. I just don't. That would seem about like marketing sailing to bowlers. Sure sailing is fun, but it's a high effort lifestyle, and an expensive one, just like snowboarding. One does not simply dabble in sailing. And non-skiers/boarders who are involved in other winter sports probably don't want to take time/money away from those other activities. Snowmobiling is fun, but I'm just not going to do that.

Sure, we turn heads on the chairlift above, but how many of those people really think it's cool, how many think it's just a freak show, how many resent us for showing off and/or taking up the whole trail, and how many actually think it looks dorky? Of the people who think it looks cool, how many say "I could never do that", or "I bet it takes a long time to get that good", or "I'm not switching (back) to hardboots", or "I don't want to be a beginner again" and never try? In my experience it seems like our potential market is about 1% of people on chairlifts, but even that is apparently too generous, because practically nobody is getting into the sport. Maybe I'm just discouraged, maybe I'm just in a remote location, but I don't see any growth where I ride. Furthermore I don't see any kids coming up behind us 30-somethings.

So this is a pretty negative post, but it's just frustrating seeing this topic come up over and over, year after year, when nobody other than Dingbat, Joerg, Fin, and Michelle really intends to do anything about it. I give a lot of credit to the few instructors here and there, and session organizers, but sessions seem to be more about gathering the flock and partying than they are about recruiting. I think we need to get better about that at sessions, myself included. I am continually pestered by people asking if I am riding a !@#$% Teleboard. Why? Because the Teleboard guys used to hold demos with big banners that said "TRY TELEBOARDING HERE". They haven't done that in years, but that has clearly stuck in a lot of people's heads. I think that is a model we need to pursue, for one thing.

Edited January 25, 2013 by Jack Michaud