Any advices on how to get lower on heel side carve - video attached

[zyzgerry]

I've been learning to carve on softboots and this is kinda my best results so far. This is my 2nd season on snowboarding. I'm at a point that I can get low on toe side, but find it hard to get lower on heel side carve. 

Equipment:

I'm riding Korua Dart, length 160cm, waist 27.9cm, effective edge 123cm. Burton Step-on bindings & Burton Ion Step-on boots (US size 9.5). Stance angles 36/27, stance width 51cm. I started with 30/21 initially, but found myself getting "boot out" on heel side too easily (or "binding-out") - thanks to the huge heel cup of Burton's. I increased my angles to try to mitigate that. With 27 degree on back-foot, I'm not getting any boot-out yet, but I'm sure if I learn to tilt the board more, I will face the issue again, because the heel-cup is still visibly outside the board by 1-2 cm.

 

I'm aware I can probably upgrade my gears to a dedicated carving board, but I'm hoping to get some suggestions on my techniques first. Welcome any critiques on my stance, posture, etc. Thank you for any input in advance!

Video

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by zyzgerry

[crackaddict]

Add more rotation and more compression on the heelside.  Try putting the back hand on the front knee through the (heelside) turn and remember to rotate from the hips.

Angles are steep, but okay if that's comfortable for you.  You might like a little more splay though, 21/36 for example.

51cm is very tight, try 54cm or more.  I ride 55-57cm stance width on my soft boot carvers, I'm 5'10" tall with a 31" inseam.

Edited March 7, 2023 by crackaddict

[Neil Gendzwill]

I think you're looking very good for only 2nd season!  I will let the soft boot experts provide detailed advice.

[pow4ever]

agree with crackaddict.

Looks great!
Be more dynamic (more up/down - left/right) on the heel side.  Bend the knee more.
Compare to your toe side - much more fluid.  Heel side seem static/rigid.  As to the how; that's million dollar question.  How to get more pressure on the edge?  could be setup/technique or both.  that's the fun part to figure out.
 

[Xargo]

It's a bit hard to see from the binding disc pic but if the disc is not symmetric, you could try to rotate it 180 degrees and then use the adjustment range to move to bindings as much towards the toe edge like possible like you have done now. From the pic it looks to me like the groove goes a little bit closer to the edge of the disc on one side.

As far as the riding is concerned, I agree with what James said. Compression is important. At the beginning of the turn your chest can almost touch your knees while your hips should rotate towards the nose, then you make a really aggressive early edge change (using the down unweighting the compression gives you) and then you can extend your legs to apply edge pressure. It's a matter of style you are looking for how much extension you should do and how early. For laid down style you want to go extend a lot early on but then if you hit a bump, you will be in trouble. If you are looking for a smooth carving experience, extend throughout the turn and also continue rotating during the turn. When you have fully rotated, that's when your turn should end. I struggle a lot with this personally and tend to not continue the rotation which causes me to lose grip and the edge starts to chatter.

*edit* I don't know if those bindings allow highback rotation but if possible, try to rotate them so that the highback lines with the heel edge as closely as possible. Also don't use much forward lean for the front binding since you need to be able to have your front leg pretty upright for the compression with forward stance.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Xargo

[zyzgerry]

2 hours ago, Xargo said:

f the disc is not symmetric, you could try to rotate it 180 degrees and then use the adjustment range to move to bindings as much towards the toe edge like possible

Thanks! I rotated it by 180 and was able to shift it towards tow edge by like 0.2-0.3 inches. Not much but I will take it  Didn't realize the disc is asymmetric.

Also appreciate the technique suggestions!

2 hours ago, crackaddict said:

Add more rotation and more compression on the heelside.  Try putting the back hand on the front knee through the (heelside) turn and remember to rotate from the hips.

Thanks Crack! I will practice those movements.

 

2 hours ago, crackaddict said:

51cm is very tight, try 54cm or more.  I ride 55-57cm stance width on my soft boot carvers, I'm 5'10" tall with a 31" inseam.

I will give 55 a try as well. I have almost the exact same height and inseam. I'm curious what's your board's waist - given that you ride 27/12 mostly - you must have a very wide board to not have drag right？

[zyzgerry]

2 hours ago, pow4ever said:

Be more dynamic (more up/down - left/right) on the heel side.  Bend the knee more.
Compare to your toe side - much more fluid.  Heel side seem static/rigid

Thanks! Yeah due to my struggle with heel side my body automatically tense up. Will try to be more dynamic!

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Like I said before, you definitely don’t want any narrower than you have now. With 8.6m SCR, that means your board is even wider under your feet than it would be with a larger radius. IMO at 10m SCR you probably should be looking for at least 28.5-29cm with those bindings. You could also look at some risers to minimize your bootout. 

