Board Radius and ECarving

[DW]

I was wondering how important the radius is in learning how to E-carve. I have a chance to get a new board for Xmas and I was wondering if I get a board with a smaller radius how much more difficult this will make learning/executing the E-carve technique. I am a big fan of this technique and hope to be skimming the slopes by the end of the season. Anyway these are the specs on the two boards I am debating:

Prior Freecarve (4x4)
Length 179 cm
Eff Edge 152 cm
Waist 21.4 cm
Radius 10.5 m

Donek Axis
Length 177 cm 182 cm
Eff Edge 158 cm 163 cm
Waist 21.5 cm 21.5 cm
Radius 10.96 m 11.67 m

I am 6' 1" and 220 lbs. I currently ride with Burton fire boots, Bomber SI bindings, and '01 Burton Factory Prime 167. I would love to have one of your custom boards but the price is a little to high for me at the moment. Any help, opinoins, on which one would be more suited to E-carving would be great.

Thanks

Dan

[nils]

i hadn't notice both those boards have such a small radius.... I have noticed sean's axis that is wide ok, but thought the radius would be much closer to the EC protos...10.5 is almost the radius of a board 15 cm shorter....
I have tried last year EC turns on a rented blast that had a 9m radius, it did ok frontside, but due to narrowness, i couldn't lay backsides due to boot overhang, however, i noticed that the small radius made it quite hard to recover from the turn, despite the respect of the proper technique in the turn... too small a radius makes your head and upper body almost freeze in the turn, since they are almost at center of circle...
So my advice would be to go for the largest radius on the shortest board , providing the width is enough.

nils

[rcrobar]

Hi

I currently own the Prior 4x4 you are thinking of buying. This board is a lot of fun but not right for laying turns right over. My feet are also size 11, the 21.4 cm waist is still too narrow. A while back Dave Morgan recommended a Coiler board that was once a custom, but is now being offered as a stock board; here are the stats:

Coiler All Mountain
23 cm waist
12.7 m sidecut
Same shape as the 4x4 or Axis
$460 USD

http://www.coiler.com/nonlisted%20used.html

I think Prior will make his stock race boards wider for a $100 or $150 more. (You will have to ask the Prior, Coiler and Donek guys about this.) So ...another option might be buying a race board with a wide waist ....that is say 174cm, 23 (or wider depending on your foot size.) with a 13m side cut. A race board has a lot more effective edge than say the Prior 4x4, which will really help with fully laid over turns.

Hope this helps
Rob

[NateW]

Coiler will let you vary the dimensions of any of their boards for about USD $50 extra. I think it's worth every penny. Basically they will cut whatever shape you want, it just has to come out of one of their existing molds, and the mold shape determines the edge length. So, find a board in their catalog with the effective edge length you want, and choose your own width and radius and taper. They will adjust the lengthwise and torsional stiffness to suit your riding style.

Mine came out of the All Mountain 169 mold, but with a 21cm waist, 13m sidecut and 3mm taper. They even extended the nose and tail a bit for me, since I like to ride switch and/or off-piste. With the extra nose and tail height it's 174cm long. Last year that was right around USD $500 shipped; I think prices have gone up slightly this year.

I'm very happy with the quality and will definitely order from them again, possibly in just a couple weeks.

[NateW]

I did my first hip-dragging carves on a board with a 10m radius, so it is possible. But, since the board whips around so quickly the turns feel almost violent. The bigger more graceful carves I get with my newer board (13m radius as I mentioned above) have a much nicer feel to them.

Tight sidecuts do have advantages though. You can also ride a bit slower, or get lower for the same speed. You can do more carves in less space - with a 13m radius it takes a wide piste to get in a full turn. With the higher speeds and bigger turns there are only a couple of places at my "home hill" where I can link more than two or three laid carves.

One one hand I feel like my 10m board was a good introduction to carving, but on the other hand I kinda feel like I outgrew it fairly quickly. Then again, I often feel like I can't build up enough speed or find enough space to really make the most of my new board's 13m sidecut. The speed-and-space problem mostly has to do with the small mountain I ride at though, if I had more wide-open groomed stuff that's fairly steep I'd probably just plain love it.

This doesn't answer your question, but I hope it gives you some food for thought.

[DW]

Thanks guys this is about what I was guessing the replies would be like but I had to check. From the sound of it, it would be better to spend a bit more and make sure I get a board with a larger radius then just sticking to the standard designs. I was looking at getting a used Prior to try and keep the price down, bt it looks like to get a board I will be happy with for more then one season I need to get the larger radius. Anyway thanks for the info and the suggestions finding the right board for a decent price is harder then it looks.

Thanks again,

Dan