What is the lowest soft boot angle you can heelside extreme carve with? + new Coiler Soft Boot EC board

[Mr_Orange]

My Coiler board finally came in. This weekend was my 2nd attempt at learning to EC. I was able to get the toeside laid down pretty good. Backside still needs work but it's already getting deeper than it ever was.

For the last few years i rode in La Sportiva AT boots and Phantom Splitboard Plates. I told Bruce (Coiler) that I wanted a board that i can EC in with both soft and AT boots so he built me this sort of hybrid board with that in mind.

Here's the specs on this Coiler: 12-14M sidecut, 145 effective edge, 173 total length, 262mm width

I'm trying to settle on an ideal soft boot binding setup so here's my main question (keepin in mind that this is my 2nd EC attempt and i can't actually do fully laid out heelsides yet.): What is the lowest binding angle you can set soft boots at before your heelside EC is compromised?

The reason i ask is because i initially looked into typical softboot EC stances and went with a 36f/27b stance. This is what i experimented with a few times last year (just on a regular park board though) to get use to foward stance riding. It felt pretty good. This past weekend, i decided to try something a notch lower at 30f/24b half way through the day. I instantly liked this a lot better. The board felt "less wide" with the feet getting closer to the edges. Better for general freeriding. 

I went home and ran the Arnaud 85 degree boot-out test. It seems like with my board width and 8.5 size boots, i think i can get down to even a ~27f/18b stance without boot-out. Has anyone here EC'd with angles that low or even lower? 

I initially ran the Arnaud test last year on a similar width board so i knew what width to specify when ordering the Coiler. Since then though, i've gotten 2 new things. 1) an Atomic Bbackland Ultimate boot with an even shorter BSL than my Sideral. 2) Technine hibacks which allow you to sink your boot way deeper into the heelcup. Both these things allow me to get to an even lower binding angle without bootout.

Seems like having a higher angle means having to rotate your body less during a heelside turn? 

My main priority with this board was to learn how to EC, and 30f/24b actually felt pretty decent, but it would be awesome if I could settle on a stance that's even more dynamic.

[Rob Stevens]

Yes. 

-3. 

28 wide waist on my board though. Width underfoot will determine everything. 

In the video section, there’s one from Donek where the board used is a 29 waist. Laid heelside happening. 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Rob Stevens

[scottishsurfer]

I'm 33/-3 with a 29cm waist donek I can do a heel edge superman carve. The lowest angles and narrowest board I've managed to go hand down heel(not full extension) is 18/-18 on a 26.5cm waist board but that's at the very edge of boot out. I have seen it done also where the rider arches there back to reduce the edge angle as they extend to prevent boot out this is how Tyler chorlton does it when he does heel edge euros on the bataleons....

Some indoors heel edge

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by scottishsurfer

[Mr_Orange]

I've saved a few links oof heelside EC carves. There's a few distinct variations. I guess this would be a good place to document a few of these. Seems like it's possible to get deep in any stance. Maybe the bigger difference is just how easy it is to do them and how much speed you can exit the turn. I think this weekend i'll test out a lower angle for sure.

 I listed them in order of the most forward facing stances (33/30), to the snowsurf guys (33/6),  all the way to Knapton's full duck stance (15/-15). Enjoy!:

Snow Kiss Swoard guy: Probably the most laid out legit backside:

Funcarve: His body is pretty straight but not fully laid out.

Korean BX board extreme carver. This one's unique because he rides a really wide forward stance (60cm). He does a few EC variations.

Kotsugai naoto. Not quite EC butt slide? A lot of the japanese Snowsurf guys do this one. Narrow stance, +6 back foot, and I think this guy rides a huge rear cant too. Seems like this is the style  you can get away with if you got a very low foot angle and have boot out issues. The Korua guys ride a similar stance too.

Naoya Wada. This one's pretty unique. It starts out Snowsurf butt slide and then transitions into an upper torso EC. Knees are still really bent on this one.

Tyler Chorlton duck Elbow/Plank EC. This one looks like its a lot of core strength involved keep his ass off the ground. Lots of variations on his gram. The planking thing really allows him to drag it out pretty long on some of them. 

Kohei Sugiura. Duck stance Superman Carve. Both hands out front. This is very similar to your style Scottishsurfer.

Ryan Knapton. Duck stance fully laid out EC. Very similar to the last one but notch deeper i think. Why isn't he doing more?

The videos:

 

Edited February 21, 2019 by Mr_Orange

[scottishsurfer]

The rider at 10mins 5s does a two handed superman carve then demonstrates the correct positioning. This is what I bases my heel edge superman

One of the main reasons is that I prefer to have my arms going in the direction of travel so I'll either have them going forward like this or ride on my forearm if I'm not going to try and go flat as possible. I've had my arm catch on more than a few occasions when extending it towards the centre of ark and try to twist it in a pretty uncomfortable direction while doing laid out euro carves on toe edge I don't dare do it any longer. I quite like having non pointy collarbones lol, I have a sneaking suspicion this might be why Ryan stopped it also.

