Board edge dictating stance angle

[Mike T]

I've recently seen quotes from two individuals whose opinions I deeply respect, that seem to contradict each other:

The binding angles on your AM should be determined by the length of your boots and the width of your board. Ideally you want to have your toes lined up just over the toe edge and your heels over the heel edge without any overhang.

and

FYI - Since the entire board/binding interface of the TD2 (And Catek) is in the center of the board, having ones toe's/heel's near the edge does not add leverage. (The end of Base Plate on either binding does not contact the board which would lend credence to the myth about more edge control with toe’s and heel’s closer to the edge.)

So, within reason, there is no mechanical advantage of striving to get your toe's and heel's at the edge of the board. Especially if the resulting stance angle screws you up biomechanically. Biomechanical freedom is way more important and you should let your body tell you what the proper settings of stance angles and cant/lift should be.

Oh yeah, I have an Axis 167. I run 60/60 and rip the snot out of the board. Absolutely no issue with edge pressure.

My personal experiences up till now would suggest that Bob's got it right. I ride my Coiler AM and my Donek Axis with "underhang" with more comfort, better control and deeper trenches that I do if I set the angles as Sean suggests. However I've been coached by Sean and he's proven many of my assumptions wrong before and helped me become a better rider. Perhaps I just don't know how to ride lower angles in hardboots yet.

I am not qualified to add more than my own limited personal experience to this debate - but I and others would benefit from seeing the experts debate this issue. Any takers? I have no intention of starting a flame war and I have nothing but respect for the two gentlemen who I've quoted - I'm simply hoping to gain some understanding about stance setup and riding technqiue, and spark a good-natured debate.

[~tb]

Im probably no expert. . . but I have interest in this conversation and have been meaning to reply to bob's quote below with some opinions and observations. I would however like to wait until I have a couple free minutes to do justice to the subject matter.

-Todd

[kjl]

but I and others would benefit from seeing the experts debate this issue.

How about amateur debate? ;)

I agree with you and Bob - the binding is pretty much rigid, and the contact with the board is a circle (for at least bindings such as the TD, Catek, etc.), so it shouldn't matter how you angle the boot, in terms of the binding's ability to pressure the board, though of course it changes your ability to pressure the binding with your ankle.

In my opinion changing your angles changes your body mechanics for both turns (more forward = better heelside, worse toeside), so it follows for me that there is some angle where your heelside is roughly as good as your toeside, and you should use those angles on any board you ride.

If you have really big feet and your ideal angles are low, "matching your stance angle to your board" is essentially the same thing as "trying to get as close to your ideal angles on the board without getting overhang".

[Neil Gendzwill]

The two statements aren't necessarily contradictory. As Bob says, there's no mechanical reason why there's any difference between angles but there sure is a biomechanical difference.

[Mike T]

The two statements aren't necessarily contradictory. As Bob says, there's no mechanical reason why there's any difference between angles but there sure is a biomechanical difference.

I don't see how Sean's statement could be based on anything but reasons of physics and mechanics (as opposed to biomechanics). Biomecahnics is about body positioning and movement - which to me implies each rider has a "sweet spot".

I personally find that if my back foot goes much below 50* in hard boots then both heel and toeside turns suffer. Again, perhaps this is due to flaws in my riding and there would be nobody better able to address that possibility than Sean (and Sean, please feel free to make an example of me - I am never offended at having my flaws publicized, just gives me more reason to address them)

[Jack M]

Yes, the leverage your c.o.g. has over board inclination is not affected by binding angle. I believe this is Bob's argument. This neglects the leverage your FOOT has over the board, which is significant. If you're doing it right, an edge change starts in your ankles. I'll bet Phil and Kent will back me up here. The closer your binding angle gets to 90, the less control you have over the board with your foot/ankle. At 90 degrees, such as on a Skwal, your ankle is completely removed from the equation, and your foot has zero leverage over board angle.

[kjl]

As a side note - it does not matter that the binding only contacts the board through a circular disc in the middle. That's kind of like arguing that since a motorcyclist only contacts the bike at the seat, footpegs, and handlebars, that hanging off to one side will have no effect.

No, arguing that hanging off your motorcycle has no effect is like arguing that angulating at the hips on a snowboard has no effect. It does matter because you are changing where your center of gravity is.

But the force applied by the binding to your board doesn't change depending on the angle of the bindings because the one soft connection in the system (the rubber ring) is not changing when you change your binding angles.

I would say aligning your bindings to the width of the board might make more sense with, say, the old TD1's. The binding connection is still mostly rigid, but the binding footprint was so small and the board is not entirely rigid across the width, so I would guess some of the force at the edge was coming from those toe and heel bumpers, which did change location depending on the angle of the binding.

