Constructive criticism sought

[patmoore]

We're just wrapping up the NASTAR Nationals in Snowmass.  Turnout among boarders was better this year despite conflicting dates with USASA.  I picked up my 15th age group win but acknowledge I've outlved most of my competition.

When the racing was over, I took a fun run with my son-in-law and three grandsons (the youngsters all raced on both skis and board like me).  I gave the 14 year old my GoPro Max and asked him to get some footage of me.  This was a very gentle slope.  I still need to get lower and can't seem to make any progress.  I'm always open to suggestions.

 

Edited April 10, 2022 by patmoore

[drschwartz]

At 75 you look pretty good. You should come race USASA with us. The tournament is an absolute blast every year. 
I coach high schoolers. I also race at 65 y/o this year. 2 national championships and one bronze(me) this year. 
Paul

[crackaddict]

@patmoore  Slow it down, don't be in such a hurry to transition between edges.  Stay on that same edge until your board is perpendicular to the fall line, go the full 180 degrees on each turn.  It's a patience turn; assume the position and wait it out (while very slowly decompressing and moving your weight slightly back).

Also, rotate your shoulders.  You're upper body is staying open to the fall line throughout your turns, you should be rotating more into the turns.  Shoulders and hips face the front of the board on heelside and they point in the same direction as your front foot on toeside.

As you start to carve deeper and get lower, crunch in the obliques to keep your shoulders level with the horizon.

[patmoore]

8 minutes ago, crackaddict said:

@patmoore  Slow it down, don't be in such a hurry to transition between edges.  Stay on that same edge until your board is perpendicular to the fall line, go the full 180 degrees on each turn.  It's a patience turn; assume the position and wait it out (while very slowly decompressing and moving your weight slightly back).

Also, rotate your shoulders.  You're upper body is staying open to the fall line throughout your turns, you should be rotating more into the turns.  Shoulders and hips face the front of the board on heelside and they point in the same direction as your front foot on toeside.

As you start to carve deeper and get lower, crunch in the obliques to keep your shoulders level with the horizon.

Much obliged!!  There may still be a little snow at the home mountain.  Hopefully I'll get a chance to try your suggestions.

[slapos]

@patmoore

First of all the question should be what style you want to ride

There is many ways to carving which differ in details.

I wish that I will be able to ride like you when the time comes.

[patmoore]

6 hours ago, slapos said:

@patmoore

First of all the question should be what style you want to ride

There is many ways to carving which differ in details.

I wish that I will be able to ride like you when the time comes.

My focus mostly is racing but I'd sure love to learn to Eurocarve.  Probably out of the question at my age....

 

 

[Odd Job]

Not that I believe all of it. But there is a very small amount of time to set the edge angles you are looking to get. After that, you will just be putting yourself out of balance trying to "get more edge". 

[Neil Gendzwill]

Before I met a bunch of the people who hang out here I mostly rode in that style you show in the video. Then I tried to ride like they do, and the first step in that is finishing each turn across or even up the hill. That exposed the weakness in my carving skill pretty quickly. It’s fun though. Coming across the hill fast on a toeside edge and then hucking it back over your shoulder requires a fair old amount of faith that your edge is going to hold. When it works it is a blast. When it doesn’t, hello trees!

[pow4ever]

4 hours ago, Odd Job said:

But there is a very small amount of time to set the edge angles you are looking to get. After that, you will just be putting yourself out of balance trying to "get more edge". 

yes!  working on transition have been on my mind a lot this season.  Once i am on edge it's fine.  Someone once describe my riding like sitting on sofa once i am on edge, lighting transition to the next and repeat.  but somehow i lose that ability along the way.  re-discover a hint of it have reignite the addiction but i am already forgetting what little i learned.

 

Pat:   i won't change a thing.  as long as you are having a big smile on you face.  Keep on carving/riding.  You are giving me hope that maybe i can stick with snowboarding for couple more decades.

[NateW]

Quote

This was a very gentle slope.  I still need to get lower and can't seem to make any progress.

That gentle slope might be the only thing holding you back from getting lower. The further you want to lean in, the faster you need to be going. The steeper the slope is, the easier it is to get that speed. At my home hill, the best runs for hip-dragging carves are basically the steepest runs that get groomed.

There's also an relationship between speed and sidecut radius. For me, the sweet spot is around 13m SCR. Longer sidecuts are still fun, but the necessary speed gets outside my comfort zone; shorter sidecuts allow for less speed but the turn radius gets awkwardly tight with a 10m SCR.

[Odd Job]

I just looked at the video again. Assuming there was enough pitch/speed to make SL or GS turns; I think you would outrun almost anyone.

You are going that fast. You might want to slow it down and only go as fast as possible if you can machine gun the turns down the fall line like an SL racer or something. And it would likely still be slower down the fall line than you are going in your videos.

And if you are doing that, it should be incredibly tiring. I'd probably have to stop 1-3+ times in what you do in one shot.

