The Heelside wiggle

[SkoonyMcGroomer]

If this were my track, I would be blaming the lumpy grooming for blowing out the carve line.

[Buell]

Rjnakata, there are plenty of good suggestions to work though here.  Below are a couple of things that I don't think have been mentioned that could be part of the problem.  I have seen this in multiple situations.  The problem only seems to show itself on heel sides where the ankle is of limited use.

You are riding UPZs, which tend to be on the stiffer side with a nice locking mechanism.  I assume they are locked into ride mode?  As you improve as a carver, the loads you place on your boots increase.  If they are too soft for your current carving, they can allow this to happen.  I have seen personally on groomers with too soft of BTS springs and another time with an AT boot I over modified for splitboards.  The heel side had insufficient stiffness and this heel side waviness would happen in powder.  I could not do anything about it until I fixed the boots. 

You can try adding another slot of forward lean to your front foot, back foot, or both.  It might help you get and hold more edge angle going through the turn.  Just make sure it does not screw up your toe side.  Forward lean can be a balancing act between its effects on toe side and heel side.  I will even ride different forward leans on different boards depending on how aggressive I need to be to ride a board.  I over modified a different pair of AT boots for splitboards.  This time I relaxed the forward lean too much.  It resulted in this wavy pattern when riding steep, firm snow.  Forward lean is important for heel sides when you need edge angle. 

Make sure your knees are bent enough to absorb bumps, even small bumps.  On heel sides, you don't have full use of your ankles and proper suspension requires better technique at the knees and hips.  If your suspension system is not working, the groomer imperfection comes through the board, up your leg, stops where ever you are locked up, then goes back down to the board and results in chatter.

The part of the turn after the apex is the more likely place to have issues.  Above the apex of the turn gravity is not a factor and you are also going slower.  Once you come past the apex, the effect of gravity and speed increases the load on the snow. It is often important to start decreasing the pressure on the edge once you pass the apex of the turn to compensate for the pressure added by gravity or you run added risk of blowing out your turn.

Edited February 4, 2017 by Buell

[nitro]

 

  I found that I was using way to much forward  lean with the upz boot,, it put to much pressure on the ball of my foot resulting in clinched toes & a mild case of "Morton's neuroma"...this problem was compounded with 3 degree toe lift at the binding..

I cut waaay back on the forward lean with the boot & switched my binders far away from "toe lift "

 Look at the tension on your boot springs they might be to soft or uneven...

To much bias may be screwing  with your weight distribution on the HS edge...

  everybody has different anatomy & styles...good luck

[1xsculler]

That's interesting because Bruce Varsava told me he sees a lot of guys who have their BTS adjusted so their front boot has too much forward lean.  He suggested you adjust the springs with no forward lean bias if I heard him correctly.

[philw]

On front-foot forward lean/ lifts....

Perhaps it's obvious, but the lean and the boot design and the lift (if any) are all controlling the same thing, which from my perspective is the direction of the boot cuff relative to the snow. Bear with me here.

If the boot cuff is too far from the vertical, I find I can't excerpt enough force on the nose of the board to hold it in place. At the start of a turn, the nose may feel sketchy or even slip or judder. The combination of toe lift and forward lean need to allow you to push on the front boot's cuff when you want. Maybe a the start of the turn a little force there makes the nose bite.

You need to watch with different boots as for example UPZ have a secret angle inside the boot which may not be obvious. Which is why you may want a toe lift, or a bigger toe lift for those. 

My own rule of thumb is to set the front boot to minimum lean, and the rear to maximum lean, and then dick around with the heel/toe lifts if you need any more than that.

[bigwavedave]

Apparently the forward ramp of the UPZ boot is greater than 6°. Why not try to neutralize that with a 6° lift in the front?  If you spent much time riding softboot style before switching to steeper angles and hardboots you may have some leftover "bad" habits such as counter rotating (away from the direction you're turning) on heelside turns.

A video of you riding would make things fairly obvious and eliminate all the guesswork here.

[nitro]

Be careful flexion & extension of the foot is complicated...

I used to think toe lift was a good thing to flatten out your foot or parallel it to the board... I found that I was wrong!   It causes more calf/foot muscle fatigue & foot compression in the boot... 

neutrality for me is next to zero forward lean a little outward cant with added heel lift...

As for my heel wobble on a vsr ; a little outward cant taught me to move my body forward into the correct position and apply pressure   vs. remaining centered relying on inward cant to apply the pressure for me... just my opinion 

 

 

[rjnakata]

Thanks for all the responses...lots of great stuff to digest here!

I got out again today, but at the local smaller hill and it being a Saturday the ability to study carving was limited.

I did try:

1) Equalizing boot bias.  This had no effect and maybe made things worse (?)  I used what appear to be boot centering marks on the underside of the UPZ (they look a bit forward of center to me however - can anyone comment on these marks?).  I'm going to do some double checking with flat surfaces and framing squares to see if the binding center + boot center = centered over the board edges.

2) Increasing forward lean in the front boot from "zero" to 2 stops (rear is 2 stops).  Not much happened here.

3) Changing to 6/3 degree from 3/3. (no cant), forward lean back to zero.  This had some immediate good heelside effects and behold my front foot toe curling eased.  No perfect heelside arcs yet but I think this is a positive change.

