What's the lowest soft boot angle you can still heelside EC with?

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Mr_Orange
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Joined: Sunday 7 December 2014, 2:56

What's the lowest soft boot angle you can still heelside EC with?

Post by Mr_Orange » Wednesday 20 February 2019, 21:11

My Coiler board finally came in. This weekend was my 2nd attempt at learning to EC. I was able to get the toeside laid down pretty good. Backside still needs work but it's already getting deeper than it ever was.

For the last few years i rode in La Sportiva AT boots and Phantom Splitboard Plates. I told Bruce (Coiler) that I wanted a board that i can EC in with both soft and AT boots so he built me this sort of hybrid board with that in mind.
Here's the specs on this Coiler: 12-14M sidecut, 145 effective edge, 173 total length, 262mm width
coiler soft boot ec.jpg
I'm trying to settle on an ideal soft boot binding setup so here's my main question (keepin in mind that this is my 2nd EC attempt and i can't actually do fully laid out heelsides yet.): What is the lowest binding angle you can set soft boots at before your heelside EC is compromised?

The reason i ask is because i initially looked into typical softboot EC stances and went with a 36f/27b stance. This is what i experimented with a few times last year (just on a regular park board though) to get use to foward stance riding. It felt pretty good. This past weekend, i decided to try something a notch lower at 30f/24b half way through the day. I instantly liked this a lot better. The board felt "less wide" with the feet getting closer to the edges. Better for general freeriding.

I went home and ran the Arnaud 85 degree boot-out test. It seems like with my board width and 8.5 size boots, i think i can get down to even a ~27f/18b stance without boot-out. Has anyone here EC'd with angles that low or even lower?

I initially ran the Arnaud test last year on a similar width board so i knew what width to specify when ordering the Coiler. Since then though, i've gotten 2 new things. 1) an Atomic Bbackland Ultimate boot with an even shorter BSL than my Sideral. 2) Technine hibacks which allow you to sink your boot way deeper into the heelcup. Both these things allow me to get to an even lower binding angle without bootout.

Seems like having a higher angle means having to rotate your body less during a heelside turn?

My main priority with this board was to learn how to EC, and 30f/24b actually felt pretty decent, but it would be awesome if I could settle on a stance that's even more dynamic.

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