theboarderdude Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 (edited) I am in the process of creating a snowboard handicap chart from results from last year, and I could use some help with data entry. I am using Male results from the 2013-2014 year. If you would like to help please do as follows: Go to the nastar.com rankings page, and enter the fields ( 2013-2014 year, snowboard, age group, and resort). Please go through every age group, and enter each handicap under the correct column here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/158LUYMaBPtAlF4Bb4o8ad7KmVJB4RhAsleJvd0FsWJw/edit?usp-sharing. I have finished the following resorts: Afton Alps Alpine Valley Ski area Angel Fire resort Aspen Highlands Aspen Mountain Bear Creek Mountain resort Bear Valley Resort Beech Mountain Resort Big Powderhorn Resort Bittersweet Ski area Blue Knob All season resort Bogus Basin Ski resort Boyne highlands Boyne Mountain Resort Bretton Woods Brian Head Resort Bristol Mountain Bryce Resort Buck Hill Ski area Caberfae Peaks Canaan Valley Resort Cannon Mountain Cascade Cataloochee Chestnut Mountain Copper Mountain Cranmore Mountain Resort Please post any resorts/age groups you complete! Thanks in advance Edited February 6, 2015 by theboarderdude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darko714 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 I'm going to guess as to your objective in this: you want to fine tune the handicap system to account inaccuracies due to 'handicap inflation' at certain resorts with more challenging courses. Or, if you will, 'medal inflation' at resorts with less challenging courses. Bravo! Good solution. As a frequent NASTAR snowboard racer, I've always been a bit suspicious of the consistently low handicaps posted by racers in my age group at certain resorts. After spending the weekend at the NASTAR Eastern Regionals at Okemo, I've finally started to figure it out. The courses where snowboarders (and skiers) get better handicaps are the ones with the easiest courses. You might think that this shouldn't happen giver NASTAR's system of using a par time based on Ted Ligety's time, and using local pacesetters times as a percentage slower than Ted's after running against him in a pacesetter time trial. But on an easy course (given gravity as a constant), the variation between the faster and slower racers decreases, resulting in what I would call "handicap compression". If I may, I would like to suggest that you use ALL the times at a particular resort; including skiers, due to the fac Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunSurfer Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 (edited) Handicaps for the Aspen group of mountains need to be interpreted with care. Having run all 3 courses in their previous versions - Snowmass is unchanged. Aspen Highlands, previously the easiest of the three, is not open to the public at present. Aspen Ajax has changed significantly. Still on the same slope, it has moved to the left hand side of that run. The start is now in shade, and drops away quite steeply for the first 2-4 gates before getting gradually less steep as the course progresses. The line of the course is now straight, so all the gates are visible from the start, previously it curved away to the right behind trees and the finish was not visible from the start. My initial impression is that it is now more challenging to get a fast time than previously, even though the steep start potentially gets you up to speed quicker. It had me on the brakes for the first few turns on my first runs yesterday. Edited February 3, 2015 by SunSurfer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theboarderdude Posted February 3, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 (edited) @darko714, I am going for more accurate medal handicaps for snowboarders. ATM, We are given the same handicap a skier is, then have it dropped 10 points to see what medal we got. Regardless of age or raw time, our handicaps are dropped 10 points(too little in some cases, too much in others). Also, just something to do when I'm bored. @sunsurfer, I'll take that into account. Edited February 3, 2015 by theboarderdude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strider Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 (edited) As a coach, and also a racer (on skis and board) I was wondering the same thing, as were the pacesetters and guys who run NASTAR at our resort. A couple of years ago prior to my knee surgeries I was running platinums on both skis and board and I actually thought I was "faster" compared to everyone else on the board. Over the course of a couple days I brought both skis and board to the hill and ran several runs on each on the same day. Amazingly, at our resort I was almost exactly 10 points faster on the skis. So, for my resort it works, but I'm sure at others it isn't the same. I do know that when we get an easy set I can smoke it on the board and pull very close to the ski time. It's on the harder sets where the difference is at the 10 points. Edited February 4, 2015 by Strider Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darko714 Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 Sunsurfer, Yesterday my internet service crashed before I could finish my post If I may, I would like to suggest that you use ALL the times at a particular resort; including skiers, due to the fact that there are too few boarders at any single resort to create a sample large enough to statistically eliminate variations in rider talent from resort to resort. I.e. a few really fast snowboard racers could skew a difficult course to a lower handicap. For this purpose, the difference between skiers snowboarders is not significant. Since that would be a LOT of data to enter by hand, perhaps NASTAR would be amenable to giving you a copy of the data for each year, by resort, in a spreadsheet format so you could begin handicapping the courses at various resorts. Or not. Or . . . maybe if you pitched your project to NASTAR they will see the merit in it, and make it part of their handicapping system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunSurfer Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 Sunsurfer, Yesterday my internet service crashed before I could finish my post If I may, I would like to suggest that you use ALL the times at a particular resort; including skiers, due to the fact that there are too few boarders at any single resort to create a sample large enough to statistically eliminate variations in rider talent from resort to resort. I.e. a few really fast snowboard racers could skew a difficult course to a lower handicap. For this purpose, the difference between skiers snowboarders is not significant. Since that would be a LOT of data to enter by hand, perhaps NASTAR would be amenable to giving you a copy of the data for each year, by resort, in a spreadsheet format so you could begin handicapping the courses at various resorts. Or not. Or . . . maybe if you pitched your project to NASTAR they will see the merit in it, and make it part of their handicapping system. Not me, theboarderdude is the thread originator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darko714 Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 Not me, theboarderdude is the thread originator. ============ Oops. Should have scrolled up further. =========== BTW I agree with you about courses with steep early gates. I tend to pick up speed too quickly and then, because there's less margin for error, I end up sliding and turning late. Way late. And it just kills my time. I've observed other riders, even very good ones, having trouble with this, too. They cope with it by skidding, slarving, chattering and windmilling to keep the board on the course. Check this out after about the 1:00 mark, once the course starts getting chewed up. Awesome. I guess that's the difference between carving and racing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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