3) I didn't get to fully study the fore/aft/middle weighting however: I did notice that i tend to weight forward on the heelside - standing on the front leg through the turn.   That tends to loosen the tail, and is contrary to the "locked in" feeling of a weight neutral or weight back toe side turn. Maybe that's what causes the wiggle (?!)  I'm wondering if a more neutral weighting at turn initiation  and through the turn will help.  I think that is the next (probably most important)  item on the checklist.

Most days I'm the only carver on the hill.  I tend to ride in a vacuum so your input here is super helpful  

Edited February 5, 2017 by rjnakata
clarity

[Eric Brammer aka PSR]

Ok, stop with playing with the 'gear'! You're creating too many variables, so the 'if/then' path of discovery is more like 'if, or, maybe, then, or-not?'... Do changes One-At-A-Time, take mental notes, and review when something 'clicks'.

But, from what I can gather here, you are not getting edge leverage in your heel turns from mid-to-late in the turn, and your track photo indicates you are using 'pressure' from slightly-too-stiff legs instead of getting a better angle-of-edge. So, RELAX, a lot. Set-up your turn as normal. Pull the Toes UP, but in the sequence I earlier described of Front- Both - Rear as the turn develops. Also, roll the rear knee inwards as you get to heading down the fall-line. The back hand should be moving forward, low, towards the front knee. The front shoulder should be lifting through the turn, and NOT blocking your vision. 

Watch CMC in the 'carve challenge', or even me, for that matter (I ain't as gumby-doll flexible as Curt, but, hey, I was in my 40's then, so..), but watch the KNEES, the Hips, and the Shoulders. If you 'dive' the inner shoulder, you'll be over-committed. If your hip is too far aft early, oops..If your hip cannot move inwards of the board's edging, oops. If your hip cannot 'slide' from fore to aft during the turn, oops. If you end a turn such that the hip cannot again move forwards, oops. At the knees, they must have flexion, always. they should also be able to 'aim the joystick' of the lower leg in the boot. That directs edge angle, and any separation of movement between the feet. It also directs fore-aft movement. So, a 'soft touch' at the knees is important. Lastly, and 'lifting' of the front of the board at turn's end, has to come from the front knee (and, equally, placing an edge into the next turn with a down+inward move), and THAT can't happen with stiff knees, nor poorly placed hips, or torso angulation being late. 

[Beckmann AG]

I got out again today, but at the local smaller hill and it being a Saturday the ability to study carving was limited.

I did try:

1) Equalizing boot bias.  This had no effect and maybe made things worse (?)  I used what appear to be boot centering marks on the underside of the UPZ (they look a bit forward of center to me however - can anyone comment on these marks?).  I'm going to do some double checking with flat surfaces and framing squares to see if the binding center + boot center = centered over the board edges.

Keep in mind that the load bearing points of the foot are the 'center' of the heel bone proper, and the metatarsal heads ( the 'ball' of the foot). So if you're going for 'centered', aim for functional, rather than geometric boot center.  

Also, when you went through this list, did you change just one variable, and then return that variable to it's original setting before moving on to the next, or did you change one, then another, and then another?

Meant to, but forgot to suggest that you make only one change at a time; not because I don't think you would figure that out on your own, only that it's too easy to get caught up in a project without establishing a useful protocol.

 

2) Increasing forward lean in the front boot from "zero" to 2 stops (rear is 2 stops).  Not much happened here.

3) Changing to 6/3 degree from 3/3. (no cant), forward lean back to zero.  This had some immediate good heelside effects and behold my front foot toe curling eased.  No perfect heelside arcs yet but I think this is a positive change.

3) I didn't get to fully study the fore/aft/middle weighting however: I did notice that i tend to weight forward on the heelside - standing on the front leg through the turn.   That tends to loosen the tail, and is contrary to the "locked in" feeling of a weight neutral or weight back toe side turn. Maybe that's what causes the wiggle (?!)  I'm wondering if a more neutral weighting at turn initiation  and through the turn will help.  I think that is the next (probably most important)  item on the checklist.

Good observations. See what you can do with an active  change in fore/aft weighting, and then take a look at your rear binding.

As described, your combined rear foot ramp is probably between 13-16 degrees. I'm not you, but 11 is a good start point for what I'm doing. Once I'm in the ballpark, I'll fine tune with Gorilla tape. One degree can make a big difference.

When rear foot ramp is too high, it can become difficult to effectively weight the rear heel without gymnastics/awkward contortions. In other words, you could be loading the front heel by default, based on heel height and also stance width.

So, you can raise the front of your footbed,  try a zero cant in the back, and/or change your stance width and see if that affects weight distribution. Bear in mind that you shouldn't need to make drastic movements forward or backward in order to alter the weight distribution from foot to foot such that the board tracks as you'd like it to.

Further, too much heel height can feel very much like too little heel height, so be consistent in how you conduct your testing.

If you go with the zero cant, you will most likely need to narrow your stance. Stance width is one of those things that is particular to each rider, given their skeletal structure and how they care to ride. Not everyone favors the Larry Craig approach, so go with what works for your purposes, rather than adopting the numbers espoused by the 'in' crowd.

Keep at it, and you'll find your answers. Thanks for reporting back.

[softbootsurfer]

there were hundreds of tracks today at the session...some with flutter...the ones I saw in action were caused by the nose setting and then letting up, It would have been interesting to know the specs of each board as well as the riders specs of attachment, but the observations of the ones being done seemed to indicate a set and then an early release...both frontside and backside flutters were observed