Scotty Pumpkins Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Here's where im at. This is my 8th year on a snowboard. I currently ride a soft boot setup. My board is a salomon fr 400, size 163 which is sort of middle of the road as far as flexibility is concerned, with burton cfx bindings, and burton driver boots. I ride goofy, and my angles are 39 front and 27 rear. With my current setup and some good conditions, i can carve pretty well. I cant get over like you guys can, but im okay. I just recently found this site and have found it very helpful. From reading some of the articles my carving technique has already improved. Id like to get more seriously into carving. A couple of years back i purchased a burton coil, size 156 and burton race plates, to get my feet wet. My idea of using ski boots failed miserably. I have just recently purchased a pair of burton reactors. I just need some help in getting my setup straight. Given the angles i ride on a soft boot setup, where should i start on the hard boots? as far as canting on the boot is concerned, i feel like im not bent at the knees enough, can i adjust the forward lean without any repurcutions? Any advice/tips you guys can give me as i venture into unchartered land would be appreciated. thanks Scot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Todd Stewart Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 try some angles in the 60s, as for forward lean goes, if your a big guy you should try it out. If it were me I would just pick a stance and stick with it untill you are pretty comfortatble. There is no sense in switching it a bunch of times in the first week or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baka Dasai Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 You sound at pretty much exactly the same point in your riding that I was when I first tried alpine. High angles (for a soft-booter), and carving well (in good conditions). Keep things simple. Set up your binding angles so that you have no (or very minimal) overhang, perhaps keeping a similar difference between front and rear feet as you have now (12 degrees). Adjust the forward lean to whatever's comfortable. Being upright is not necessarily a problem though - it just means you've got a bigger range through which to drive your knees forward. I use more forward lean on my rear foot than I do on my front foot. A bit of toe lift on the front binding and a bit of heel lift on the rear binding can make things seem more comfortable, especially if you like a wider stance. Keep your shoulders parallel to the snow, and everything will be easy :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Pumpkins Posted January 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 thanks for the tips, im going to mess with my setup tonight and most likely tomorrow night. I'll be taking her out for a test drive on saturday, and im going to leave my soft boot setup at home! Of course im sure conditions will be awesome, and i'll be on the bunny hill all day! LOL......Im sure i'll have a few more questions once i start playing with it tonight. Scott Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stan Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Some more ideas. If your regular ride is FR400 163 - and your alpine board is 157 - it will most likely feel too squirrelly(sp?). I originally went from Salomon FR300 152 to a 157 Burton FP, and it felt VERY squirrelly. This is just to say - expect it and deal with it. AVOID bunny slopes. One of the hardest things on an alpine board is to control it going SLOWLY (I personally find it HARDER than riding the damn thing switch). Go to a nice WIDE blue square, preferrably groomed and empty. Yeah, you'll take a couple of falls, but you'll get the hang of it that much quicker. Last point to remember - when you WIPE OUT riding an alpine board (and you will, we all do) - DO NOT try to use it as a break right away. It behaves QUITE differently from a regular board. Your best bet (at least initially) is to get the board IN THE AIR as soon as you can after you fall . . . Slow down with your hands, ass, face - THEN use the board . . . Cheers and let us know how it went! Stan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gecko Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Originally posted by Stan Some more ideas. Last point to remember - when you WIPE OUT riding an alpine board (and you will, we all do) - DO NOT try to use it as a break right away. It behaves QUITE differently from a regular board. Your best bet (at least initially) is to get the board IN THE AIR as soon as you can after you fall . . . Slow down with your hands, ass, face - THEN use the board . . . Stan HO HO that's no joke and my shoulder tells me about it daily...since saturday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Sounds like you're more than ready to take a bigger plunge into Alpine. There is an article on binding setup here. It's for Bombers, but you can apply much of it to Burton bindings. I suspect your Burtons came with one cant/lift wedge thingamabob. Most people just stick this under their rear binding and forget about it. Try that, but if you feel like your stance is uncomfortable while riding, you can try swapping it to your front binding in order to give you some toe lift and inward cant (wedge sloping towards the tail). Also experiment with different combinations of forward lean in your boots - they don't have to be adjusted the same as each other. Always experiment. I also suspect you are going to find your board feeling too small in short order. -Jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil Gendzwill Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 Originally posted by Todd Stewart try some angles in the 60s 60s are too steep for a Coil - that board has a 21.5 cm waist. I have size 27.5 and can get angles down to 40 degrees or so with my 4WD, which is the same waist width. Maybe try 50 front, 40 rear as something that will work on the Coil but is not too far off your current setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Pumpkins Posted January 22, 2004 Author Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 I see a bunch of you guys are hitting on the one thing that i was afraid of, board length. I was afraid that it might be too short. I guess im going to find out :).........the bindings did come with that cant plate, but for the life of me, i cant figure out how to mount it. It seems the screws that came with it (i bought it new and the package was unopened) arent long enough to mount to the board. I must be missing something, but i just dont know what it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Brown Posted January 22, 2004 Report Share Posted January 22, 2004 The shorter screws attach the center metal part of the cant plate to the board and the longer (standard) screws attach the binding to the cant plate. The center metal part is postioned one way for 3 hole (Burton) boards and flipped over inside the plastic cant plate for 4 hole patterns. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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