Cant & lift - quest to find a set up!

[yamifumi]

UPDATE: located below

So I have started the thread last year but now this season (mainly today),  I tried a lot combination of cant and lift to find the set up for myself. It was so much screwing and unscrewing but here it is: **i was happy/ok with front lift + rear lift and inward cant but wanted to try different combo to see if any other set up felt better....

As I had UPZ boots with mondo size 26.5, it was alot of screwing and unscrewing on TD3 SW!!! Now I need to rest my hands...........

I used f2 bindings for 1.) to 3.) then bomber td3 sw for 4.) to 7.) then for 8.), i went back to f2 binding.

1) front lift w/ inward cant + rear lift with inward cant

- front: felt hitting too much outer shin, on heel side turn, front was chattering but toe side had good turn and felt more comfy than heel side for sure

 

2.) front lift + rear lift w/ inward cant 

- front: felt good and a bit outer shin bang on flat runs

- heel side turn still chatters on steep hill at front leg area but less than 1.) but has nice curve during less steep area. Maybe weight shift issue???

 

3.) front lift w/ outward cant + rear lift with inward cant

- uncomfortable heel side

- still chatters at the front

 

4.) bomber td3: front lift with slight inward +rear lift with inward cant but lots less heel lift and cant than f2

- disaster, it just want to go heel side and feels that tail comes out like over steer on heel side turn.

- toe side turn is much harder to do and need to use upper body to initiate more

- rear feet felt it was hitting more on the inside cuff

- front feet was hitting too much outter cuff - conclusion is inward cant at front is no no

 

5.) front lift only + rear lift with inward cant but less than f2: front has very very slight outward cant to see if i need slight boot outward cant. It is only 5 deg difference from the base to the plate. Rear is same as 4.)

- i felt that if i leaned into more, it felt like it stuck more to the ground on nose area. Is it bc there are already set back and i have too much lift?

- still felt like the board always wanted to go to heel side much more than toe side but i felt a bit more comfortable than before.

- on flats, board want to go more left(heel side) than right (toe aide)

 

6.) felt i had too much lift hence change the front to 3 deg lift and rear to 6 deg lift

Front 3 deg lift only (56/7deg) + rear 6 deg heel lift with inward cant (rear has inward base angle 65, upper plate angle 49 deg

- felt much better than previous and it does not want to go left like before but when it is on flat, it had very slight tendency.

- front had more stick and less wobble than before and comfortable on heel side unlike before where it had wobble on the front during heel side.

- first run felt like i need a bit more inward cant??

- second run felt the same and needs a bit more inward cant. Maybe flat fron may be one idea.

 

7.) front is same as 6.) + rear more inward cant than 6.) as i felt cuff hit more inward on run with 6.) set up. Maybe it can also shift the wait more to the front with more inward cant? Observe for cuff and any tendency to move to left.

- rear inward cant changed to 80 deg for base and 49 deg for upper plate - more inward than before

- it was good but perhaps it was a bit twitchy on flat surface

 

8.) flat front + rear lift w/ cant inward (f2 binding)

- the fromt leg got pretty tired and i was hitting on the back cuff alot with my caff masucle = usually means lift is needed to bring back to neutral position.

 

In conclusion:

I am going back to where it started with front lift + rear lift with inward cant with f2 bindings.

TD3 SW vs F2: For me (148lbs), I felt that TD3 SW is too stiff even with yellow paddings. I felt TD3 SW were more responsive but twitchy. 

Also, it was hard to find the width for TD3 bindings for UPZ 26.5 as the adjustment is not fine and more corse. it was either a bit too tight or too loose. F2 is easy to find tuen the width for the boots and much more finer tuning regards to boot width. However, TD3 has much better finer adjustment for lift/cant and followed this website which helped alot to set up TD3: http://www.alpinecarving.com/tmtd2/

 

Now that I found my lift and cant, I am gonna play around with set-back and stance width to find my "preference". Angles that I like now is 60 deg front and 49 deg rear .

 

 

Maybe someone can shed light on how you have manage to find your "preference"

 

 

Edited December 12, 2016 by yamifumi

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

Go to set-up #2. Then increase the front angle by little increments. In this set-up, you are NOT finding the boot-cuff as an impingement; You can use both toes & heels (heels have chatter, but, we'll address that..) while having reasonable stability. Now, should you choose to mimic this with TD's, I'm OK with it, just know it's a stiffer binding, and your heelside issues are with You, or, your boots. 

