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Board shape: Is it worth going as narrow as you can?


Eastsiiiide

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19 hours ago, Eastsiiiide said:

Good question. Basically I want to see just how much fun can be had carving groomers!

So if for example the consensus was that narrowing the board has minimal returns in enjoyment, but can take milliseconds off your slalom time, that would be irrelevant to me, like putting carbon wheels on a mountain bike.   But if it means I can have a substantially new and different experience on a snowboard, then that starts to tip the balance to seeking out a board that really allows me to feel that extreme.  14-15cm is pretty exciting and something I'd definitely like to feel for myself!  In the bigger picture, I'm looking at how snowboarding fits into my spectrum of activities and what kind of boarding I want to do from now on.  The zen of perfectly carving groomers is an area that needs more exploration to find out its value to me, and I want to get to good data on that as efficiently as possible.  And I want to have fun.  Narrow boards sound like fun.

 

you have to try

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I think you should try a board that allows you to use your preferred binding angles with no boot overhang and no boot "underhang" - toes or heels inside the board edge.  Underhang robs you of leverage and quickness.

In my ripe old age, I've had to adjust my technique to protect my lower back.  No more twisting toward the nose of the board, I just face my binding angles.  I feel that angles around 56/53 help me achieve a good lower-back friendly posture.  This is the first year in several that I haven't had to see my chiropractor.  With size 28 boots, that means wider boards for me, 20-21cm.

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I make no claims of exemplary technique - I'm a self-taught hack - but even given my very modest set of skills and in this case a very shallow trail, the 18cm waist MK provides more turns and smiles per run than anything I've ever ridden. Even skinny little cat tracks are fun!

 

Edited by jim_s
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On 1/27/2023 at 11:54 PM, st_lupo said:

Triggered!   Putting carbon wheels on an MTB isn't about shaving time, it's about never having to true you wheels again and having a lifetime no questions asked replacement guarantee.

But carving groomers:. I'll vote for 19 to 20cm with my MP 29 boots and 65/60 stance.  Even in the meager pow that we get, that works pretty well for me.

Yes - @Eastsiiiidethe local shop I ride for has house brand carbon wheels so we've got lots of sets across different bikes, including the MTBs.  There are tangible performance benefits that are relevant to riding off road... 😎

I'm going to do more reading on binding angles.  I ride 57/45 currently.  I'm widening my stance by half inch (to 18.5") but wonder if I should adjust my angles too.  I guess I could benefit from more angle on rear foot to bring it close to front but technically not needed as I don't have any overhang.  I need to setup my 17.7cm waisted Prior WCR again and if there's a board of mine that warrants it, that's the one.  

 

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Skwal.
Narrow slays.

I ride my skwal all mountain all the time. Goes anywhere and does everything. Haven’t had it in anything over maybe a foot of fresh so no experience with it other than that. Eats up the chop, rails in the slush, carves the same if not harder than an alpine board. Charge your heart out or enjoy a mellow cruise.

Skwal.

 

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Bruce was working on a Coiler skwal on Saturday. Core looked absurdly narrow! I don’t like the concept in theory—I had a 17cm Virus in the mid-2000s and it was one of my least favourite hardbooting experiences—but would be fun to give it another try. 

Edited by ShortcutToMoncton
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11 hours ago, Jack M said:

I think you should try a board that allows you to use your preferred binding angles with no boot overhang and no boot "underhang" - toes or heels inside the board edge.  Underhang robs you of leverage and quickness.

In my ripe old age, I've had to adjust my technique to protect my lower back.  No more twisting toward the nose of the board, I just face my binding angles.  I feel that angles around 56/53 help me achieve a good lower-back friendly posture.  This is the first year in several that I haven't had to see my chiropractor.  With size 28 boots, that means wider boards for me, 20-21cm.

@Jack M this resonates on multiple levels, thank you.  The thing that's always bothered me the most about boarding is that it's so physically asymmetrical.  For softbooting, I used to favor the duckfoot stance so that I could switch and be symmetrical with either foot forward.  My body was younger and dumber then.  Now the idea of having one foot twisted backward in a duckfoot stance seems unthinkable from a body mechanics standpoint.  Instead I go to steeper forward angles on both feet, so I won't feel like I'm twisting in the middle like saltwater taffy.  But as someone whose feet are short enough that overhang and boot-out seemed like bigfoot-people-problems, the upshot is that I've pretty much always been boarding with underhang (nice word btw).  

So. Yesterday I went out for the first day back from injury (woot) to do some gentle laps on the K168 (if that's possible), and did an accidental experiment.  When I got to the mountain I discovered that I had hurriedly mounted the bindings the night before with the wrong bolts, so I wasn't going to be able to get the binding bolts fully tightened down once the disc had fully seated itself.  With some mechanical improvisations (washers) I was able to get them tight enough, it seemed, to at least do some low key runs just to test out the state of my injury on the bunny slopes.  It went fine, and after a while I was doing some passable carving but it felt vague/sketchy going from heelside to toeside.  Stopped to move the front binding forward a bit, and in the process discovered the binding angles had slipped from whatever I started at (60/55 or 55/50, front/rear) down to omg-what-the-heck approx 40/35!  Moved the front binding forward, set the angles back up to something in the 50's, took another shot at really tightening the bolts down the best I can under the circumstances, and wow, board feels great now.  Every run better than the last, really feeling nice at various turn radii (the K168 just begs me to get better, holy cow).  Honestly doing some of my best, most comfortable carving to date, just playing around with different body postures, trying to sit deeper on my heelside, etc...  Finish the day and, yep, the bindings had slipped again, down to 37/32 or something.  I couldn't believe it. 

