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Recommended stance width for a big guy


Geof Harries

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I'm 193 cm (6'3") and weigh 88 kg (195 lbs). I've been snowboarding since 1987.

In 2010, I bought a F2 Speedster RS 183 cm. The board was well-priced and in good condition, but it's always been a little bit too much board for me (stiff, very unforgiving). That's okay though, I can handle it. What's mostly bothered me though is the stance width.

At present, the stance is maxed out: I have it at 50 cm (19.7") which is the widest it will go. It feels like I need about another 2.5 cm (1") between the bindings to get more control over the board.

So my question is: What are people riding these days for stance widths?

In the past it was all narrow and knees tucked in, but watching videos on here it seems like wider stances are more normal now. Also, people seem to be riding further up on their boards; the F2 I have really sticks me in the backseat.

Geof

2010-f2-speedster-rs-183.jpg

Edited by Geof Harries
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personally, I always recommend ad-hoc width as of lower-leg length - distance between floor (barefooted) and knee rotation axis, as a basis. usually it is around 50cm for girls ~165cm height and men ~180cm. then you can personally adjust - for more carvy ride it can be narrower, and wider for general freeride with some freestyly tweaks

and - leg length may differ between men of equal height, so go measure. generally I think 50cm for yout 193cm is rather narrow stance - not bad for freecarving, but for racing and such you can go higher to 52..54 IMHO

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I'm 182cm (6'0") with longer than average legs. I used to ride 50cm but have moved out to 54-56cm over the last 2 seasons.

From your photo you look like you could push your rear binding back a cm or so. 

Feeling like you're in the back seat is probably more of a technique issue if your bindings are equally spread between the binding insert pattern the builder created on the board.

Whatever stance you ride needs to be comfortable and effective for "your" riding style. We don't all ride the same. Stance is so much more than just the distance between binding centres. There is a complex interaction between a rider's shape/size/leg length and binding distance, rotation angles, lift and canting that few people have a coherent model for understanding. 

And welcome to ASB Geof! I see you've been lurking here for a while.

 

Edited by SunSurfer
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As the others said, it's a bit personal. If it feels like you want to go wider, then you should go wider. Sounds too simple/stupid to be true, but there's not a lot of science in this given the spread of setups out there under excellent riders. 

I run 20.25" to 20.5" at 5'11". Feels right to me. 

I had that same board - it needs some speed to come into its element. Frankly, it scared me at the time so I sold it. There are friendlier boards out there if it's not working for you. Or maybe it's awesome, then ignore this! 

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Hi Geof, welcome to ASB.  That is a big board with a big radius, pretty sure 16m.  It was great in its day (2005) but things have gotten better.  I'd say get something more middle-of-the-road like a 175 with around a ~13m radius and sell the F2.  Check the classifieds here for used boards built within the past 10 years.  Donek, Coiler, Prior would be ideal.  You are right that the stance isn't right for you and that the school of thought on stance width has changed.  You'd have to T-nut that board in order to keep it.  I'm 5'11", 31" inseam, and I use a 21" stance on my 175 with toe lift and some inward cant on the front foot, and heel lift and some outward cant on the back foot.  There are some articles here you might find helpful: http://alpinesnowboarder.com/tech-articles/

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

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I'm 6' and run a 19.5" stance, it's just the way I've always done it and I haven't experimented much.  As Corie said, if it feels too narrow it likely is.  As you widen up your stance you may need some toe and/or heel lift.  I added a bit of heel lift a couple years back and like it.

Do yourself a favour though and check out some of the newer gear, you will have more fun.  Not sure if we are doing NES this year as it is getting pretty late for it to get off the ground, but you might want to try to get there if it happens.  Riceball organizes 3 days of carving at Nakiska in the middle of January, we usually have around 20 people and there will be gear you can try out.

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For the angles the most important is to have no overhang. Therefore we have the famous Fuego-Test:

fuego.jpg.e31e55f137239d973ab72a5fe66ab292.jpg

Just adjust in the manner, that the boxes don't touch the boots. Hence the narrower the board, the steeper the angles.

To get the correct binding distance is easy. Just measure the distance from the floor to the middle of your kneecap:

stance.jpg.d627b0e0522208925f95da6ec2328e43.jpg

This is only valid for alpine snowboarding. For softboots the directional stance is wider and for duckstance even more.