[SunSurfer]

Hi Pat. The original video looks like the long steady pitch towards the middle and bottom third below the Elk Camp gondola at Snowmass. That is a slope that I carry speed on too, to make sure I can slide all the way to the loading area. Your turns are clean carves but long. What was the average SCR of the board you were riding?

Looking at the race suit/ invisible selfie stick video, am I seeing boot toe overhang on both feet?

It is possible to make clean TIGHT turns on gentle slopes. The video linked below shows me at age 60 on the upper part of the West Buttermilk chairlift line, an even more gentle green than lower Elk Camp gondola on a 12-14m SCR Coiler Nirvana 174. Is this the kind of thing you want to work towards? To get much more board tilt than this you will need steeper slopes and more speed. Mind you a steeper slope means you don't have to tilt so far to meet the snow as you end the turn!

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by SunSurfer

[philw]

Someone made the point up there that it depends what style you want to ride... but as you're asking for suggestions...

I expect you're going very fast there, but it looks more like you're turning then straight-lining for a bit, then turning again. My own style would be more continuously on edge, with only brief transitions. That would be slower in terms of speed down the hill at least.

It may be worth trying a smaller board, or a softer board with a shorter radius, which would make it easier to carve rounder turns on at street-legal speeds. If you drew your turn shape on a bit of paper, I think you'd see why you don't need to crank the board over very far to make those turns. I'm ignorant of big boards, but I'd guess that they are at least less responsive to rider input through the turn than softer boards.

There's some "up down" movement through your turns, but it looks more like you're rocking the board edge to edge (not a bad thing), but not then loading up the edge into the turn. I'm guessing it's not a very responsive board, so you'd probably really have to stamp on it to get it to respond, which is maybe why you're not using an up-down movement to load the edge. Or maybe that's just me... but my approach would be that my weight "comes off" the board through the transition, then I push down into it through the turn, varying the pressure profile depending on the type of turn I want to crank out. 

Your outstretched arms look unnecessary, as your balance is rock solid. 

I don't know what that board is, but it may be that you're riding it precisely the way it was intended to be ridden, and that different riding styles may be easier on different boards.

[patmoore]

Just got back to CT and will be driving to VT shortly. Okemo is supposed to be open for a few more days so hopefully I’ll be able to try some of the recommendations. A few asked me what the radius is on the board in the video. I really don’t know. It’s a 158 F2 slalom board with a Donek plate. Boots are Head Stratos Pros on F2 bindings at fairly low angles. I also own a 170 Kessler GS board and  a 168 MADD.

I really appreciate the suggestions. 
 

Sunsurfer - good job of identifying the trail. I got a real thrill chasing Bode Miller and Marco Sullivan on successive runs (on skis) and videoed them with my GoPro Max.   You might have to view it on YouTube if the embedded video doesn’t play  

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by patmoore

[Neil Gendzwill]

There's a couple flavours of F2 SL 158 but they both have relatively tight sidecuts, around 9.5 m.  I think they're pretty stiff though so that might be a limiting factor.

9 hours ago, SunSurfer said:

The video linked below shows me at age 60 on the upper part of the West Buttermilk chairlift line

Nice turns!

[BlueB]

5 hours ago, patmoore said:

It’s a 158 F2 slalom board with a Donek plate. Boots are Head Stratos Pros on F2 bindings at fairly low angles.

For free carving on mellow runs, I'd try a softer board, ditch the plate and unlock the boots. 

For racing, keep on doing what you doing, it seems to be working for you. 

[patmoore]

1 hour ago, Neil Gendzwill said:

There's a couple flavours of F2 SL 158 but they both have relatively tight sidecuts, around 9.5 m.  I think they're pretty stiff though so that might be a limiting factor.

Nice turns!

Here's the F2 and the Madd.  I also have a 1997 154cm Hot Shine.

 

 

[barryj]

On 4/9/2022 at 8:55 PM, patmoore said:

I still need to get lower and can't seem to make any progress.

Hey Pat,

Wow,  Hope I'm still at it at 75!   

You look relaxed and comfortable doing those wide S turns and your carrying a lot of speed but that F2 board at that length and scr is more of a SL board and Really Wants To Turn.....but it's not getting  the message ....and turning will get you lower!

Like been said above, Try finishing each turn...make each turn into a C and finish uphill.  This will take more energy but you will see and feel the board wanting to turn tighter.....and these tighter C turns will force you to get  lower....to compress through the turn....which will get you lower/closer to the  slope.

Try it....on a favorite trail  pick a section between any two  lift towers and see how many complete C turns you can get between towers.   As your quantity goes up  you will be getting lower to make it easier to finish each turn.   Expect to be a little winded as your Driving the board will take more energy to finish each C turn than just Riding the board on big S turns!

This practice will also  help/force you to pull your arms in closer to your body to finish your turns.

Have fun!