For reference, here’s my 28.3cm waist board with 10m sidecut. I’ve been playing around with stance on this new board but the bindings here are a comfortable 27/12, 22 inch width (5-10 here). With the cup-less Flow NX2 bindings and size 8.5 short-length Driver X boots, my rear boot is pretty much exactly over the edges at 12 degrees, and I can get away with less overhang than you have even down at 3 degrees. 

In contrast, on my old 25.5cm waist board with 10.5 radius I really struggled with bootout and had to use something like 39/24. That’s great for carving, but in my humble opinion not for much else. 

I’d echo the previous advice on bending your knees more on your heelside and getting low low low, but keep your head and chest up and don’t break at the waist. 

Edited March 8, 2023 by ShortcutToMoncton

[zyzgerry]

41 minutes ago, ShortcutToMoncton said:

Like I said before, you definitely don’t want any narrower than you have now. With 8.6m SCR, that means your board is even wider under your feet than it would be with a larger radius. IMO at 10m SCR you probably should be looking for at least 28.5-29cm with those bindings. You could also look at some risers to minimize your bootout. 

For reference, here’s my 28.3cm waist board with 10m sidecut. I’ve been playing around with stance on this new board but the bindings here are a comfortable 27/12, 22 inch width (5-10 here). With the cup-less Flow NX2 bindings and size 8.5 short-length Driver X boots, my rear boot is pretty much exactly over the edges at 12 degrees, and I can get away with less overhang than you have even down at 3 degrees. 

In contrast, on my old 25.5cm waist board with 10.5 radius I really struggled with bootout and had to use something like 39/24. That’s great for carving, but in my humble opinion not for much else. 

I’d echo the previous advice on bending your knees more on your heelside and getting low low low, but keep your head and chest up and don’t break at the waist. 

Thank you! I didn’t get much boot-out until the last 2 days ago because I was doing even less angulation before, now I’m feeling the fear of boot-out every time as I try to go for more:)  I will indeed consider 28.5cm ish width in a new board. 

I have 2 questions:

1) what’s the benefit of 15 degrees difference between front and rear foot? - noticed from your 27/12 and 39/24.  

2) other than donek flux, is there any other board brand&model you would recommend - hopefully one that won’t break the bank either? (Consider that Flux raised my budget plan to ~$900 already, any other good alternatives?). What is your softboot board above? It looks great.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

I feel less stable the closer together my angles get. For me it only works on an alpine board where stability is probably less important anyway. On a board where I’d like to play around with side features, hop on a little BX course, run into some trees and then hop back onto the groomers and rip it, I need lower angles and more splay. 30/15 is the highest I’ve gone on this new board which was awesome for carving, but personally it’s much harder to do those other things at 30/15. Right now I’m trying out 21/3. I did have a bad hip flexor tear about five years ago after catching an edge while carving with a -3 rear foot and it really messed me up for a few years. I do find that lower rear angles are still pretty hard on it. I don’t have Knapton’s flexibility.

Depends on what you want to do…..if you’re only carving on groomers or if you’re got superman balance, then there’s nothing wrong with higher angles. 

My recommendation is the For Sale section   Keep an eye on it over the spring as people plan on new boards for next winter! Mine are Coiler snowboards which is a local shop to me, but I’ve owned Donek, Prior, F2 and Virus snowboards as well.

For softboot carving, avoid BX-specific boards and go wide. Donek is great. I’ve heard great things about Vaughan snowboards and I’ve talked to Dave about making his Wildcat board in a 28cm version…I couldn’t pull the trigger but there’s a guy on here who has a couple.

[slopestar]

Don’t reach for the sky with left hand heelside. Reach for your front foot/toe. Get down/get lower. Toe side is mint. Get a board with a bigger sidecut to mix it up

[John Gilmour]

I Watched the Vid.

Get your ass down low first for heelside. Pretty much it is getting your shins low to the snow for toeside and ass verylow to the snow for heelside.

Biggest mistake I see with skiers and snowboarders make is tilting into the turn and then trying to get low. You will find it much easier to drop you body first and tilt and brace rather than trying to retract while your COM is far away from the edge.

Definitely on heelside get low first then tilt aggressively. You need a lot more rotation heelside too than toeside.

On heelside bring your rear elbow bent at more than 90 degrees snd pretend you are balancing a cup of waitron it at the joint then in your heel side turn try to spill the water out of that imaginary cup one towards your heelside. its amazing how this locks out some joints to make them work together properly.

[Odd Job]

I'm not sure if I saw you.

But I am regularly carving at A-Basin; usually lenawee, powerline, west wall, high noon. Both hardboots and softboots.

If you can guesstimate, or use some angle meter thingy or protractor; that you aren't booting out at about 80+, that's good enough to carve it all. You do not need total clearance.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Odd Job

[dhamann]

7 hours ago, Odd Job said:

You do not need total clearance.

thank you.

