If you want to potter slowly down the piste side-slipping along whilst you're ground into the dust by intermediate skiers, then you're on the wrong page.
Back in the 1980s when most people had never seen a snowboard I was always being asked to explain what it was I was riding.
Snowboarding hit the main stream in the 1990s, and for a while everyone knew I was a snowboarder. But now I'm back having to explain what
it is I'm riding again. I think that's because nearly all the snowboards manufactured and marketed these days are
designed for the half-pipe. They're short floppy things which are designed for skate-style tricks in specially
constructed parks. My piste board doesn't look at all like those, so people ask what it is. It also attracts attention because
of the way it can be ridden, which is faster and more fluid than any pipe board. Oh, I also use hard snowboard boots,
because they're more comfortable and responsive than the laces, straps and leather of the soft fashion boots most people wear.
carving?
In the last few years my style of snowboarding's become known as "carving". I'm not a fan of that name. Carving's
just how any competent rider (irrespective of boots and board) turns a snowboard. Any expert rider can and does carve.
Worse, the name is generally thought to suggest something you can do only on piste with hard boots, which isn't
true at all. And of course everyone has to sideslip in order to stop.
A second name you may hear is "hardbooting". That doesn't work either, because competent soft boot riders carve
their turns too. On the odd occasions when lost baggage has forced me to return to leather and lace, my feet hurt and the gear was unresponsive,
but it didn't stop me from being able to ride and turn.
Finally there's always "Euro carver" or more recently "extreme carver". But these are descriptions of particular styles
of turn, neither of which I'm particularly interested in. To me those are stylistic forms in the same way that many park "tricks" are:
you wouldn't do them in the woods if no one was there to look at you. Like ski ballet or synchronized swimming, I can't
really see the point of those things.
Anyway, here's some information about riding snowboards on the piste. "Carving" if you must. I think that sideslipping
a snowboard on piste isn't all that much fun, so most people give up before they figure out how to carve. Hence this is a
minority interest, but Snowboarding's always been a renegade sport for those who were there at the start, so continuing to be
"on the dark side" is fine by me. Just don't call my board a "ski board", sideslipper!
what's a carve?
Carving is turning the board using the board's edge, as opposed to side slipping it around a turn.
I remember being shocked when I first heard in the early '90s that the newly established snowboard-schools in the uk
were teaching sideslipping as a way of turning a board. It may be easier to teach, but it's got very little to
do with how competent riders actually turn. They teach people onto a "plateau" where they can sideslip the mountain
but never actually learn to ride it. Try sideslip-turning at speed, or on ice, or in powder, or even with style, and
you'll rapidly realize that you'd be better off skiing. Or you could just sideslip to the park and hang out there for a
couple of years until you find something more interesting to do.
To carve a board you pressure the cuffs of your boots (which is easier if they're hard) to tilt the board onto its edge. Your
weight should be centred on the board, evenly distributed between both legs and over the edge which is in contact with
the snow. It helps if the board's flex is balanced to your weight and riding style. If you get that right, then the board will track
along the sidecut radius like it's on rails. You can control the amount of sideslip in the turn in order to control your speed by
feathering the angle your edge makes with the snow, which you do by subtly altering the how you're applying pressure
through your boots. If you push harder you can flex the board more, so it'll turn sharper; if you push less it'll make a
gentle curve.
As a contrast, the sideslipping approach used by most novice riders involves uneven distribution of the weight
between the feet, with the board ridden flat rather than on edge. When on piste, typically most weight goes on the front foot.
To turn, the body is rotated by swinging the shoulders and possibly arms, or just kicking out
the back foot to one side. The magnitude of the upper-body movements necessary will reduce with practice. The
board is flat so it can be slid from one "tack" to the other in this way. It's not clear to me why people actually bother
"changing tack" in this style; it would really be more effective to simply sideslip the whole hill on one "tack".
The key issue is that in the sideslip turn the turning-moment is generated by the rider's angular momentum: they twist on
top of a flat board. Contrast this with the carved turn, where the rider generates centripetal force from the edge of the board in
the snow to drive the turn. This leads to design differences between novice gear and gear intended to be used at speed:
- Sideslip boards don't need sharp edges. In fact sharp and bevelled edges make sideslipping harder
because novice riders may "catch an edge" and face-slap. Some sideslip boards go as far as having recessed edges
(although there are other reasons for this too).
