Boardercross. Alpine vs. BX/Freeride boards

[Snow Bandit]

Tell me how much faster or better alpine boards are in races or on tracks
Even if youre unsure

[nils]

Its an eternal question: on the flats and in large curves, an alpine board is often faster, keeps the edge better, this is why many BX racers used to ride with alpine... Now with the bigger jumps and tighter turns, the alpine set up gets you shaked a little bit..ALso in USA, the rule that prohibits square tails ( i love the fact that it is considered dangerous, and at the same time people jump 6' and crash together with no one considering its dangerous)...

We will have a Swoard getting tested in some BX races this winter...with softboot set up. It will say if having a softer flex on an alpine is a good thing or not

Nils

[István]

Swoard in BX? Interesting! Would love to read some reports on that.

Kindest,

István

[Nate W]

If the course has flat turns, as SL and GS courses usually do, hard boots have a big advantage. Soft boots and wide boards are very very rarely seen on the podium.

But if the course has banked turns, as BX course normally do, then hard boots do not seem to have much advantage. There was a big BX race a year or two ago where the winners were well-known SL and GS riders, who normally ride hard boots and alpine boards, but they chose wider boards and soft boots for BX, and won. I don't see why, but I can't argue with the results. (Sorry, I don't remember any of the names.)

Last I heard, Jasey Jay Andersen was riding custom-built long skinny boards in BX though. Something like 180cm, 15m radius, at 19cm waist. So I would not rule out alpine gear for BX. It just doesn't seem to have the big advantage there that it has for SL and GS.

[István]

Just a small addition to the topic: Virus has a new BX board that looks quite similar to the Swoard. Did not have the chance to test it, but Silber did and he felt it ok for EC.

So if a BX board works for EC, why not the other other way around?


Kindest,

István

[Nate W]

Check the sidecut on those BX boards, compare it to the sidecuts the EC guys recommend (12-13m). I don't see sidecut specs published on the Virus site though.

(I have boards with 10m and 13m sidecuts and I find EC-type turns to be a lot more fun on the 13m board. It was a post from Patrice on the Bomber forums that prompted me to get something with a 13m radius a couple years ago and I can't thank him enough. )

[nils]

well actually nate, it depends on your size... If you are 165cm, a 13m radius will be too big to EC nicely.. this explains why our boards have different radii depending on their length..
To be frank, that radius is totally theorical: its the natural radius of the board, but as said previously, you can turn a 13m radius 175M into a 5m turn when you really press it.
N.