Edited by nextcarve
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I'm 6'4" and my legs are average length for my height. My stance is 53cm.

Frankly I think so much of stance width depends on how much forward lean you run on each of your boots and how much heel/toe lift you are running on your bindings. If you run your bindings flat and with little forward lean to the boots you'll need to run a narrow stance. I think the whole thing needs to work as a package.

dave

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1 hour ago, nextcarve said:

To get the correct binding distance is easy. Just measure the distance from the floor to the middle of your kneecap:

I would hesitate to say there is one "correct" stance width.  This measurement will put you in the ballpark though.  Works out to 20" for me which is only 1/2" off my preferred stance.  I have relatively short legs for my height.

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and - no! - I personally recommend against any cant/lift anglings in your life other than you have radically different anathomy. you can simply go as that - width & angles. it is pretty many variations to allow (esp. with setback and gilmour offset). thanks for BOL to free me from cant/lift hell - 10th yrs sober-headed: you can only balance when you stand straight off the board

 

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Hi Geof, I am 183 cm and ride with a 52.7 cm stance on GS boards. In fact I had the exact same F2 (2005/2006 Speedster RS 183) as you and remember I could max the stance out more than 54 cm.

So either you are doing something wrong or the board you have was custom for a shorter racer and maybe tailored with a smaller max stance. In fact Im almost positive thats the case as you have additional UPM holes for a plate which wasnt offered on stock models. You also mentioned thats its stiff but the stock board is overall quite flexible. If you could take a picture of the hole pattern and measure the distance between the outer-most holes that would confirm that a 50cm is the maximum you have.

So while I consider this F2 (to be one of the best ‘old tech’ versions out there, this particular one appears to be have been built to someone a lot shorter than you. Ive noticed that the standard reply for anyone asking about problems with their board is “get a new board” but in this case, I think its the smartest choice.

Edited by michael.a
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9 hours ago, terekhov said:

and - no! - I personally recommend against any cant/lift anglings in your life other than you have radically different anathomy. you can simply go as that - width & angles. it is pretty many variations to allow (esp. with setback and gilmour offset). thanks for BOL to free me from cant/lift hell - 10th yrs sober-headed: you can only balance when you stand straight off the board

 

But all boots have built-in heel lift.  In UPZs your foot will still have a small net heel lift with the binding toe lifted 6 degrees.  So what you're calling "straight" really isn't.

Everyone is different.  We have these adjustments at our disposal to fit our equipment to our bodies, not the other way around.

3 hours ago, michael.a said:

you have additional UPM holes

Yes, those were not stock at the time.

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2 hours ago, Jack M said:

But all boots have built-in heel lift.  In UPZs your foot will still have a small net heel lift with the binding toe lifted 6 degrees.  So what you're calling "straight" really isn't.

sure, but there's almost no footwear without heel-lift - zero-drop shoes is newcomers in modern world -- you've learned to anti-adapt to that from the first steps in footwear. and... my words is to only POINT to possible direction - coz many talk about how to set up base angling, all racers use heel lift etc etc etc -- and almost no voice against any anglers usage for whatever reason! BTW I need almost a winter to adapt my ride on LONGER boards without cant/lifts (strangely enough slalom boards ride well flat from get-go for me). collateral from going cant/lift-free around 2008 was: before that time adaptation from hardboots to softboots is almost a riding day or more, and now I can go from hardboot stance to full-duck and back in a 1-2 runs....

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Wow. The variation is responses is staggering. If I was the OP I'd be curled up in a ball on the floor waiting for the apocalypse. There are so many variables in set up that there is no one right answer; I think it's great that folks are willing to provide what is working for them. My set-up (note the number of variables underlined):

I'm an old school, knees together rider (and I'm not going to change). I'm 6'4" with ~36' inseam - my femurs are long so my lower leg (tib/fib) is proportionally short. I'm riding size 10 Track 700's with BTS - forward lean on the rear boot, more upright in the front. I don't recall the spring colors but know that the top and bottom springs are not the same color; boots are not here so I can't go look at them. I generally use step-ins so they do have fin-techs, but I have standard bindings as well. All my bindings are TD3's. I'm goofy footed if that matters. The set-up for each board is similar, but not the same 

I have a half-dozen boards, but run my Donek Metal Ax the most, followed by an older Donek GS with a Donek Plate  when I want to go faster. Most of my riding is in the Midwest so runs are short with lift time for recovery - I can push every run all day without breaks.