- Sideslippers don't use the board's camber to turn, so the board's length and flex are broadly irrelevant. A shorter
board requires less torque to turn, and running length is largely irrelevant if you're riding flat relatively slowly.
Hence most sideslip boards are short and flexible.
- "Swing weight" is important if you're relying on your own angular momentum to turn the board. Hence sideslip
boards favour light weight over (say) torsional stiffness, which they don't need.
- Precise edge control from the board/binding/boot interface isn't necessary - all you need is something which
allows you to swing the back of the board around like a rudder.
It took me about four hours to learn to carve, once they'd invented boards with metal edges.
There were no lessons in those days to put me on the wrong track. It's not hard to learn to snowboard,
it's just that the marketing people want you to think that sideslipping in a one-piece fluorescent suit is the same thing. It's not.
gear
You can carve on just about anything. Expert pipe riders gain much of their speed from precisely this
technique used on pipe boards. On the other hand, some gear works better than others for carving... My piste
boards are designed for slalom racing, so they have to be easy to turn and very responsive. There are several key
features of these boards and their bindings compared with novice and pipe boards:
-
Carving boards are much narrower, with a waist width of about 20cm as opposed to 25cm or more.
This allows the board to perform fast transitions from edge to edge. Unless you have very small feet
then the width of the board affects the way you stand on the board. You can't stand sideways, and facing backwards isn't
too smart at speed, so you're going to have to have your feet facing much more forwards than pipe riders. There are
other reasons why you might want to face forwards, which is handy.
-
The board has a point at the front. You can ride a race-board backwards, but you have to look over
your shoulder and it's hard to see why you'd want to unless you want to show off to someone.
- Race boards tend to be longer than pipe boards. Length in combination with the board's flex governs how well matched
the board is to your weight and style. In practice most carving boards are in the 1.6m to 1.8m range. All other things
being equal a longer edge-length gives you more stability at high speed, so GS boards are longer than slalom boards.
- Race boards are longitudinally stiffer than park/pipe boards. That's because they're intended to be ridden at
high speed: the stiffness is needed to make the board turn well when overtaking skiers. Lateral stiffness is also hugely
important as the board needs to hold an edge. Ride a board which is too soft and it feels like it's "folding up" under you,
and although you can ride it the board doesn't give you any assistance. A board which is too stiff will be hard for you
to make track, especially at slower speeds. A board which is just right is absolutely obvious from the first run.
- The bindings are set at approximately 45-60 degrees to the board. That's probably lousy for tricks and switch-stance.
But it's brilliant for riding trees, moguls, or piste. With a forward stance you can turn the board
without moving your upper body: it's a smooth and powerful way to ride down a piste. And you can see where
you're going whilst keeping an eye out over each shoulder.
-
Race bindings don't release, but they are step-in and solid. There are no straps, rubber bands or duct tape.
There are adjustments to tweak
the rider's stance - typically cant, toe and heel lift. Some people are forever messing with these, but most will
find the sweet spot and then forget about all this.
- Boots for carving are hard. You drive the board through your feet, by pushing against the resistance of the boots. In
practice most people run with slightly softer boots than the stiffest race ski boots, but not much. It's
common to have different lift, forward lean and flex settings on front and back boots as they do slightly
different work out there. You need to tune the boots together with the bindings to get everything set perfectly.
Laces are for shoes not snowboard boots.
The bottom line of all this is that the gear's designed to be responsive. If you twitch, it'll throw you across the piste. Think
race bike, or sports car.
soft carves?
For completeness, here's evidence that it is possible to carve even
soft boards with rocker. Note however that this Revelstoke local's
shoulders are fighting the softboot angles somewhat; this is not BASI orthodoxy. But then I don't know any good riders who actually ride the way they teach beginners. Check out the flex pattern of the board too, and compare it with the significantly faster Pure Boarding rider's board in the picture at the top of the page.
styles
I just ride my board; I don't follow any particular style school. For what it's worth I think I use the "new race method" with
no upper body rotation. Maybe that's the "uk style", because I don't think anyone else here rides hard boots.
There are many different styles however, from those indistinguishable from competent riders on soft gear, through to the
"extreme carving" style, as demonstrated by the chap in the lime-green jacket at the top of this page1. Dave* (green jacket, orange pants here) rides with
a more modern functional style typical of Canadians.
links
1 This started in Europe and works on a variety of boards from
the originators' comparitively wide 25cm waisted machines down to Skwal-like inline single skis.