If it's your boots, the thing to look into is Forward Lean. The front boot should be either equal, or of a few degrees less, of forward lean than the rear. When you stand, neutrally, on the board, base-flat, you want the rear knee to protrude over the toe, but, not the front knee, until 'flexed into' at the ankle.

In riding, on heelside turns, IF you are too stiff, you'll chatter. If you don't softly 'push' the lower leg outwards, over the little-toe, you'll lack leverage early in the turn, and go on the defensive, and, chatter. If you turn to the heelside, and do not Lift your Toes, you'll chatter. If you initiate the heelside turn by going knock-kneed and forcing the back foot to do the work, you'll Bounce, then Chatter, then skid.....

So, go back, to #2, and, ONE THING AT A TIME, sort out what's working. Good luck... But. I'll be here (and on Freecarve), so, ask away. You're on a good path!

 

Edited December 9, 2016 by Eric Brammer aka PSR

[yamifumi]

54 minutes ago, Eric Brammer aka PSR said:

Go to set-up #2. Then increase the front angle by little increments. In this set-up, you are NOT finding the boot-cuff as an impingement; You can use both toes & heels (heels have chatter, but, we'll address that..) while having reasonable stability. Now, should you choose to mimic this with TD's, I'm OK with it, just know it's a stiffer binding, and your heelside issues are with You, or, your boots. 

If it's your boots, the thing to look into is Forward Lean. The front boot should be either equal, or of a few degrees less, of forward lean than the rear. When you stand, neutrally, on the board, base-flat, you want the rear knee to protrude over the toe, but, not the front knee, until 'flexed into' at the ankle.

In riding, on heelside turns, IF you are too stiff, you'll chatter. If you don't softly 'push' the lower leg outwards, over the little-toe, you'll lack leverage early in the turn, and go on the defensive, and, chatter. If you turn to the heelside, and do not Lift your Toes, you'll chatter. If you initiate the heelside turn by going knock-kneed and forcing the back foot to do the work, you'll Bounce, then Chatter, then skid.....

So, go back, to #2, and, ONE THING AT A TIME, sort out what's working. Good luck... But. I'll be here (and on Freecarve), so, ask away. You're on a good path!

 

Thank you so much for your input and much appreciated!! I need to process it a bit and modify. 

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

Yup, it is a Process! Patience... Better results will come!

 

[breeseomatic]

For TD3 sizing on smaller UPZ boots, you may have to flip the heel and toe blocks around.  Also you can fine tune the bail tension by initially completely screwing in the bails to the eye-bolts, when it's too tight, and the next detent is too much, you can just unscrew the eye-bolt a few turns.

[SunSurfer]

From your post you've begun at a point that is halfway through the process. Unless the foundations of your stance are straight and sound the rest will be problematic. 

Begin with your boots. The soles should be flat on the floor when your legs & feet are straight below your hips. This is about the same distance apart as your feet would be if you were on skis and gliding straight down the fall line on a beginner slope. You will probably need to adjust the boot cuff canting to achieve this. 

Now measure the distance apart the midline of your boots are in that same position. Take up the position and measure it a number of times, average the results. Now set your TD3 bindings, centred on the inserts on your board, at twice that boot centre line distance. 

Set your front 3 degree cant disc at 60 degrees and the binding plate at 60 degrees. Your front foot needs no canting. The body geometry reason for this I've set out in my last post in the Cant and Lift thread started recently by McCarver.

Set your rear cant disc at 65 degrees and the binding plate to 49 degrees. This will give you the appropriate inward cant for your rear foot. 

This is the process I've used for myself, adjusted for your preferred stance angles.

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

I really like SunSurfer's advice on Bombers. I chose F-2's for two reasons that I didn't elaborate on. The first is stance-width and rotation-angle ease. They slide and twist into position with ease (although, marking exact placements may take some creative thinking). They are also jut a bit 'loose' in 'roll', where the Bomber will hold you flatter to the board (thus, it can feel 'stiff'), so cuff-feel is less of a concern on F-2's, but can be an issue with Bombers. Neither are 'right' nor 'wrong', it's a subjective preference. So, yeah, go back, look your 'steps' over, and, then, 1-thing-per-change, tweak it until it seems right. I'm pretty sure this group has your back!

 

[SunSurfer]

Jim, I'd be fascinated to read a reasoned philosophy of binding and stance set-up. I've read Jack Michaud's tech piece on Bomber but ultimately been unsatisfied by the reasoning.

[yamifumi]

Thank you everyone for great inputs!!

