Skier times Vs Snowboarder times

[NMU Alpine Boarder]

What is a comprable time for a boarder to run against skiers on the same GS course? I am not looking for a specific time, more of a general percentage, I.E. if a skier can run 30.0 sec, and a boarder runs 45.0 sec, the boarder ran 150% or 1.5x the skiers time. I am just looking for some form of comparison, since I am only competing against one other boarder untill regionals in Mid-Febuary. I also would like to have something to shoot at during training. Thank you for replying, and to all that participate in this forum. I have learned so much here since finding it in October

[Guest dragonfly jones]

On par scores like Nastar, or Town races that handicap is roughly 3-10 seconds on a 35-38 gate course, remember we as riders are facing full sized gates as opposed to running stubbies where we can take a tighter line - unless of course your armored up then the 3 seconds is a little more realistic.

I hope that this sort of makes sense to you, any questions please feel free to ask.

Regards

[Guest Randy S.]

I've been curious about this for some time. I've seen the Nastar 10%. That may be close, I don't know. As dragonfly points out, the gates make a huge difference. In a slalom with boarder gates, I can beat most skiers, yet my handicap in our league is a good 25-30% off theirs. In a course with full skier gates, my times are more in line with the 30-40% difference (on a GS course). On a skier set slalom with skier poles, all bets are off.

Wearing armor definitely helps. You need a forearm pad and something covering your entire leading arm and hopefully your shoulder too. Plus your shins and hips (leading side only). You need to hit the gate with your arm, not your lower leg. Hitting a 6' tall pole with your lower leg will almost surely bump you off your edge and your line. If you can get the gate with your forearm, you will knock it down enough so that it doesn't affect your edge. The real factor I've noticed is what all this does to your ability to read ahead in the course. Knocking tall poles aside forces you to focus on hitting the pole correctly (where skiers just cross-block and it matters very little where on their ski pole they hit the gate). Because of that, you are distracted from looking 1-3 gates ahead and can easily end up out of position. It gets especially complicated when they build a delay or flush into the course. Previewing the course becomes tremendously important when boarding a skier course.

If you can get them to set stubbies for gates, you'll have a much more level playing field.

[pokkis]

It is also question of who has build course. When i build track, it is more carvable and times can be more equal, but when some skier builds track then time difference is larger.

But as general thumb of rule, i keep that if i loose more than 10% then either i'm rideing quite badly or track is built for skiers.

Specially with short tracks, like here in Finland, one can loose lot in first 3 gates skiers can skate(use poles to gain advance against boarder. But if bord friendly tarck will help a lot.

On NM Nastar tracks few years back time difference was in level of 10% for me atleast :D

[NMU Alpine Boarder]

Thanks for the replies. I understand that course and conditions can make a huge difference. I was just curious. It's kinda funny you merntioned hitting gates with your arm. All of the skiers were amazed after out first race when I hit most of the gates on my way down. They thought boarders were supposed to "side-step" the gates, lol.

Kent, as far as that girl that your buddy talked to, that could have been the other boarder on our team. I'll ask her about it and tell her about the post.

Thanks

[Strider]

There definitely are a large number of factors, but I can give you some solid numbers for a short course based on the experience we have at our hill over the last 5 years.

If it is a skier set NASTAR course with big gates I and the other good hardbooters run 1.5-2 seconds behind the fastest skier at our hill who happens to also be our pacesetter. This is on a typical 11 gate gs course.

On the same course with stubbies we run .5-1 second off his time.

Now, when I help set up a snowboard course for USASA, we can get right up on his time and sometimes beat him if he has a bad day :).

The stubbies make a huge difference, and no matter what we always have a bit of a different line than a skier so if the turns are more rhythmic for the boarder we're faster, for the skier they're faster. I asked the skiers about this and it mostly boils down to what they are used to. They can go as close to the stubbies as we can, but almost all of them complain that they don't "see" the stubbies the same as a tall gate. They also aren't as used to a snowboard type copurse with more "rounded" turns and it throws their sense of rhythm off. These are only observations from our little hill, but maybe they will help

Here's to Good runs.. and fast times.

[patmoore]

I post a lot of NASTAR times each season on both skis and alpine board. My times on skis run around 22-25 seconds and 26-29 seconds on the board. I can narrow the gap considerably if the course isn't iced up (typical late in the day). Ice doesn't affect my ski times much but I have a much harder time holding an edge on my board (Volkl RT GS). Probably just my lousy technique. Anyone have suggestions for "riding the ruts" on a board?

[Jonny]

My results are similar to Patmoore's - given a turny Nastar-type course I'll be 10-20% slower on a board, but the more challenging, steeper or faster the course the bigger the difference. There was a course set up last night at the local hill which i might have been able to run faster on a board - very wide turns on pitch. Unfortunately I'm not part of that race-series, so I could just drool and leave.

However, I've been skiing forever, much of the time at a high level, while I came to boarding well after the first flush of youth and athleticism, so it's not really a fair comparison - I can manage things through guile on skis which I haven't the skill or strength to pull off on a board.

[Ed Tostanoski]

in our division's uscsa gs races last week, the good skiers were running 36-38 seconds, while the winning boarders were around 47-49 seconds. this was in a skier-set gs course with ski gates; the softboot majority was around 58 seconds. i'll let you know how our times compare for slalom after our race this weekend.