[zyzgerry]

9 hours ago, Odd Job said:

that you aren't booting out at about 80+, that's good enough to carve it all. You do not need total clearance.

If I place the board flat ground on heelside edge, it stands at about 80-85 degrees (guessed) - however, when carving on the snow, the edge will dip into the snow (probably even more so on softer conditions), so I think that will probably reduce the angle I can carve without boot-out, right? At least that's what I think in my head, maybe this isn't a big issue..

[staples156]

One thing that's helped my heelsides recently is to focus two things: getting my back hand more in front of me (and thus squaring my shoulders more to the front of the board), and bending at the waist more. The first is the classic touch your front knee/bootcuff with you back hand drill that somebody already mentioned. The second is about focusing on not reaching for the snow with my inside hand and keeping my shoulders level to the slope by bending at the waist more. The feeling is a bit like trying to pinch something between your hipbone and rib cage (on a heelside it'll be your back hip). Other than that, I'll just second all the advice about being a bit more dynamic, rotating your high backs to align better with the edges, and playing with forward lean (try cranking both bindings all the way forward and see how it feels). Oh, and if you're getting bootout on your current board, getting some form of risers can help. I'm not up on who's making what these days, but Bomber Power Plates give you a ton of extra height, plus some handy cant/lift adjustment. Downsides are that they're heavy as hell, expensive, and I think no longer made.

[zyzgerry]

7 minutes ago, staples156 said:

plus some handy cant/lift adjustment

Thank you for the tips!

I've browsed a few riser plates mentioned in other posts, like Bomber Power Plates, Donek BX plates, and some others. Pretty expensive from what I've seen, and often not available to buy right now.. Just curious, what does "cant" mean - is it the angle where riser plate lifts the heel (but not toe) ever so slightly?

[staples156]

Lift/Cant: it's about tilting the base of the binding at a slight angle to help with your stance. Lift is tilting in the heel/toe direction (raising or lowering the heel in relation to the toe), cant is tilting perpendicular to that (side to side). Sometimes the tilting of the binding base may just be referred to generally as cant and lift either won't be mentioned or will mean something else (probably how much the binding raises your foot above the board).

Also, yeah the risers these days do seem to be expensive. Looks like Power Plates are being made again and they're $250. I paid $200 for mine about 8 years ago. At the time it was way cheaper than a new board (which I couldn't really afford), so that's the route I went to fix my bootout. I've since gotten a Donek Flux that's wide enough to not need the Power Plates and I much prefer that, but I get that the new board route is much more expensive.

Edited March 11, 2023 by staples156

[Odd Job]

@zyzgerry if the snow is that soft, it won't matter. Unless maybe you are racing, maybe. But then it is also unlikely you can truly tilt the board that high in a pure arc if the snow is that soft anyways.

I am aware you are likely referencing literature from some other sources. Really, it's not required and it's not the reason for your heel-side troubles.

Yeah you can still do EC heelsides if you wanted to with that clearance. The body position is an illusion (look at the board's tilt next time in an extreme carving video and also, look at how it's tracking; it never tracks fully cleanly and the board is still likely, not even at 80 degrees of tilt probably).

Edited March 11, 2023 by Odd Job

[John Gilmour]

Get that rear binding further towards the toe edge because the heel cup is causing boot out. And errr the button Step-ons you IMHO will always have too much “overhanging heel clutter” so you end up with one of two issues. 
 

1. If you move the heel inbound so it doesn’t drag your heel inside the boot relative to the edge of the board is too inbound and causes your heel actually lift off and away from the snow in the vertical pond instead of staying the same height off the snow as the edge tilts. So it’s harder to get on edge  and it tends to slam down. 
 

2. The heel cup is left hanging over so you edge great but only at low angles until sudden boot out . And you need an awkward position relative to hardbooting to get you body low but edge angle not matching …ughh. Which is why I avoided the step ons.

I like the Union Force a lot for softboot carving , I use the Union FC which actually isn’t quite as good.  If you swapped to say 32 Focus boa and Union Force you could adjust the heel cup to get it perfect and your issues would quickly sort themselves out.

Edited March 23, 2023 by John Gilmour
give

[barryj]

On 3/9/2023 at 3:27 PM, slopestar said:

Don’t reach for the sky

Like all have said, you need to be more dynamic with more compression... much sooner before you turn.  Your compression, turn and rotation are all happening at the same time.   You need to compress more, sooner....then rotate and the turn will be quicker and tighter.

Think prize fighter and get into a defensive stance (compression/dynamic) much earlier, then start the turn.

So don't reach for the sky and  loose the scarecrow stance.....get your body and arms into the turn.  Bring your elbows in to your side (fighter stance)  and in the turn move your arms to help your technique....for example this edge pressure and reach drill should help give  your arms purpose!   Have fun practicing!!!