I've done it a few times like Tyler cholrton and your right it's hard work on the core but also it's incredibly difficult to get out of without spining 180 off the nose to get up. It looks cool but it's by far the easiest way to get out of his style of heel side euro and why I suspect you never see him getting straight up

[Mr_Orange]

I remember seeing that video. The superman carve is a pretty sick carve and at this point i'd be happy with any of these. But the swoard guy's faces are for sure closest to the ground.

The ease of exiting the turn seems way more fluid with the more forward facing stances. Here's a nother duck EC where you can see he gets nice and flat but has to push himself up at the end.

The forward facing swoard dual guys come out of their turns better. Here's 2 more. I think their stances are in to the 30/33 and 45/0 range:

 

I've been watching a lot of Rama's stuff too and there's a recent one where he tries to go deep and he has to do the 180 butter exit like you mentioned. I really like doing fs 360 nose rolls on my park board so i'd have to try this one out for sure.

Here's a pretty steezy heelside to butter tripod exit. Wait till the second carve: 

 

Here's the rama carve i was talking about:

 

Edited February 22, 2019 by Mr_Orange

[scottishsurfer]

My biggest issue with exit is that atleast indoors the snow is very soft and grabby so I burn Alot speed through the turn so I loose the slingshot to pop me back up.

It's alot less of an issue on real snow on a mountain I feel though as I've never felt the need to push up but it's looking like I'll not be getting out of the fridge this year since our season looks like a warm horror show...

[Rob Stevens]

If you stay on your front leg, continuing to drive the back arm forward, you’ll have to get up by way of FS1. 

Scottishsurfer has hardly any pitch to work with, but he like Ryan K, both bring their pressure back to even over both feet as they compress to the board in alignment with their stances. 

[Mr_Orange]

Was able to do the half EC butt slide version this weekend pretty consistently. I for sure noticed the arm snag thing mentioned. As soon as you apply a little bit of pressure to pick yourself up, your arm jolts back really hard. I can see someone dislocating a should like this. 

I ordered this last week: http://www.mosssnowstick.com/accessories/teita

This guy uses it: https://www.instagram.com/naoya_moderate/

I'll see if it helps with this issue. 

18 hours ago, Rob Stevens said:

If you stay on your front leg, continuing to drive the back arm forward, you’ll have to get up by way of FS1. 

Scottishsurfer has hardly any pitch to work with, but he like Ryan K, both bring their pressure back to even over both feet as they compress to the board in alignment with their stances. 

So stay even on both feet? Because a lot of those tutorials look like you compress towards the back leg and lunge forward in the extension.

[Rob Stevens]

2 hours ago, Mr_Orange said:

Was able to do the half EC butt slide version this weekend pretty consistently. I for sure noticed the arm snag thing mentioned. As soon as you apply a little bit of pressure to pick yourself up, your arm jolts back really hard. I can see someone dislocating a should like this. 

I ordered this last week: http://www.mosssnowstick.com/accessories/teita

This guy uses it: https://www.instagram.com/naoya_moderate/

I'll see if it helps with this issue. 

So stay even on both feet? Because a lot of those tutorials look like you compress towards the back leg and lunge forward in the extension.

You’ll need to be evenly pressured to stand back up on a carved edge. The “forward” movement would come when your torso and hips come back over the topsheet, in the direction your bindings are pointed (the average between the two... I’m at about 30 and -3, so I’d expect my “lunge” to go at about 15 to the running length) not “forward” in the direction of travel. 

Look really carefully at Scottishsurfer, Ryan and the low angle Japanese riders. They all align with their stances as they stand up to a flat base. 

[scottishsurfer]

12 minutes ago, Rob Stevens said:

You’ll need to be evenly pressured to stand back up on a carved edge. The “forward” movement would come when your torso and hips come back over the topsheet, in the direction your bindings are pointed (the average between the two... I’m at about 30 and -3, so I’d expect my “lunge” to go at about 15 to the running length) not “forward” in the direction of travel. 

Look really carefully at Scottishsurfer, Ryan and the low angle Japanese riders. They all align with their stances as they stand up to a flat base. 

You've explained that much better than i ever could mate.

[Mr_Orange]

I thought you guys were talking about this kind of "forward" movement 5:35 mark:

 

 

You're saying at the 7:41 mark, direct your energy in between your feet.:

 

[Rob Stevens]

The static demos the Russian rider does likely shows more fore and aft movement along the length of the board than is actually happening when he’s in motion. 

For the most part, he seems in alignment with his stance. 

Sometimes I think the rotation in purely there for effect, as you could do those turns with your shoulders, hips and knees aligned. If you think about alignment while you’re turning, you’ll be less out of position when you want to stand up, especially heelside.