[Jack M]

But the force applied by the binding to your board doesn't change depending on the angle of the bindings because the one soft connection in the system (the rubber ring) is not changing when you change your binding angles.

Sorry, my "side note" was a tangent, I shouldn't have mentioned it. But my point is that the force applied to the board by your ANKLE <i>does</i> change with binding angle. At 90 degrees your ankle can apply no force to the edge.

[Mike T]

I will definitely buy Jack's statement about ankles and I suspect that Sean would agree too. The fact that we don't all ride Skwals supports this notion very strongly.

However the fact that we ride boards that do not allow for zero angles suggests the notion that at some point the biomechanical advantage of using ankle flexion to initiate the turn, introduced by lowering stance angles, comes into balance with the biomechanical advantge of being able to angulate deeply at the hips and have them off to the side of the board rather than along the axis, which is provided by increasing stance angles. This would lead to the conclusion that there is a range of angles where both ankle angulation and hip angulation constribute to an optimal total picture, and that one shouldn't set their binding angles below that number even if it means underhang.

Please point out any mistakes in my reasoning or conclusions.

My sense is that, for me, that range runs from about 55 on the back foot to about 48 on the back foot. I would not be surprised to find out that flaws in my technique are directly responsible for this observation - but so far it's making sense to me.

[jayj]

My two cents, although I can't say I'm very experienced w/ hardboots. Assuming that the boots are 100% stiff and are absolutely locked onto your feet/ankles/lower leg, then it would seem that the critical point of pressure would be in the point of the binding/boot assembly with the longest moment arm to the board's rotational axis, i.e.: the top end of the boot (front for toeside, back for heelside). The softer the boot, the less direct force this point can put into the board. Of course, I could be wrong.

[JJFluff]

I believe that the upper body is the cause, while everything below the waste is the effect. Meaning basically the complete opposite happens. The last thing effecting a turn is the ankles, then shins, and you can work your way upward. When riding, a turn is initiated by rotating your upper body into a turn, which applies pressure, in one direction or another, into your waist, which transfers down through your legs and onto the effected edge. The pressure being applied initially at the instep of your front foot on a toeside, or on the outside of the foot on the heelside edge. Ideally, doing all of this while keeping your body alligned linerally, while driving your body's momentum with the radius of the turn, driving your back knee, always forward, meaning in the direction your traveling, loading the effective edge with your entire body working as one. You compress your energy down and with the start of the turn, and release it in the direction your traveling. The amount you "drive", or pressure through a turn, can alter the radius of each turn. You'll find if you keep your upper body heading in the direction you ultimately want the board to go, you can hold a turn much easier. As long as your body is positioned correctly your board will follow. If your body's momentum is headed downhill while your board is trying to go across the hill, that's when the chatter happens. Now, instead move your momentum into and with the turn, and your feet and board will follow. By running lower angles with your binding, it makes it much harder to keep your body alligned and driving forward with the turn, on the other extreme, with your angles at 90 degrees, you become unstable. You basically turn your alpine board into a balance beam. Why do that?

[Neil Gendzwill]

When riding, a turn is initiated by rotating your upper body into a turn, which applies pressure, in one direction or another, into your waist, which transfers down through your legs and onto the effected edge.

I sure don't ride this way, or at least I think I don't. It all works bottom-up for me.

[Mike T]

I sure don't ride this way, or at least I think I don't. It all works bottom-up for me.

Same here.

Except sometimes when I panic, I wind up doing the top-down thing, and it only succeeds in making me skid and lose balance...

[tufty]

I sure don't ride this way, or at least I think I don't. It all works bottom-up for me.

That's how it feels for me, too.

It's an interesting question, and goes quite deep into the 'how do we turn' issue.

Let's assume that we can treat the board / binding / lower boot as a single, rigid, body. It's not entirely true, but not far from it. As the boot is wholly inside the two points of rotation of the board (the edges), we cannot apply any moment to the whole in order to angulate the board using downward pressure (which seems self-evident, but what it means is that any weight applied to the bottom of the boot can only go to make the board run flat). So, just using the lower boot, one would have to apply a lifting force at either the toes or heel to angulate the board. Now, it doesn't feel to me that I am 'lifting' the board using the toes (via ankle movements) when initiating a heelside turn, or with the upper foot (by 'standing on tiptoes') when initiating a toeside. On the other hand, I think I probably do a certain amount of this when 'fine tuning' a carve, i.e. when already fully angulated. So low binding angles will probably only help this when already fully angulated.