Cue everyone freaking out about dangerous bindings, but they really weren't.  The bolts were not loosening, they were bottomed out, yet the F2 discs were still able to just eeeeever so slightly move under the extremes of turning forces--it was certainly not enough to make me turn around and go home.  It seems that having the bindings just a teensy weensy bit loose allowed my body to settle into a happier geometry via kinesthetic sense than I had chosen via executive brain function. I concluded that I've been so busy sticking to my "preferred" binding angles, that I've been giving short shrift to 'underhang'.  I think this also makes some sense as to why I've been relatively happy for so long using ski boots, but feeling... unconvinced, shall we say, since moving to alpine snowboard boots.  I just had a day with my bindings at the shallowest angle ever, mostly boarding with my body facing them, felt more relaxed than usual, and it was excellent.  Mungo is learning. 

Jack's comments are spot on.

I still want a hyper-narrow board though ;}

 

Edited by Eastsiiiide
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2 hours ago, *Ace* said:

Skwal.
Narrow slays.

I ride my skwal all mountain all the time. Goes anywhere and does everything. Haven’t had it in anything over maybe a foot of fresh so no experience with it other than that. Eats up the chop, rails in the slush, carves the same if not harder than an alpine board. Charge your heart out or enjoy a mellow cruise.

Skwal.

 

I dig, man, I dig.  Would love to try skwal.  Single-planking without having to stand sideways is very appealing.  

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On 1/28/2023 at 3:31 AM, philw said:

That said, they don't bring those out when there's 20cm of fresh on the piste, and I've never seen anyone ride powder on something that narrow. I suspect they're perfect for that specific type of turn.

I've seen a powder Skwal in action ( @skwalguy); Lacroix actually made powder-specifc Skwals.  Alpine boards off-piste is not my scene though.  I don't ride the same board (or boots) I carve corduroy on when there's 20cm of fresh.  That's why we have quivers.  65/60 or thereabouts to carve, hang ten at 15/-3 to surf.

Treat yourself to a narrow board if you want to expand your snowboarding horizons, but don't expect to settle on it as a quiver of one.  I have a 14.5cm Coiler Skinny, but it's not my daily driver.  Year's ago, it was on a Donek VladCrv 17cm that carving started to click for me.  Riding high binding angles helps you break free of the physical habits learned from soft booting at low angles.  There's more to alpine snowboarding that just snowboarding with plate bindings and hard boots; skinny boards with high angles helps you see the light.  Go skinny to expand your breadth.

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Personally?  Skiing Deep Bottomless Pow on Skis allows Penetration...Wide Shovel Sticks do not...Floating on the surface is great, but Penetration and mandatory Scarf action for Air, are the Runs that are burned in my Memory....I have always felt that when I put my Bindings at 45 45, with my Toe and Heels ending up exactly even, with the edges...that that was the way to Go, having seen Ace ripping runs apart, I believe width is a personal choice, Technique solves many issues

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I used to ride 18cm waist alpine boards, which was typical of race boards of the day. Race boards today are generally wider (19-20cm). Not that I race anymore, but my daughter convinced me to try a wider board about 12 years ago.The advantage of a slightly wider board is the ability to ride with shallower angles, say ~60°-55°fr and ~55°-50° rear, which enables you to apply more pressure to the edge using heels and toes in addition to the boot cuffs. This made a big difference for riding ice and hard pack, frequent conditions where I ride. 

When the snow is soft, I think anything works. If it's deep, I like something wider than my carving sticks for flotation. @Algunderfoot swears by his swallowtail skwal when soft snow is chopped up and tracked out. He sure makes it look smooth and easy.

 

 

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On 1/27/2023 at 11:16 PM, Eastsiiiide said:

@b.free and @yamifumi this is super interesting.  Thank you.    I see that @b.free had a virus that was both short and narrow.  Verrry curious about that.  Any board suggestions I might look at to explore my curiosities are strongly invited.  @yamifumi I just might want to take you up on that offer someday, I've been meaning to get out to CO anyway, thanks!  Sadly though I'm on the injured list at the moment, just playing wait and see.  I had entertained a glimmer of coming to MCC this year, but no dice.  

As @yamifumisaid I have a Virus Black Death 3, 15 wide 176 long. Amazing board, gives me so much confidence on busy weekends. Although you have to adjust to ride that skinny. Here are some examples on my riding on it on my YT channel:

 

 

 

Different styles of riding on the same board. Fun board, just not for everyone. 

Edited by b.free
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I suspect that it's going to vary by person, and the only way to really know is to try different widths. Bomber's classifieds are handy for this. 🙂 Try to keep length and sidecut radius similar as you experiment with different widths.

When I switched from soft boots to hard boots, I was worried about losing versatility. I don't race, I ride the whole mountain, jumps in terrain parks more than anything else... so I was nervous about switching to a "race" setup. But I hate soft boots. So I tried hard boots everything from 25cm to 17cm over a few years, always with my boots set to the lowest angles possible without booting out. Narrower always just felt better, until at 17cm I felt like I'd gone too far. 

So I backed off to 19cm, which works out to about 55/50 angles. I've had two custom 170x19 Doneks with 13m SCR (because I broke the first one after a few years). This year I'm getting another board with those dimensions again (because the second one surely won't last much longer). 

I also just bought a lightly used Virus with a 17cm waist, so I'm about to try that again... Maybe after riding 19cm waists for a decade, 17cm will be easier to adjust to? Or not. We'll see.

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On 2/1/2023 at 10:23 PM, b.free said:

As @yamifumisaid I have a Virus Black Death 3, 15 wide 176 long. Amazing board, gives me so much confidence on busy weekends. Although you have to adjust to ride that skinny. Here are some examples on my riding on it on my YT channel:

 

 

 

Different styles of riding on the same board. Fun board, just not for everyone. 

Awesome riding in a variety of conditions on a variety of boards. 

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