2nd day on hardboots

[jason_watkins]

welp, I had my second day on hardboots today. Got a few questions:

1. On the finish of heelside turns, particularly skidded ones, I keep ending up in a counter rotated position. I've been rotating slightly into each turn, and it works fine on toeside to heelside, but on heelside to toeside, it's like the board wants to just keep turning on heelside.

2. All day I felt like there was just way to much weight on my back leg. Even when I'd really throw myself foward into each turn, I still felt like most of the time 75% or more of my weight was on my back.

I was riding an incline 167 with TD2's and 413's. My setup was angles around 55/45, flat front, 3 degree cant/lift rear dialed in as mostly lift, slight cant.

Playing with the TD2's on the carpet later this evening I've ended up with angles something like 52/48, a narrower stance, and 3 degree front and back both dialed in as max cant+lift. This feels better standing around, but I still feel like I'm to much in the back seat.

Any tips?

[carvedog]

Hey Jason,
It sounds like you are just over rotating a bit and may need to change your focus point in thinking about initiating your turn.

Especially in hard boots with fairly steep angles (not extreme) like yours I have seen a tendency for some riders to not use enough extension and flexion to unweight the board forcing a more exuberant rotational move than is necesary.
If you think of turning when the board wants to turn (and she will tell you) by gauging the flex and rebound that you feel as feedback from the board, the rider then adds to it by adding up or down unweighting moves and it takes such little force that the board goes to the next turn almost like magic.

Even when skidding turns around the groups of folks that clog the runs you have to build rhythm with unweighting. To a certain extent with higher speed carving you have to do this less because you get so much energy out of the board.
I try to keep my rotational moves below the waist moving my knees (or one knee at a time) through an arc that goes from pressuring the toe to the cuff of boot to the heel. I am also a big fan of keeping lead shoulder over front foot and not perpendicular to the board. (and I ride 69 front 65 back on race setup)
On the carpet at home you should be able to rock back and forth on the board and lift either end off the carpet gently.
I hope this helps and best of luck,
Jerry

[Neil Gendzwill]

I think your second stance sounds better, too much difference in angles in the first.

[Hans]

Hi, Jason

Yes may be it's your stance angle. But more like your technique
I think. It's the second year I have learned myself the push and pull technique combined with the rotational technique. It works perfectly for me, especially in backside turns. No sitting and no skidding anymore. If you are interested you can find some instructional and videos at http://www.extremecarving.com/tech/tech.html

Stancewidth: bigger is more control, smaller is more steering/less control

I always choose for the advised standard (mostly 49 cm for my length is 179 cm), you can find my settings in my profile.

Hope this helps,

Greets Hans.