So how does the turn start? Let's add the cuff into the mix. I think we can treat the cuff as being rigid with the rest of the boot, as flex effectively only means a wider cuff. If we're not initiating turns using ankle or toe movement directly, the only other direct interface to the board is through the cuff. Push the shins forward, apply a force to the upper cuff and turn the board about its axis for a toeside turn. Similarly for the heelside. For maximum efficency, the force applied to the cuff should be at 90 degrees to the line from the boot/leg contact point to the board's contact point with the snow, or more simply, the cuff should be over the edge of the board near as dammit. That's a balance game, though, and probably the best idea would be to have both front and rear edges of the cuff equidistant from the edges. As the binding angles get lower, the boot cuff gets closer to heelside, making it easier to initiate heelside turns and correspondingly harder for toeside, I think.

I'm far from sure any of this is right. And completely unsure if any of it means anything. But it seems right from a mechanical point of view.

Simon

[kjl]

Sorry, my "side note" was a tangent, I shouldn't have mentioned it. But my point is that the force applied to the board by your ANKLE <i>does</i> change with binding angle. At 90 degrees your ankle can apply no force to the edge.

Ah, yeah - I think we are in agreement. Changing angles does change how you can control the binding with your ankle. Once you've found your sweet spot (e.g. the balance between ankle strength at low angles and the ability to pressure heelsides at high angles), I think you should just use those on any board. You gain nothing in the binding's ability to control the board by flattening the angles more on a wider board if you are at your own personal sweet spot already.

[JJFluff]

What I've been trying to describe, I tried to show in the attachment. If you focus more on using your body to initiate a turn. Your entire body mass is used to make the turn. If you start with your shins, the weight isn't directly on top of the board. Stand up and try to pressure an imaginary edge with your shins, you start to to do a little hip/wiggle dance.Your knees head right, while your hips head left, and vice/versa. You want your entire body to move together from left to right, leaning out over the edge. If you do it right standing in your living room, you fall over. Do it with gravity working with against you, the forces are equalized, and you make a nice easy carve. Your shins are just along for the ride.

Heelside turn demo.pdf

[Jack M]

JJFluff - what I believe you are describing are "cross-over" edge changes. There's more than one way to change edges, and cross-over is the least efficient.

[Mike T]

Ah, yeah - I think we are in agreement. Changing angles does change how you can control the binding with your ankle. Once you've found your sweet spot (e.g. the balance between ankle strength at low angles and the ability to pressure heelsides at high angles), I think you should just use those on any board. You gain nothing in the binding's ability to control the board by flattening the angles more on a wider board if you are at your own personal sweet spot already.

Yep - my line of thinking too.

I *could* use angles in the high 30's or low 40's on my Axis with no overhang (size 25 boots, TD2 step-in, 19.75" stance) and in fact I tried it, simply didn't work - all my turns finished with a skid or crash. Just felt so out of sorts.

[Jack M]

Bob, meet me out by the bicycle racks after school. I'm going to kick your ass.

:D

[Mike T]

So, I’ll try to get back to the article soon and post it when it’s done, but I encourage everyone to think about this AT LEAST from the hips down, vs. just the boot/board.

I look forward to reading your article Bob!

[Sean]

Wow, quite the hornet's nest! FWIW here is my two cent's worth:

First of all, everyone is built a little differently and has a different style. They also have a particular binding setup that they like. Power to em- that is why this sport is so cool- everyone has their own distinctive signature and binding setup from the way open swoard guys (aka the bail benders...) to super steep binding guys like Ken Tower and Stormin Norman. They all rock and all can turn the snot out of the boards.

I spend alot of time working with alpine riders and especially putting new folks on alpine gear and always use a "bottoms up" approach. I start out with balance and stance and devote alot of time messing with their feet and tweaking their setup until it is comfortable and IMO makes the board work most efficiently for them. Consequently, I have found that when I start folks out with moderate angles (it usually ends up around the 45 to 50 range) they are able to begin edging the board by actively using their ankles -opening and closing them- (dorsiflexion and plantar flexion for you PHD types). I understand that the binding is rigid and that is transfers force to the edge. I just feel that this force transfer must be accompanied by a movement of the center of mass from one edge to the other and this is more efficiently accomplished with a less steep binding angle if possible. I have also observed that when riders become more active from the hips down through the ankles, the upper body often sorts itself out and I never have to talk about shoulders, hands etc... When I encounter folks who are riding steeper setups and having to tip, hop and twist to make the board turn, alot of times just taking 5 degrees or so out of the binders and softening up the boot can do wonders, as it did with Galen K in the lesson I did with him last week.

