Alpine Snowboarding

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dongbin0313
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Alpine Snowboarding

Post by dongbin0313 » Thursday 17 December 2009, 1:36

Hello, i am new to hard booting and this is my first year
What i used to enjoy doing was all mountain, such as going through powder, and off terrain places in the woods. I was wondering if i am still able to do that with alpine snowboards. I have heard that alpine snowboards are only for groomed runs. Is it possible to ride alpine snowboard off terrain? in a powder snow?
thank you~~

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Transistor Rhythm
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Post by Transistor Rhythm » Thursday 17 December 2009, 9:34

You wish there was a board out there that would Do All ;)

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starikashka
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Re: Alpine Snowboarding

Post by starikashka » Thursday 17 December 2009, 10:21

dongbin0313 wrote:Hello, i am new to hard booting and this is my first year
What i used to enjoy doing was all mountain, such as going through powder, and off terrain places in the woods. I was wondering if i am still able to do that with alpine snowboards. I have heard that alpine snowboards are only for groomed runs. Is it possible to ride alpine snowboard off terrain? in a powder snow?
thank you~~
Riding groomed steep icy slopes in alpine gear is a different way to get a pleasure from snowboarding:-) This gear was designed for this, but you can ride any terrain using alpine gear :-) If you can of course :-)
i`m learning

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tali
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Post by tali » Friday 18 December 2009, 5:38

dongbin0313 wrote:What i used to enjoy doing was all mountain, such as going through powder, and off terrain places in the woods. I was wondering if i am still able to do that with alpine snowboards. I have heard that alpine snowboards are only for groomed runs. Is it possible to ride alpine snowboard off terrain? in a powder snow?
thank you~~
They say, that now you can do both freeride/freecarve in softboots/hadboots using DUAL, the new Swoard model :idea: I have not tried it yet, but it might be THE THING you want ;)

You can check this thread, if you like:
viewtopic.php?t=6312

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Post by philwi » Friday 18 December 2009, 10:13

Well, it depends how much powder you have in mind. You can ride a piste board in resort powder fairly well, if you're good. Balance is generally hard, but you can do it. I've ridden many storm days at Snowbird for example, queueing up for the first tram with people carrying huge STs with my little slalom board... but really there you're riding snow which sits on a skier-pisted base, so it can be deep, but it's light and there's a base to it. That's rideable, although the off-piste stuff would be better on a powder board if you can get one within your baggage limit.

In cat/ heli terrain, forget it.

Well, I rode an SL board at Wiegele's once for a bet. It was a half-day so I didn't have all that much to lose, but it's one of the physically hardest things I've done. Balance is hard, flats are really difficult. You can alternatively try a GS board (been there, done that), which will ride ok because it has a lot more float, but you don't have the right flex pattern for powder, so for example tight turns in the trees are tricky, because you're going to go fast and you can't sink the tail. Drops are hard because the boards are too narrow for side-side stability.

I've not ridden the sword boards, nor seen anyone try in cat or heli. They would appear to be well designed piste boards, not powder boards. The width will make them easier to ride than narrower boards, but the forces involved in laying down on the piste are different from those riding powder.

But this is also true of any so-called "all mountain" board. There's no such thing. Well, you can ride anything on anything, but you will find that most expert powder riders use.... powder boards... and most expert piste riders use, well you know what I mean. "all mountain" == novice in the uk at least. Soft boards which are bad at everything. A bit like HB pencils: not for serious use.

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Schneewurm
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Post by Schneewurm » Friday 18 December 2009, 12:19

Hi dongbin0313,

it depends very much of the used shape. There are alpine snowboards which are not good for running without a lot of stress outside slopes. Otherwise there are many well balanced shapes of alpine snowboards on the market for to do this. Swoard try to fit Your demand with the brandnew crossover-board DUAL. (*)

You can find a lot of so called "all mountain" freerideboards for softboots, which are way worse for to go through powder, then usefull alpine allmountain snowboards.

Well, it depends also about the place where you go snowboarding. Places like Canada, which offers excellent and every time highest snow conditions at all, are not the same like we have in the Alps. At minor snowhigh like e.g. we have in the Alpes (see thread and picture here) with about only 20 feet overall / +6.5 feet fresh snow, a well shaped short alpine freecarving snowboard at standart waist can be also used for powder-snowboarding, if snow was settled. But powderboards or swallowtails can be then better to ride.

Watch also picture below! As an authentic snowboarder I like sometimes to go on off terrain places in the woods during night time (#). For that I take most time the alpine board, shown at the picture. Sure this downhill was about 1000 feet less, then what You prefere to do at Smuggs. In general I know, in tight and tricky woods softboots are easier to ride, then hardboots.

(* Others boards like e.g. Nidecker Proto, Radical Freecarver, Powderequipment Type A and so on can also be used. Freerideboards with hardboots, like e.g. Völkl Selecta, Nidecker MegaLight, ... can be also good for general use - powdersnow and carving!)

(# By the way, if anybody read sometimes in this forum, there are not many threads about things like that. Most time people (I'm guess they come from the northern then Switzerland) like to prefere much more to sit during night time at a bar for to get beer and so on, for to enhance level of drinking/chatter, instead of level of riding a snowboard.)
Attachments
Night_ridings_in_the_woods.jpg
Night_ridings_in_the_woods.jpg (54.36 KiB) Viewed 9992 times
Gliding on Snowboards,
like Pogo, Kessler, Virus, Hot, Nidecker and others,
from 151 up to 183 cm and 14 to 27.4 cm width,
covering any kind of shapes with
any kind of boots and bindings.

dongbin0313
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My type of board

Post by dongbin0313 » Friday 18 December 2009, 16:30

I have the Nidecker race SL board.. show in the picture
would i be able to do more than carving with it?
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erik
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Post by erik » Friday 18 December 2009, 17:05

To be honoust: I think it's a dumb question...

If you really want something: almost everything can be done! One just has to TRY IT!

Ofcourse you can go into the powder, do some moguls,.... but the board just isn't designed for that job so it will be thougher.

Can you ride the tour the France with grandma's bicycle? Ofcourse but....

It's al about preferences and choises. If you can not choose you might choose a combined product that can dual (read: a bit of this an a bit of that) :wink:
Swoard 2D 168H #13, f2 race titanium, raichle AF600 ACSS, Northwave .900

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Post by leeho730 » Saturday 19 December 2009, 11:55

I've tried both Swoard Extremecarver and ATV on powder... and what can I say? They both SINK. Probably I'm not good enough to ride powder with the alpine snowboards, but I found that freeride snowboards were much better for the job you're looking for.

And your board is narrower than the two boards I mentioned.

So... yes, it's possible to ride powder with alpine snowboards, but not as enjoyable as freeride snowboards.... :(
Swoard 168M&S / Dual 158
TD3SW /F2 / Ibex
Stratos / RC10 / T700

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