Can anyone elaborate on why I feel that board wants to turn left (my heel side) and i have to make conscious effort not to do that when I am on flat surface like trail runs/connectors. It only happens with TD3 but not with F2 bindings and they were both on exact same set up (same angle, cant, lift). I am just very curious as I do not know why that is happening....

[yamifumi]

9 hours ago, Jim Callen said:

Ultimately stance setup comes down to personal preference, but our philosophy with canting here at Bomber for most people does not include inward cant.  Inward cant was a tool used in the past to put people in a stance that seemed right at the time, but biomechanically doesn't make sense for most people.  We recommend starting from a straight lift standpoint and adjusting cant from there.  An analogy I like is to compare it to weight lifting; when you want to go deeper and/or lift greater amounts of weight, the legs are made wider and the knees are facing slightly outwards.  To take the knees and orient them in towards one another makes for a much more difficult time for the majority of us.  To put oneself in the most stable, strong, athletic stance, we encourage people to play with a slight outward cant to replicate the positioning of the knees used by weightlifters and others looking for more stability.  This also can entail a wider stance.  

That said, with such a degree of splay as the o.p. has, inward cant can be a useful tool to position oneself more comfortably (a la surfing and skateboarding stances).  I find straight lift to be of more benefit when the splay between the legs is 10* or less(ish).  We very rarely set people up with no splay, as it isn't how most of us stand naturally.

Yamifumi- What was your stance width with in this experiment?

My stance was 47cm for the experiment. 

[yamifumi]

2 minutes ago, Jim Callen said:

What's your bias like?  Is your boot centered between the heel and toe edges the same on both decks?

yes, it is centered as the toe block and heel block is moved in to fit my upz boots same amount.

[breeseomatic]

58 minutes ago, yamifumi said:

yes, it is centered as the toe block and heel block is moved in to fit my upz boots same amount.

That may not be an official centered measurement.  The UPZ boots have a heel that is tucked in quite a bit compared to the Deeluxe offerings.  There should be a mark on the boots that indicates an approximate center. Line this mark up with another approximate center of the mounting disk on each side of the boot.  Or you can draw your own line if it's not there, I can't remember if the Deeluxe or UPZ Boots have the center tick mark.

13 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

Jim, I'd be fascinated to read a reasoned philosophy of binding and stance set-up. I've read Jack Michaud's tech piece on Bomber but ultimately been unsatisfied by the reasoning.

Alan, I ride with outward cant now, I used to be lift only.  Jim set me up with outward cant at ATC last year, he confirmed my suspicions of outward cant and mobility.  One thing I can say is riding with a lot of outward cant on flats causes some side cuff pressure points, but once in the turns, you don't notice it at all.  I ride a little more outward cant when riding bindings without an isolation plate, and a little less outward cant with a plate system.

My suspicions arose from looking at Olympic weightlifters, as Jim mentioned, (Olympic weightlifting is a hobby of mine) and their body positioning in a squat.  There is heel/toe splay, lots of dorsiflexion and an outward cant of the shin and thigh to allow for a deep squat.  Now as a snowboarder, up and down movement is important, but not to the extremes of an Olympic weightlifter.  I looked at some photos of carvers deep in the turn and the board is obviously bending, causing the knees to come together.  I tried approximating those angles and tried to squat lower and I was bound up, I couldn't move.  If I relax those inward cant angles, I have some downward mobility which in my opinion allows me to absorb chop by allowing the board to come up, and allows me to get lower for better CoG management.

I recommended doing some experimentation with this.  For reference on TD3's, I use about 10-15 degrees of total difference in angle/cant raw and 10 degrees when on a plate.

Beckmann has something very similar on his site about "stacking bones". http://beckmannag.com/softboot-snowboard/setup-guidelines/binding-cant

Donek Snowboards has some interesting videos about the "pillars of your legs" fighting the board flex while in a turn and a plate system can help you with fatigue at the end of the day because the plate keeps your pillars upright, not trying to fight the board flex.

 

[SunSurfer]

Thanks for the thoughtful and thought provoking answer. The analogy to weightlifters is interesting. For riders who weight their edge "heel and toe" the stance for the "clean" part of a clean and jerk is appropriate. For riders who ride out of the sides of their boots, the lunge position used in the final part of the jerk is a more appropriate illustration. To see the difference in rider style in modern racers, compare Vic Wild and Zan Kosir. Kosir is a heel and toe rider, Wild rides out of the sides of his boots, with the difference most obvious on their heelside turns. Jim Callen, from all the videos of him I've seen, is a heel and toe rider.

