I Have a Lot of Questions

[crackaddict]

Taking a coaching cert this week and a lot of questions have come up.  Looking for some history and current culture please.

What was the first twin tip board?  When was the word "switch" coined?  I thought we used to call it fakie?  

Is there soft boot carving scene in Europe?  Are Oxess and Kessler making wide waists yet?

Thanks Boys.

 

 

[Neil Gendzwill]

First twin tip was the Sims Kidwell I think. 
In skating terms, fakie is riding backwards whereas switch is riding your opposite stance. As far as I understand it. So if you’re rolling backwards and do an ollie with your feet in your normal position it would be a fakie ollie but a switch nolly. It’s a subtle difference and not sure how it applies to snowboarding. 

[philw]

Twin Tip
Kenny has some claims on the twin tip, but it depends precisely what one means. Ken still has his old boards.

https://barfoot.com/about/

Quote

About a year later, Ken Achenbach, Neil Daffern, and the BARFOOT crew in Canada had developed the very first twin-tip snowboard under the BARFOOT name. They sent Chuck the design, and that’s the board Dave Achenbach rode on the very first cover of Transworld Snowboarding Magazine. “That was the first conventional twin-tip snowboard. Those guys designed it and they deserve the credit.” The rest is history. “After that cover, every board company on the planet was making twin-tips or double-ended snowboards. I guess, looking back, we probably should have patented that.”

Europe and soft boot carving I'm not sure, short of Iceland I've not been since Covid, what with not great snow this season etc. Koura Shapes is European though, albeit marketing a somewhat different image. 

I'm not sure commercially if Oxcess and Kessler will move in that direction, or if the more sideslip-focused brands will take that ground. Arguably Ftwo is in a place where advantage could also be taken. I think it depends if you can shift the mindset from Korea/Japan [which Koura wisely did not] or not. Perhaps they'll all start Japanese sounding brands

Switch/ Fakie In the early days I thought people used the term "fakie" more than "switch", where as today it seems to be the opposite, but I'd have to analyse TWS's text to know if that is true. I used to ride both skis and monoskis backwards...  we never used either term.


My library's organized in a way I like but which makes rapid location of books tricky. I did manage to find a 1991 text "the basic essentials of snowboarding" by John McMullen, published in the USA/Canada in 1991. The glossary includes the term fakie, but not switch. And it doesn't include ollie because back then they weren't noboarding, so the action was different. The meaning of ollie has since changed somewhat.

I do have other books from the time, somewhere. Mostly they were of limited use, but I was already a more advanced rider than the instructors and I was just trying to hoover up all the information I could. I was on the internet, but almost none of you lot were on it at that point: it was good for snow conditions in BC, that was about it.


 

 

[ShortcutToMoncton]

1 hour ago, philw said:

My library's organized in a way I like but which makes rapid location of books tricky. I did manage to find a 1991 text "the basic essentials of snowboarding" by John McMullen, published in the USA/Canada in 1991. The glossary includes the term fakie, but not switch. And it doesn't include ollie because back then they weren't noboarding, so the action was different. The meaning of ollie has since changed somewhat.

Oh man, as soon as you said the title it brought me back. I used to take that book out of my local library in the early 90s!!!!! 

[Rob Stevens]

Where you could go “fakir” or “backards”?

Kidwell round tail. 
 

A true twin, where the tail looked like the nose?

Ken and Neil’s Barf. 
 

Not waiting for a round tail to go backwards? From the second TWS on a 1500 FE with the left hand swallow broken off. 

Edited March 30, 2023 by Rob Stevens

[CB Utah]

First twin tip was indeed Barfoot.  I used to own one.  Heaviest slab of a board ever. Tough but not the most enjoyable to do tricks with in the air. Riding backwards was indeed called fakie and ISM mag started jokes about flakie.  Best of luck on your cert.

Edited March 30, 2023 by CB Utah

[philw]

It was hard, in the UK at least, to find information on what was a sport no one other than me had heard of, in those days. And for a laugh, from that same book, page 3:

Quote

The latest development in boots is the hard boot, which is much like a ski boot but more flexible. This boot uses a step-in plate binding, which attaches to the front and back welts of the boot. These new boots are the ultimate in warmth and comfort. Hard boots give an incredible amount of turning and edge control. They are the choice of most alpine, slalom, and extreme back country riders.

To me that's obviously that's a US perspective; this side of the pond the world looked a little different, at least in those very early days. I remember seeing my first French kids dressed like [what I thought was probably] LA gangsters with their park gear... the future was theirs, for a while at least.

[nextcarve]

8 hours ago, crackaddict said:

Is there soft boot carving scene in Europe?  Are Oxess and Kessler making wide waists yet?

Here in Switzerland soft boot carving definitely isn't that relevant as it is in Asia (Japan, Korea). But it might have some momentum in the future.

The Oxess CX (276mm waist)and the Kessler X-Carve (260 mm waist) are both softboot carvers, but in their serial specs they're not what you would consider as wide. Both being custom board builders they might build them wider.

Other European soft boot carving boards would be the SG Soul, Virus X-Carve, Nobile N8, Swoard Stoke.

[dhamann]

there's more stock spec'd wide and ultra wide softboot carve specific boards being offered in europe than in the US or north america. as mentioned above. another is OES.

[Xargo]

My racing coach called this "Fakie backside eurocarve". Does this qualify?

[barryj]

[crackaddict]

Thanks for all the answers boys!

I looked at those European manufacturers' websites and only saw two boards with even mid-wide waists: The SG Soul goes at 275mm in the XT version but it's only 159cm long with a 9.75m scr.  The OES FR Wide 162 boasts a 28.1cm waist and a 9-14m scr but it's not metal.