Another huge factor is what kind of gear you are on and what kind of terrain you like to hang out in. If you rip down some of the monster wide super groomers in the Rockies, a steep setup and very directional stance should work out fine as you have plenty of trail space to let the turn develop and you can seek a long, pure carve. I live and ride primarily in the Pacific Northwest and like to ride all terrain (tool of choice 90% of the time is my 172 Axis). I like carving, skidding, trees, bumps, riding switch, ollies, nose rolls and small jumps. I ride 35/35 on my Axis and 50/50 on my FCI with no cants or lifts whatsoever and find those settings to be my most comfortable and efficient setup, bar none. I also ride with my boots much softer than I used to (thank heavens for my intuition liners) and find this gives me a much softer suspension and happy knees at the end of the day.

Despite what I think I know, there will always be someone out there who will make a very good case for why a different setup is better, and if it works well for them, that is great. So the bottom line is that there are good points being made on both "sides"of this issue. OK- 3 cents worth from a guy who spends too much time looking at feet. :o

[Jack M]

Bob: "So, if the boot cuff flex is linear with heel/toe, [...] wouldn’t the force exerted on the side of the boot cuff extract more leverage?"

I really don't think so - your calf muscles make up the difference and then some.

Do a little experiment. Go outside and do a 25 yard dash and time yourself. Then do it again without letting your heels touch the ground - run like a cheetah, all on the balls of your feet. I guarantee you will be faster. There is a similar advantage to using your feet/ankles/calfs while carving. Ignoring your ankles means you're doing more work moving your hips and shoulders over the board.

But as several people have noted, there is a balance point where ankle action and body alignment are optimized, which is why we don't all carve at 0/0. This point may or may not fall with your toes/heels on the edge of the board. But starting with them there is a good idea, especially if you don't know where to begin. With Sean's and my own empirical evidence, I stand by that recommendation. Myth... harrumph!

I'm afraid my articles have given you the wrong impression that the ankles aren't part of the equation and it's all hip to hip leaning. I wrote many of them at a time when asym boards and heel-to-toe asym technique were still popular, so I emphasized the benefit of lateral hip movements, perhaps at the expense of giving the ankles thier due credit.

[Sean]

Hey Sean,

Thanks for chiming in!!! I’ve got great respect for you and Snow Performance!!

I know you subscribe to a lower angle method and that certainly can take this conversation into another direction. Meaning, riding styles.

I think, we’ve identified three distinctive riding approaches: Euro Carve, Hip-to-Hip as in Jack’s articles, and Racer-Esque. Would you agree?

Certainly, each of these styles has major validity for types of turns and terrain and we should try to include this in this thread as it has a direct bearing on basic set-up.

So far, my comments, observations, and the bulk of the riding I, and my local posse (GoeffV, Ben Schurman, Jeff Day, Jack, Todd, PaulK, etc.) do is Hip-to-Hip.

So, we may need to clarify this before moving forward. And my (Unfinished) article qualifies this.

I might say, and feel free to correct me, that you’re basic approach is more Racer-esque. Am I right?

There are also all sorts of riding styles with regard to the type of turn. Personally, I like completing a tight arc, loading the tail, and diving hard into the next turn. There is the more relaxed GS type turn. And lastly the EC type which is large arcs, but will full body commitment.

Does this make sense? Am I missing any basic items?

With this said, shallower angles do not facilitate a lower CG stance that I prefer and that the Hip-to-Hip tends to favor.

Damn! I was just working on my "Jane, you ignorant slut" retort! Luv you too, man- think the best part of this post is that while we were "splitting the atom" we also started a discussion on styles and corresponding setups which ultimately may cause someone out there to be a bit of a mad scientist and tweak their gear in a way that suits them, not their buddy. If you want to get super geeky I think you could break the setups and styles into all kinds of subspecies, but I think the bottom line is that because of the dramatic difference in the gear out there and riding styles, we have an abundance of options available to us. I do think that starting newbies out with fairly mellow angles and lifts gives them a good point from which to start. Bottom line is that its all good. And yes, you could definitely say my genus (as opposed to genius-none here...) is more "raceresque." I have noticed lots of elite level racers using elevated, non canted binders, softer angles and softer boots than one might imagine- just wish I could ride like them. See you at SES.

-Sean :D

[Linus]

I gave up reading...... :D

[kjl]

I *could* use angles in the high 30's or low 40's on my Axis with no overhang (size 25 boots, TD2 step-in, 19.75" stance) and in fact I tried it, simply didn't work - all my turns finished with a skid or crash. Just felt so out of sorts.

Heh, little feet FTW!

I have size 25 boots, too. It's nice being able to go 55/52 on a Donek FC1, isn't it? :D