What's about the high angle restriction?

[cmachine]

Hi Blue Devil

Thanks for bringing up the point with the high angles in the other thread. This is a topic I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time. So let’s do it.

with high angles you get lousy balance

ok, I agree with this. But balance is also a matter of training.

plus you can't flex your knees on the longitudinary axis of the board as well as you can with lower angles.

Here I don’t agree : Most boots don’t have any lateral flex; the only flex they may have is – let’s call it here “longitudinal”.

The lower the angles are, the more lateral flex the boot (or binding) needs to be able to flex your knees in “the longitudinary axis of the board”. With higher angles, the flex of my knees in “the longitudinary axis of the board” goes along with the “longitudinal” boot flex and is therefore easier.
It follows that higher angles – not lower – gives you better knee-flex in “the longitudinary axis of the board”. (unless you have a boot with good lateral flex)

From the tech-section

“Don’t put more than 55° on your front foot.”

I don’t understand this restriction. J or P, please help me!

My opinion is as follows: With high angles, the backside turn is easier because it needs less effort to rotate until the hip is orthogonal to the board. “The butt hangs less outside the board”, which is also a nice style effect.
The other side is the frontside turn of course: With high angles it’s difficult to get the hip parallel to the board.

For those who don’t believe me: Proof with the extreme case of a low-degree-freestyle setting. I’ve never seen a low-degree-freestyler being able to bring his hip orthogonal to the board in backside.

Therefore a compromise should be found. For J&P it’s at 55°.

I hope I’m not totally wrong with the above statements and would like a discussion .

To J&P: Is it this (the compromise) what you mean or do you have any other explanation for the 55° restriction?

I’m looking forward to your critical answers
Stay Deep
Olaf

PS: I never had problems with high angles (up to 68 in front). There was only a problem on wide boards with high angles, because it needs more effort to bring pressure on the edge. Narrow boards and high angles were ok (except the balance problem)

[rankov]

hi olaf,

For those who don’t believe me: Proof with the extreme case of a low-degree-freestyle setting. I’ve never seen a low-degree-freestyler being able to bring his hip orthogonal to the board in backside.

what about the other extreme? if your angles are 90/90, i.e, one foot after another on the board you wouldn't have to do a rotation at all in order to get your hip orthogonal to your board.

so there must be somewhere between these two extremes an optimal angle (which is different for individual riders i guess) that allows you to do rotations in an optimal way to perform EC.

the question remains, why the optimum has to be below 55° (front foot).

to j&p: is there also a minimum angle (front foot) or is this value defined by the foot length?

boris

[nils]

If you an afford less than 55 you can try it> power is higher with lower angles.
I'm with 54-47 and its fine> basically the settings are empirical, and there is no rule! Experimentation is the way to go since we are all different, with different feets etc...

N.

[cmachine]

what about the other extreme? if your angles are 90/90,

Hi Boris

I did not expect any other comment from you than this

Almost 90°: It’s maybe skwal-style then. Just let you fall to the side without rotation in backside (if one can still call this a “backside” and not a “right-side” for a goofy carver like you). Your “butt” will never be outside the board.

Now the “frontside”: Principal 2 styles are possible:

1. J&P EC-Style with both hands in the snow: A rotation until the hip is parallel is almost impossible with nearly 90° bindings.

2. The single handed frontside (the one you often prefer): Just let you fall to the left side (as a goofy rider) without much rotation.


There may be some truth in these statements …. or not.

See you
Olaf

[cmachine]

to j&p: is there also a minimum angle (front foot)

An addition Boris:
To say it in your words: go to the extreme with the minimum foot angle this means NEGATIVE foot angle
I can't imagine anyone rides negative foot angles ANSWER: Yes, there must be a minimum.


Or...... Negative foot angles is like fakie riding with regular settings as a goofy rider.
Or for a regular rider: Try goofy settings and ride fakie.
If you can still lay down with these sets then, the answer is no: THERE IS NO MNINIMUM. and then I will give you the email adress
god at carver.cc

(for proper rotation your body must not have the same torsional stiffnes as the SWOARD)

Olaf

[vkrouverk]

As I understand benefits of smaller angles:
with high angles you limit your motion range: your feets are in different angles (at hips, knees and ankles) and they can't have same range of motions. Try to do squat with high-angle position (quite uncomfortable and very hard without rising rear-foot heel!) and then with zero-angle position - which one is easier?
If you have bindings with lesser angles, then both feet have similar (symmetrical) position and movement range will be greater - you can move hips forward-backward, left-right more easily and without changing feet position very much.
With angles around 90 you probably can't get very low (back knee will be against front foot).

