Forward weight shift?

[nekdut]

Hey all,

So I was trying all of the tips suggested in the heelside turns thread, but the one thing I am not really getting a hang of is shifting my weight forward. I feel like my riding is pretty asymmetric (with regards to my legs), as my rear leg is VERY sore compared to my front. Can you guys give me some tips on staying "out of the back seat" or so to speak. I've tried driving my rear arm forward, making sure i am looking into the turn, trying to dive forward (but this feels like I'm bending at the waist too much). Trying to move forwards in my boots feels like I am going to fall over.

I am running TD1s 3deg front and back, 60f 55r, 19.5" stance. Would a 6 deg rear disc help?

[Baka Dasai]

When I think "getting weight forward" I try and do it from the ankles by driving my knees forward toward the nose of the board. But if my boots are too stiff I can't do this without applying too much pressure to the nose of the board, which is scary.

Try loosening up the flex of your boots and using your ankles and knees to get forward.

[NateW]

Where is your stance relative to the center of the effective edge? IMO that's a more interesting number than the width.

[nekdut]

Im using the center pairs front and rear on both my Donek FC 179 and Timeless 167. Should I try using the front set of holes? What about using a 6deg rear cant disk?

[rikytheripster]

I would say that giving yourself some more heel lift on the rear foot would definately help as well as adjusting your forward lean on your boots.

[nekdut]

riky:

Regarding forward lean, should I have more or less? I currently running both boots locked at 3 on my Raichle 124s, which are fairly soft to begin with.

[philw]

How are you finding your turns - can you hold toe & heel edges just as well?

You might try to set the front boot on minimum forward lean with the back on maximum and see what that feels like.

[Jagger]

Nekdut Iwas having trouble with heelsides too and one thing that helped was running with my front boot locked and the rear unlocked, I think it makes weight shift a little less restricted. It lets you kinda kneel on your back knee shifting your weight toward the nose of the board and still keep your balance.

Mike

[nekdut]

philw, I'm having the same heelside issues that people are discussing in the heelside threads but I'm working on it. I'll try both your locked max/min lean suggestion and jaggers locked/unlocked suggestion and see if that helps. Thanks for the input =)

[brodster_57]

From reading the posts it sounds like you may need to experiment with stance width and toe and/or heellift. What angles to you ride? What is your comfortable stance width? I personally use a little toe lift with medium heel lift and no canting. Around 60 degs on both feet with a 19.75" stance. So once the basic equipment issues are dealt with, you can than move on to technique. Although mant times it is a technique issue it sounds like this may be equipment. I will tell you that shifting your weight sometimes is awkward and comes with practice. If you want to shift your weight forward I would recommend driving forward from the hips and not the upper body, and feeding the board through the turn of course so that rear portion is pressured at the end. Also you may not be aligned properly on the board. I found I was having trouble engaging the nose of my board on heelside, and if I tried to dive, the board would slip out from under me. So I tried to everything from weight shift to torsional twisting of the board. I also experiment with canting too. What was the problem? My arse was not were it was supposed to be. I found this out when I rotated into my heelside turn. I am not necessarily advocating a rotational style but it felt like I was rotating because my butt was hanging out like on a freestyle board. My suggestion is to get video taped. Then through some analysis of it you can eliminate the technique possibility.

[nekdut]

brodster: im running 60f 55r. Someone suggested I try 65/65 to help with my heelsides. I'm running 3deg disks front and rear. I have a 6deg disk on the way and I'm going to give that a try this weekend. My stance width is 19-19.5 depending on the board.

I'm going to try to get myself video'ed this weekend to see how badly my ass is hanging outside of the board. Thans for the suggestions =)

[brodster_57]

Originally posted by nekdut
brodster: im running 60f 55r. Someone suggested I try 65/65 to help with my heelsides. I'm running 3deg disks front and rear. I have a 6deg disk on the way and I'm going to give that a try this weekend. My stance width is 19-19.5 depending on the board.

I'm going to try to get myself video'ed this weekend to see how badly my ass is hanging outside of the board. Thans for the suggestions =)

Right on, the 6 deg may help things out quite a bit. True that slightly higher angles help heelside carves in general but I don't think you will notice a huge difference. Many of the pro racers ride with a 3 to 4 deg splay between their bindings at mid to low 50 deg angles and have awesome heelsides. But if 65 deg is the key for you go for it, there is nothing wrong with it.

Your current stance is similar to mine and I really like it. Try playing with forward lean a bit. But like I suggested before video yourself first at your normal setup before you change anything. Let me know how everything goes. I am interested. I bet you that the video will tell you something you didn't want to know :-)...it always does. This weekend I will be in Idaho on a cat boarding trip. I have never done it before, I am excited. Later.

[nekdut]

So I ran 6rear, 3 front with a 19.75" stance. That made a big difference. My toe and heelsides were much more symmetric and I had a lot more confidence diving into turns. I'm still having a fair amount of rear leg burn so I'm going to try to try running 0 in the front. That said, anyone want to trade a 3deg+bumpers for a 0+bumpers? :D

[eddie]

Your bindings are great, but with the 124's you are not going to be able to pressure the nose like you want to.

Try the inline with the binding technique, like Klug, rather than the face-the-nose technique.

Keep on experimenting and good luck.

[Marker]

I know this is sometimes difficult, but try to change one thing at a time so that when you nail down something that you like, you can repeat it again on a different board.

I agree with Nate, the placement of the stance in the running length seems to be quite sensitive. I can move it around half a centimeter and notice different behaviour. Also, I agree with the other poster that suggested trying stance angles that are closer together. I find running the same angles both front and back, really helped my healsides.

Just keep at it. Finding a comfortable stance is a very satisfying feeling.

[Baka Dasai]

Originally posted by eddie
...with the 124's you are not going to be able to pressure the nose like you want to.

What you say seems like common sense, but my experience is otherwise.

I wear Raichle 423s, and have found that when I ride in walk mode (with the dial turned sideways), the easy forward flex makes it possible for me to drive my knees/ankles forward at the start of heelside turns. I can really feel the nose of the board bite into the snow and create the trench.

But when I put the boots in ride mode, they are too stiff for me to drive forward with my knees/ankles. If I try and drive forward, I create too much pressure at the nose, and the board just wants to do squirelly things instead of track straight. If I don't try and drive forward, I can't get the nose of the board to really bite.

I need to do a bit more experimenting as I haven't worked out whether the ability to get my weight forward is better served by soft flex or by more forward lean.

The other thing is that riding in walk mode gives me major quad burn. The other other thing is that my bindings are mounted slightly forward of centre.

Any advice/feedback?

[jp1]

nekdut, how tall are you? Maybe try going a little wider in your stance if you are tall. I'm a newbie, but I have learned the 'hard way' that by having mt stance too wide (was 21 3/4' now 19 1/4')it put so much pressure on my front thigh I thought it was going to explode every run. That being the case, maybe widening your stance will help even out the forces on your legs? Just a thought from my own experience?! jp

[nekdut]

I think I'm adequately pressuring the nose with the switch to a 6deg disk. Regarding placement along the running lenth, I believe I'm centered, or maybe a smidge forward of center. I'll play with this position a bit, but its a bit difficult since burton uses their stupid 3d hole pattern.

jp1: I'm 5'10, 170. inseam 31. I'm actually moving the other direction. I think i started at around 21" and now I'm near 19.75. I'm thinking of going a little narrower. Do you think this is a bad idea?

Regarding walk/ride mode, I'm running locked at 3 in front, and the dial turned in the rear.