Set up on the Metal Ax 177: I recall it being 21cm in width. I run 3 degree cant in the front and 6 degree in the rear, cants oriented with the low end to the mid-point in board running length (i.e. - long axis). Front binding at 55 degrees and rear at 50. They are sidewinder step-in. Binding width is 18.5 inches.

A quick count gets me over 25 variables in set up. Whew! What does this all mean?

1. Bring a wrench to the hill.

2. Change one thing at a time.

3. Have a knowledgeable person take a look at your riding (even a knowledgeable skier can be helpful in my experience - my race "coach" was a skier).

4. If you can't find someone local have someone video your riding from several angles and post it up for feedback. Be aware that you will get lots of great (and seemingly contradictory) advice.

 

We all mean well.  🙂

 

 

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9 hours ago, terekhov said:

sure, but there's almost no footwear without heel-lift

Converse All-Stars, Birkenstocks, Vans, Sketchers, Indoor soccer shoes, boat shoes, sandals, slippers, flats, to name a few.  Many sneakers have pretty minimal heel lift, certainly a lot smaller than the total ramp angle of hardboots.  Using "flat" bindings only means you like heel lift on both feet.  This is not a flat/neutral/default stance.  If it works for you then great.

Anyway, it is simply a matter of mechanics that using some toe lift on the front foot and heel lift on the back foot allows you to comfortably use a wider stance than without them.  Whether this is a good thing or not is up to the individual.

I would argue wider is generally better, but only up to the point where your range of motion and leverage are maximized, and not a millimeter wider.  Any inward/outward canting is purely dependent on individual body alignment.

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9 hours ago, Jack M said:

.Using "flat" bindings only means you like heel lift on both feet.  This is not a flat/neutral/default stance.

Someboby school me on why alpine boot manufacturers build in ramp when most users then seem to dial at least some of it out?

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Like I said earlier, for their stance most people end up somewhere by trial and error, and the all important "feel".

I tried to develop a unifying approach to thinking about all of @bruincounselor's variables. When I posted it last time, I suspect I didn't convince many people to change their way of thinking. It tries to provide a starting point, based on the individual rider's physique, and then make experimentation from there a little more reasoned. This approach also plays to the strengths of the Trench Digger binding design, with its' ability to provide nuanced lift and canting.

Read the later version from 2017 toward the bottom of the post.
If you read it, and come away having thought more deeply about the relationship between bindings, boots and body, then I'll have achieved what I set out to do.

Edited by SunSurfer
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12 hours ago, Neil Gendzwill said:

UPZ have considerably higher heel lift than Raichle/Deeluxe.  If you switch boots, you either have to adapt or change the lift you are running in the bindings.

Indeed when I switched from Deeluxe to UPZ I had to switch from a 3 degree disc to a 6 degree disc for the front foot.

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3 hours ago, Lurch said:

Someboby school me on why alpine boot manufacturers build in ramp when most users then seem to dial at least some of it out?

Because some is necessary. And then most want the convenience of intec heels,  so that adds even more heel height.

Generally speaking,  from the mechanical standpoint and what the board wants to see for effective inputs, the front boot ramp should be less than the rear boot ramp, with both values dependent on bone structure/connection and chosen 'style'.

3 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

f you read it, and come away having thought more deeply about the relationship between bindings, boots and body, then I'll have achieved what I set out to do.

If thinking were easy, more would do it; and there would be fewer incoherent suggestions in this thread.

Edited by Beckmann AG
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27 minutes ago, Beckmann AG said:

Because some is necessary. And then most want the convenience of intec heels, and that's a fixed quantity, so that means even more heel height.

Generally speaking, the front boot ramp should be less than the rear boot ramp, and both values will be dependent on bone structure and chosen 'style'.

Understood. Question may have been better posed as "build in so much ramp". A little seems fair, a lot seems counter intuitive .Unless you have shares in a binding lift device factory of course. Did someone say Burton channel......

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