[rankov]

hi olaf,

go to the extreme with the minimum foot angle this means NEGATIVE foot angle

in my opinion, the smallest possible angle considered should be 0/0, since with negative degrees you get the problems nicely described by you

Negative foot angles is like fakie riding with regular settings as a goofy rider.
Or for regular rider: Try goofy settings and ride fakie.

if proper rotation is important for performing beautiful EC and the ability to do rotation is strongly dependent on the angles (and of course of the flex/stiffness of boots and bindings) then i would be very interested in which angle range is optimal.

boris

[vkrouverk]

then i would be very interested in which angle range is optimal.

Optimal is probably 45: according to EC philosophy movements should be minimum and 45 deg. is exactly between facing nose (during heel-side turn) and toeside (during toeside turn)

[audacium]

Hi,

for myself I cannot use J&P recommendation anyway as my feet are too large. So for the front foot I have approx. 59 degree and for the rear foot approx. 51 degree. I tried riding with less steep angles but then I always was "leveled" from the piste on backside when my rearfoot touched the snow during "EC"-style riding.
And to keep a degree distance between both boots I had to increase front angle as well (I prefer large differences).
Still I manage to do EC, so J&P recommendation is not a dogma. But if possible I would prefer something 55 and 45 degrees.

Why? Because the steeper the angle the less natural the position feels for me, and I cannot keep such a good and flexible position right in the middle. I also think that such steep angles cause you to almost automatically have the knees pressed together which is not good.

On the other side I agree with you that freestylers with 0 degrees do not manage to one real low carve at all (apart from the less than ideal boards). On backside the butt hangs off which is really ugly.

I simply think that J&P recommendations are the fruits of long trying and experience and are the best compromise for the majority of riders between natural position and bringing the hip over the board.

For a beginning I would choose J&P angles and only after riding several times I would adjust if necessary. Over 55 degrees is very steep and simply too much for most riders, it should only be adopted after having learned a good style. Beginning with such steep angles might inhibit the learning process I suppose as well as injecting some deep seated errors regarding the position (knees together, overrotating, little flexibility).

Greetings, Eduard.

[cmachine]

Hi all

Thanks very much for the reply.

To summarize it, it seems that angle setting depends on personal prefs and are a trade-off between FS and BS rotation.

Maybe there really don’t exist “bullet-proof” arguments for angle restrictions like “ use max. 55°” (or “the smaller the angle the better”, etc).

In case there exist --> please post them.

Stay Deeep
Olaf

[pokkis]

I believe that there is no "ONE" thruth for angeles it depends of your personal style, riding style and also type and typical condition of slope what you usually ride. I think deepest angeles for my current setup is 80+ and lowest 35, for me it just takes some time to get used to big changes but for someone else it might be easier.
Me personally, i have allways preferred higher angles, which is just prove of my wisted taste

[BlueDevil]

Well...
Thanx, Olaf, thanx a lot
I really belived I had it all right, but then you opened this topic...And I learned something new!

I have always had some serious angles on my board(s), 'cos I do have large feet. Even when I tested one freestyle (or was it freeride?) board called something like "fat bob" (it said, "for people with large feet"). Even there (and that WAS one large board), I couldn't get 45* - I had to go over. So on the narrow boards, I go close to 80* (front), and I quite like it that way. But now, I'll have to put the lowes angle possible & try a couple of days, to get used to it. Then I'll see how are things with low angles, and I'll get back here to tell y'all about it...

[István]

Guys,

How come, that under such a topic no-one is for / against heel lifts. For example I ride 63, 57 and I use a quite big heel lift. This is how I find it comfortable. I am quite tall (188 cm) and not too flexible (especially my back is quite rigid), so I needed this type of setting to be able to go low.

I do not want to change my current settings as it is a result of a couple of days experimenting. On the other hand I am still not sure if this is the optimal one.

It works good now, but if I manage to buy a Swoard for the next season I am sure I will try it first with a lower angle. Who knows, it might help.

Cheers,

István

[cmachine]

How come, that under such a topic no-one is for / against heel lifts.

Hi István

Search the forum. You will find some threads about lift/cant. There was a detailed discussion about it last year.

Regards Olaf

[vkrouverk]

Hi, István!
I rode also Silberpfeil with Conshox and F2 bindings rear foot high heel lift worked best for me (also had inward cants and front foot toe lift, mostly because I'm short: 167 with 30 '' inseam) with binding angles 60/55 and 48 cm bindings apart.
Now with Swoard I put (according to recommendations) bindings flat, 53/47 @48 cm and this seemed to work quite well (perhaps because I had my SB 423 boots unlocked? need RAB instead!), although had only 2 days to test it, but next week will have 9 days in a row (days like this: ) in mountains and after this can probaly say better, how it works. Hope to add this EC to my bag of tricks as well....