All my Canadian softboot carving boards are titanal with waists between 29.4 and 30cm and sidecuts between 12 and 16.5m.  Wake me up when Kessler, Oxess, or SG start making big metal freecarvers at 30cm please.

Only one more question for now: When I try to gain speed over rollers I compress at the top and push into the downslope and that's what I see in BX races too, but tail guiding for the kids' team here the coach was telling them to stand tall at the top of the roller and compress in the lowest part between them.  I tried it and it worked, but now I'm confused...

 

[inkaholic]

Squashed at the top and extend, push legs down, into the troughs. 

Many people think to lower your COG on the backside is "pushing down". It is not and you won't feel the acceleration. Think of the roller trough as a turn. You are extending legs past the middle of the turn then retracting some to edge change. That turn is the trough on its side. 
Hope that helps. 

ink

[SunSurfer]

In the off season try riding a pump track on a mountain bike. Learn to do it with a minimum of pedalling. The vehicle may be different but the timing is the same.

[crackaddict]

Thanks @inkaholic and @SunSurfer.  This is the way I've always done it, on bikes too. 

The confusing part was the coach telling the kids to stand tall on top of the roller, and then trying it and it kind of seemed to work...  Is there an alternative method that works in certain circumstances or was Coach Cam just plain wrong?

[inkaholic]

1 hour ago, crackaddict said:

Thanks @inkaholic and @SunSurfer.  This is the way I've always done it, on bikes too. 

The confusing part was the coach telling the kids to stand tall on top of the roller, and then trying it and it kind of seemed to work...  Is there an alternative method that works in certain circumstances or was Coach Cam just plain wrong?

Bikes, skateboards, snowboards it all works the same. 

It does kind of work but you aren't able to apply power until you stop the downward movement of your COM and start to push with your legs. At this point you have missed the backside and gravity assisting you to gain more momentum.

ink

 

[Rob Stevens]

2 hours ago, crackaddict said:

Thanks @inkaholic and @SunSurfer.  This is the way I've always done it, on bikes too. 

The confusing part was the coach telling the kids to stand tall on top of the roller, and then trying it and it kind of seemed to work...  Is there an alternative method that works in certain circumstances or was Coach Cam just plain wrong?

As a step on the way to learning how to jump features, I get it. 
As a way to stay on the ground and further, generate speed (the two aren’t the same), I don’t. 

[Cthulhufish]

The physics is straightforward. You crouch into the front of the roller to reduce the normal force pushing you backwards, and you extend into the back of the roller to increase the normal force pushing you forwards.

If the advice to stand over the top and crouch at the bottom worked, I suspect it's simply a matter of a different way of timing the same movement. If you start crouching at the bottom and start standing at the top, that's pretty much the same as crouching into the front and extending into the back.

[crackaddict]

Thanks Boys!  

[Rob Stevens]

5 hours ago, Cthulhufish said:

The physics is straightforward. You crouch into the front of the roller to reduce the normal force pushing you backwards, and you extend into the back of the roller to increase the normal force pushing you forwards.

If the advice to stand over the top and crouch at the bottom worked, I suspect it's simply a matter of a different way of timing the same movement. If you start crouching at the bottom and start standing at the top, that's pretty much the same as crouching into the front and extending into the back.

That’s true, but kind of a confusing way to say it. 
As for the coach’s phrasing to say “stand tall on the top of the roller”, that’s how you launch into the air. 

The confusion I mentioned comes from where he might have said “START to stand tall at the top of the roller”. Strictly speaking, that’s true as when you start there, you’re probably compressed and will arrive at full extension in the trough. If you miss the word “start”, you’ll do it opposite and won’t know what the **** is going on. 
 

[crackaddict]

25 minutes ago, Rob Stevens said:

The confusion I mentioned comes from where he might have said “START to stand tall at the top of the roller”. Strictly speaking, that’s true as when you start there, you’re probably compressed and will arrive at full extension in the trough. If you miss the word “start”, you’ll do it opposite and won’t know what the **** is going on. 

Yeah...  I don't know where the confusion came from, I'm gonna have to ask Coach Cam what he was thinking.

[johnasmo]

At a macro level, we have a chairlift loading us up with potential energy that we then convert to kinetic energy and friction in delightful ways until we're back to where we started.  At the micro level, though, there's rollers and pumping and another energy source, our bodies.  Sucking up on the approach can prevent converting kinetic energy back to potential energy; extending at the top can inject your energy as potential energy into the system; pumping a transition can convert your energy to kinetic energy.

Being tall at the top of a roller doesn't necessarily translate to more kinetic energy (speed) out the bottom unless your able to convert that potential energy to kinetic energy in the right direction, forward.  You need down force against the slope for that to happen.

Maybe better to say, be as high as you can to still pump the transition.  Which still might mean sucking up the approach and waiting to push out against the transition in short, steep rollers.  On longer rollers, though, you can still get up high and then fall into pumping the transition with that much more energy added.  This video on pinewood derby strategies illustrates that importance of adding potential energy if you can.

[st_lupo]

Yes and no (IMO).  There are multiple ways to pump a track, but this is a really great article that describe the physics of maximizing acceleration on pump tracks.  Angular momentum.  This sin’t the most intuitive description, but it is pretty much bang on, and covers why you can even accelerate in banked turns with no change in elevation.  Where you push/pull to get the most bang for you buck is probably slightly different from what most people think.

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/how-to-pump-your-bike-physics.html?pbref=p

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Where is the part that tells you to flap your arms like a dorky flightless bird? 

[Cthulhufish]

The conservation of angular momentum model, net force model, and potential energy model can all be used to explain aspects of how pumping works. All three models require simplifying assumptions that just aren't true in practice, but they are still useful models for explaining concepts behind pumping.

In reality, all of those effects and more apply simultaneously.