Guest Padraigh Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Anyone give me some tips on how to prevent skidding out on the heel side of my carves? I've been riding for 4 years now, but JUST got my first set of alpine snowboard boots (Head Stratos '04). My set-up is aggressive. I'm goofy, with front foot at around 80 to 85 degrees (whatever the max is with orginal TD step-ins). My back foot is around 65 to 70 degrees. I'm riding a Rossingol Dualtec from 2002. At 200lbs I think I'm pushing the limit of my 158cm board. Perhaps I just need to widen out my stance... any thoughts/tips/help? Much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 check it out on the front page of this site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skategoat Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Jack: I have the same heel-side skid out problem. I checked the welcome centre but don't see anything specific about this issue. Can you tell me what article discusses it? Thanks, Henry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Padraigh Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 http://www.alpinecarving.com/#Technique Dealing with Chatter Chatter can appear as two phenomenon: The tail of the board feels like it is oscillating back and forth, causing you to leave wavy trenches. It happens because the head and the tail of the board are each trying to carve a different radius. To fix this effect, don't maintain the same static pressure during the turn. Instead, apply dynamic pressure using a few techniques: Progressively shift your weight from forward to back throughout the turn Progressively increase your angulation throughout the turn Progressively twist your upper body towards the inside of the turn. The entire board chatters, especially on heel side. A few remedies include: Don't break forward at the waist, otherwise you will take pressure off the tail, causing it to skid out. Angulate to keep your weight over the carving edge. Get the board high on edge sooner A stiff setup on bumpy terrain is not a good combo. Do not tense up your legs, otherwise you will chatter the board and skid out. Relax your muscles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciek Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Originally posted by Padraigh http://www.alpinecarving.com/#Technique Progressively increase your angulation throughout the turn Progressively twist your upper body towards the inside of the turn. That actually will cause tightening turn radius (see balance of forces - Jack's article) which will cause in turn problems with quick stabilization when turn is supposed to be finished. Tight turn may cause additional skid of tail without proper preassure of board's edge in right spots. What you actually do is angulate properly and do not experiment with its excess. Also loading a bit more of body weight at the back (as mentioned) will help to avoid skidding tail. This is of course under assumption that we do not stomp hard on back of soft tail board, because it will not help. Originally posted by Padraigh Progressively twist your upper body towards the inside of the turn. Again will cause "overturn". basically upper body should not twist almost at all, but it cannot be avoided 100%. Twisting upper body may be followed by tucking and blocking knees and that will cause extra strains and preassure in wrong spots of the board. The last one advice about muscles is good, but it works slightly aginst results of "upper" body twist. The best school? Try it on icy slope to find out what angulation casues and what proper body position and edge preassure causes. I know, I know racers don't like ice... but I actually do and I am not one of them I guess;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciek Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Originally posted by Padraigh Anyone give me some tips on how to prevent skidding out on the heel side of my carves? I've been riding for 4 years now, but JUST got my first set of alpine snowboard boots (Head Stratos '04). My set-up is aggressive. I'm goofy, with front foot at around 80 to 85 degrees (whatever the max is with orginal TD step-ins). My back foot is around 65 to 70 degrees. I'm riding a Rossingol Dualtec from 2002. At 200lbs I think I'm pushing the limit of my 158cm board. Perhaps I just need to widen out my stance... any thoughts/tips/help? Much appreciated. Decrease stance angles. It seems that this setup promotes leaning your body too much forward and underpressurize tail of your board. Also your back foot has to work across the board more to control tail edge preassure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pokkis Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Max you can get out of TD1s is 70 degrees, so your angles are propably 70-60. So without knowing boot size it is hard to say if that is too much. btw board looks to be quite small for dimenssions :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Padraigh Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Angles are maxed on the front and about 5 degrees off from the max on the back. My foot is a 10M (or mondo 28). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtslalom Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 All of the above are good technical advice. My advice is to ride every day you possibly can. If you go out 50 times this year you will see quite an improvement no matter whose advice you take. Some people feel technical advice is important. Since this is your first year on a carving board, don't try to cocentrate on too many things all at once. Your problems will eventually remedy themselves over time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maciek Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Originally posted by jtslalom All of the above are good technical advice. My advice is to ride every day you possibly can. If you go out 50 times this year you will see quite an improvement no matter whose advice you take. Some people feel technical advice is important. Since this is your first year on a carving board, don't try to cocentrate on too many things all at once. Your problems will eventually remedy themselves over time. Or you will get bad habits that are difficult to get rid of. I was a victim of such habit riding board on front and freezing on tip without ability to quickly change edge. I also skidded tail because of that. Tucking knees was also what I used to do and my toe side turn looked terrible. I could never get my back knee drop on time.... since I was stuck on tip from previous heel side turn. I dropped my shoulder in a big struggle to change edge and as we all know this usually ends in fall on icer snow - bad mistake on not forgiving snow. The funny thing is that I used to ride at steep stance angles. Now, I am at moderate angles used by many racers as it works the best. 55F/51B on longer boards and 55F/45B on shorter once is my current setup that works quite well. (Here instruction from experienced guy could be helpful, but working myself with observation I obtained better understanding of principles) Now, my toe side turn looks exactly as you can see me on my avatar. Although not perfect I hope it looks a lot better. I control every skid and preassure edge of the board as I need without being stuck and helpless. It took me two years to get rid of that funky way I rode, but at least I had video tapes of my riding advice of folks on Bomberonline and some books. (thanks Jack for your articles that used to be in TWS and are here now and other carvers for hints) That's how wrong you can go with improvement when riding a lot without paying attention to what's wrong with that feel and how to correct that. It not always comes naturally over time after thosands of runs and days on snow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jgh Posted December 30, 2003 Report Share Posted December 30, 2003 Most hard boots have a fair amount of forward lean. This allows you to get compact with the lower body. The trouble is...if you are too tall in the lower body, the forward lean will push you toward the nose of the board (especially with the big angles you are riding) . Try putting on your setup on carpet, get in the stance that you normally ride at....are you on the front foot? If so: 1. Backing off your angles will help (I weigh 195lbs, size 10 foot and ride 60 front, 55 rear). 2. You can also back off your forward lean to allow you to ride more upright without getting pitched forward. 3. Ride in a lower stance making sure that you are flexed at the hips, knees and ankles rather than just breaking at the waist. Generally in a heelside carve, we allow our hips to draw back towards the tail through the turn. This helps to pressure the tail and keeps us off the nose through the finish of the turn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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