Heelside catapult to faceplant - ouch

[Trip43065]

I've been carving for years and am very comfortable with the classic alpine style turns.

Occasionally I play with EC turns. I can do a pretty good EC toeside, but have never made an EC heelside without skidding or falling on the snow. Local conditions are usually poor with ice, mixed snow etc.

I usually blame the conditions, but on a recent trip west we scored perfect uncrowded groomers. I stepped up my EC efforts and found a new problem. I was able to laydown some heelsides, but not able to recover and ride to the next turn. So I hit the next attempt with a little more speed.

It was awesome. for a moment I was totally stretched out in full contact with the snow and the board was still carving and turning very hard. As I approached the fall line and pulled my knees up to exit, I was suddenly catapulted across the board and slammed into the snow chest first. The fall resulted in a broken rib and an early end to my trip.

I'm okay with the risk and will recover from the injury. I'd just like to know if this has happened to anyone here. I would also like some opinions on what happened, what I did wrong, and maybe how to prevent a similar fall.

The setup is a Donek 175 custom GS, stiff, 13m SCR, 19inch stance, no cants, no setback. Head boots (well used and getting soft)

One thing to note. The board left an incredibly small arc on the snow, about 3m radius. The track was flawless and I've never made a turn that tight at that speed. It was very different from the big sweepers I see on the EC videos. My toeside laydowns are much wider with the board leaving a looser track.

Thanks,
Trip

[nils]

i have no idea about what caused your accident, but just about the tightness of the turns: they are usually way smaller than the theorical radius of the boards... especially when you use the pushpull technique u were using, u end up to push so hard in the turns that the board just grips and wants to close the turn... timing is then very important if you want to recover and stand up again!

N.

[István]

After doing an aggressive push the board returns this energy to you (it kicks back) which feels like being catapulted. Beginner carver skiers happen to kick themselves on the nose with their knees, because they are not expecting the skis to behave like this...

In snowboarding you have a completely different body position so you'll probably not kick yourself on the nose.... but you use this force to change edges - to jump into an other carve.

However, I don't really understand how you landed on your chest after a fully laid backside.... maybe a piece of the story is missing due to some additional shock/head injury....

Cheers,

István

ps.: On soft snow the tip of the board can get stuck and then you really feel like a cannonball.... but that's a different story.

[Trip43065]

Thanks for the responses.

I understand the turn radius has less to do with the sidecut of the board as the board gets higher on edge. I mentioned the track because it might help describe the circumstances of my fall. I've never left such a track on my toeside EC turns. So I think I'm setting my heelside edge differently, but not sure how. Heelside turn was set very deep with no skid at all. At the bottom of the turn the board came back so hard that I couldn't manage it. Not a problem on my toeside turns as the board will start to skid a little instead of loading up so much.

I agree about the timing and think I tried to exit that heelside way late.

Istvan- Instead of changing from heel edge to toe edge, I changed from my heel edge to my chest. Too much speed and poor timing I guess. Imagine a very quick cross under turn with the rider projecting himself down the fall line only in this case the board decided to go back up the hill.

Thanks again for the input. I can't wait to go ride and maybe learn a little. This is a challenge, but if it were easy I'd probably go do something else.

Trip

[RicHard]

...

As far as I can understand, it seems that your board was really carving without skidding so it was really decambered: the board gave back his strenght (due to its flex) running away on the other side... making you fall. This way.

[canmanski]

Hey there

That happened to me a couple of times, way back... and included getting down to the lift queue with a seriously bleeding nose without realizing it and making a number of ladies look away in a hurry, ha ha ha. Fortuntely no broken bones.

I found that too much angulation of the body during the turn was causing it(ie. the legs and hips were almost horizontal and body was more vertical). As you really pushed this turn (as you said such a turn never happened to you before) you obviously put a lot pressure on the board. Towards the end of the turn, it was released back at you. But it did not lift your whole body. Because you were angulated so much, a sort of a cross-under turn happened. Your head and upper body stayed almost in one place, and the board and legs zoomed pass underneath you and you landed up in a superman position, falling hard on your face and front shoulder.

At least that sort of thing used to happen to me. So, if you ride angulated in perfect snow coditions and your board grips like hell, and your turn radius is 3m as opposed to normal 10-13m, then be prepared for the enormous surge of power you will receive from your board. Basically you have to have the strength to withstand the energy and remain on top of your snowboard or try not to angulate at all (like Patrice and Jacques) ... otherwise it will be superman again....

and that's my 0.02€

Cheers
Bart

BTW We video taped the lesson that Jacques was giving on EC during ECS06 and hope to release it at the beginning of next week....