[NateW]

The rear binding on the Madd looks like it'll hit the snow if you get leaned in too far.

The Kessler 170 GS would be my pick for getting low. I have their 174 and it's a lot of fun but it also needs a lot of speed to get leaned way in.

[drschwartz]

Pat,

So I think you look great for 75 years old. I think the main issue is just that we aren’t as flexible as we used to be , or should be for really carving a snowboard. In order to really lay down turns you need to be able to  dissociate the lower body from the upper a bit better, and that is very hard to do at our age.

Below us a link to a drill from Lexi, a young girl we have raced against many times, and a friend in USASA and on the US SB team who we were just with at Nationals.

 

[drschwartz]

Below is a clip of my last run at Nationals this week. I teach the drill to my students, and try to practice it regularly, but as you can see, I just can’t get there anymore.

My recommendation: just keep riding, work on flexibility and balance, enjoy the he’ll out of it, and don’t worry about how close to the snow you get.

 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0advYSqWR_6b6Y_FAiJPZtOxA

[patmoore]

10 minutes ago, drschwartz said:

Pat,

So I think you look great for 75 years old. I think the main issue is just that we aren’t as flexible as we used to be , or should be for really carving a snowboard. In order to really lay down turns you need to be able to  dissociate the lower body from the upper a bit better, and that is very hard to do at our age.

Below us a link to a drill from Lexi, a young girl we have raced against many times, and a friend in USASA and on the US SB team who we were just with at Nationals.

 

 Thanks!  I had watched Lexi's video before and just rewatched it.  Very helpful.  

[patmoore]

4 minutes ago, drschwartz said:

Below is a clip of my last run at Nationals this week. I teach the drill to my students, and try to practice it regularly, but as you can see, I just can’t get there anymore.

My recommendation: just keep riding, work on flexibility and balance, enjoy the he’ll out of it, and don’t worry about how close to the snow you get.

 

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0advYSqWR_6b6Y_FAiJPZtOxA

For some reason I'm just getting a still shot instead of a video.  I would love to see it.

[SunSurfer]

I recognised your second trail too. The approach to the midway Village Express chairlift on/off at Snowmass. Did you come down off Banzai Ridge? Both your edited sections are of smooth and shallow gradient sections that don't challenge technique. Do you have video of steeper sections, that might be more revealing for things to work on?

First things though.
1/ Boot overhang - do you have any currently? If so, get rid of it.
Getting rid of boot overhang will obviously prevent boot out, but increasing your binding angles has a second benefit for older riders with a stiff mid-section.
2/It reduces the amount of trunk twist necessary to get the line between your shoulders more across the board. What has been called a "+" stance. Younger, more flexible racers often use more a "-" stance, especially noticeable on heelside, where the line of the shoulders is along the line of the board. But this is much more of a strain on the knees, holding the edge angle and doing bump absorption.
3/ My riding generally, and my NASTAR course performance improved drastically when I learned to ride out of the soles of my feet. The full story is told in

but the essence is this -
Using a + stance and binding angles around 60 degrees (front foot 5 degrees higher than rear), I learned to tilt the board by feeling I was putting weight on the sides of the soles of both of my feet. I was feeling that I was balancing over the lateral 1-2 inches of the board base. Heel side, there  was a little more weight on the front foot, toe side a little more weight on the rear foot. Left turns, weight on the left side of each sole. Right turns, weight on the right side of each sole.
The result was clean carves, a really solid balance feeling, knees able to work well as shock absorbers, and the kind of turns shown in the Buttermilk video.
My Snowmass NASTAR runs went from Silvers, with the occasional Gold, and a fair few DSQ out of the course TO reliable Platinum, with clean carves round every gate and feeling like there was so much more time to line up the next gate. That was the last time I was at Aspen in 2019. I ended the season ranked 1 (of 9) in the 55-59 section. Never made it to NASTAR Nationals as New Zealand is too far away and my one chance in the year to get to the US is in February.

3/ Do you have lift under your F2 bindings on your slalom board?
If you don't, then get 2 sets of F2 wedges, and heel lift your rear binding, and toe lift your front.
Again, this will make it easier for an older stiffer body to ride. It may also allow you to lengthen your stance slightly. I'm 181cm, with relatively long legs, and have gone from 50cm to 56cm with a noticeable improvement in stability, shock absorption and board leverage.

4/ Your HSPs are relatively stiff boots and have a design feature that limits boot flexion. I used to own a pair (till the shells cracked as the plastic got old) and I modified them for better heel hold down and ankle forwards/backwards flexion. The HSPs fitted my feet pretty well. I now ride UPZ RC10s and with Intuition Pro Wrap liners the UPZs are an even better fit.

 

 

Edited April 11, 2022 by SunSurfer

[drschwartz]

1 hour ago, patmoore said:

For some reason I'm just getting a still shot instead of a video.  I would love to see it.

Can’t seem to  be post the video. Says file too large. Will try again later