[michael.a]

Sunsurfer, sorry for the trouble but could you link a video comparing the Vic and Zan with some timemark? I understand what you mean (Im definetley a side rider) but need an illustration to see it done at the elite level.

[SunSurfer]

https://youtu.be/GiONqn9R4N0

Both on the same course.

Kosir at 00:28

Wild at 01:34

Look for the line of the shoulders and arms, in particular on the heelside turns. The contrast is particularly marked for these two.

(Nevin Galmarini is another with a strong heel & toe style. He comments in one of his YouTube videos about how heel and toeside turns are quite different for him.

 

Wild rode with this style at Sochi, both in slalom & GS. (embedding not permitted by YouTube)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI-FhmBqy9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDilQWhZxfk

 

His early coach, Monique Pelletier, was teaching him this style, her style, as an 11 yr-old. She is an ex-USA team World Cup racer - but on skis.

 

I suspect that our chosen style will often reflect the route we came to alpine snowboarding.

The softbooters will more often be heel & toe.

The ex-skiers will more often be out of the sides of their boots.

Both styles work, but there are distinct differences in how to setup the boots (particularly flex) & bindings to suit the chosen style.

Advice given for one style won't necessarily work for the other style.

Understanding which style you ride is crucial for making progress.

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by SunSurfer
add detail

[yamifumi]

22 hours ago, breeseomatic said:

That may not be an official centered measurement.  The UPZ boots have a heel that is tucked in quite a bit compared to the Deeluxe offerings.  There should be a mark on the boots that indicates an approximate center. Line this mark up with another approximate center of the mounting disk on each side of the boot.  Or you can draw your own line if it's not there, I can't remember if the Deeluxe or UPZ Boots have the center tick mark.

 

I came from Deeluxe boots last year and I didn't even realize that "center tick". It was way off and the center of boots was far more towards heel side. I suspect that it was making it go to heel side more (left turn for me) and have to muscle it. Now the toe block on f2 is all the way forward and the heel block is much forward than before as well. I also dug up thread that was talking about exact same problem below: 

I guess it is back to drawing board for me but I am gonna try this set up this weekend.

 

On 12/8/2016 at 8:21 PM, SunSurfer said:

From your post you've begun at a point that is halfway through the process. Unless the foundations of your stance are straight and sound the rest will be problematic. 

Begin with your boots. The soles should be flat on the floor when your legs & feet are straight below your hips. This is about the same distance apart as your feet would be if you were on skis and gliding straight down the fall line on a beginner slope. You will probably need to adjust the boot cuff canting to achieve this. 

I verified that the sole is flat on the floor when legs and feet are straight below my hips.

 

23 hours ago, Jim Callen said:

What's your bias like?  Is your boot centered between the heel and toe edges the same on both decks?

Mine was not centered as I didn't realize upz was so much different from Deeluxe boots. Now the toe block is all the way forward and the heel block is much forward than before as well. I centered it and will try again this weekend. As for outward can't, do you help customers set outward cant for both feet? I just didn't feel quite comfortable with outward cant, maybe now the boot is centered, it may feel different?

 

thank you all for your inputs and i am grasping more concepts!!

 

Edited December 10, 2016 by yamifumi

[yamifumi]

UPDATE:

I think it was hugely my mistake in terms of the set ups. I feel bad not knowing about setting up the binding for UPZ.

I centered the UPZ bindings according to the center line (located on the boots, which I had no idea until couple days ago.....) and voila! Everything is different and feel like I went back to old self with Deeluxe boots. 

I felt super comfortable and no more chattering, I was able to push-pull harder, tried different set ups but felt comfortable with: Front lift-no cant-57 deg, Rear lift-inward cant-53 deg. 

Thank you to everyone for their input. Now I am gonna try the samething with TD3 SW and play with stance width and set backs.

[SunSurfer]

Yamifumi,

Glad to read you've found a sweet spot.

What are the cant/lift disc angles you are running with those binding angles? That will tell your readers precisely what lift and cant combination has worked for you.

[yamifumi]

15 minutes ago, SunSurfer said:

Yamifumi,

Glad to read you've found a sweet spot.

What are the cant/lift disc angles you are running with those binding angles? That will tell your readers precisely what lift and cant combination has worked for you.

I have not tried the TD3 SW set ups yet. I was mostly working on the F2 bindings today. I am only using F2 lift/cant wedges and according to leveler, I have the following:

Front: ~4.6 deg of lift + 0 deg cant

Rear: ~4.5 deg of lift + ~3 deg of inward cant.

 

When I am out next time, I want to find more finer adjustment with TD3 SW.