Stiffness of Newbie Boot

Arvin,

So are you just talking about making very small adjustments using the
toes? I'm sure I do this, but not to move from edge to edge. And I'm a
little confused about ankle vs. toes in your post.

Beginners almost always have sore toes and heel lift because they
haven't learned to use the front of their legs to pressure their
boards.

-- Robert

I went to a alpine snowboard clinic and one of the first
things that the instructor (Sean Cassidy) did was have everyone change
their hardboots to walk mode (softing up the flex of the boot) so that
they could work on flexing/extending their toes. This gives you a
greater feel for the snow and a much finer control over your board -
allowing you to adjust your turn radius, absorb bumps, and change edges
more quickly than when using your hips/knees.

I was at the same camp and in the same group as lonerider. I would add that
the ankle action is not meant to replace hip and knee action... but to
augment it. Sean was exaggerating ankle motion with us because most
everyone in the camp was using the ankles too little or not at all - and you
know the deal, when you are not doing something, an effective way to train
yourself to do it, is to over-do it.

Flexing the ankles along with knees and hips keeps the center of mass
stacked up iover the edge... which allows you to add power to turns and
tighten them up more. Also, with the center of mass in a neutral position,
bumps don't knock you off balance so easy.

BTW this approach helped me quite a bit in hardboots. I haven't been out
in softies yet this season, but I am going to soon and see if any of the
benefit crosses over.

Because of this, I think
this is why most hardbooters are unable to ride softboots (they've
forgotten how to flex/extend their ankles), that and they are comparing
their 10 year old, discount softboot gear with their top of the line,
custom made and custom fitted hardboot gear.

Many of the longtime Mt Hood hardbooters, if they even have soft gear, have
stuff from the early 90's. No wonder they hate it!

But yeah, people who ride only in super-stiff hardboots and rely solely on
tipping and leaning and don't angulate are going to have a rough time in
softies. They probably also have a rough time carving on
less-than-decently-groomed trails too.

Mike T

Robert Stevahn wrote:
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 16:25:06 -0600, Neil Gendzwill
wrote:

It's completely true. Having to pull up on your toes is ridiculous
- I
can't think of a weaker way to use your legs, and for me that just
leads
to cramped calves.

I have to agree with Neil. There is no reason to ever use your toes,
even in soft boots. That's my story, and I'm sticking with it.

-- Robert

Heh... so you agree with the no ankle flexion/extension part of Neil's
post, but not the part about all "soft" boots being inherently flawed
for snowboarding because they are too soft (which is a valid personal
opinion btw, just not the one I personally have).

I'm not saying that you are only using your ankles to move the board
from edge to edge, but using them together with your knees and hips to
help control the edge angle. It's not so much giving you that much
power as taking advantage of the extra point of articulation in your
leg assembly (hips, knees and ankles) and allowing you to keep your
weight stacked over the edge of the board and absorb shocks from the
variable condition snow.

It is very noticeable when you ignore your ankles and let them flop in
the boot and when you flex/extend them with the turn. With hardboots,
you can rely on the boots innate stiffness... but using your own
stength to back it up a little is better because you have dynamic
control of the boot flex and shock absorption. With a super-stiff boot
there is a tendency to neglect using the ankles (as if you foot was in
a cast). But in bumpy snow or with softboots... this ability to control
you ankle flex/extension becomes more important.

Maybe I'm not explaining it right... but that's what they taught at the
camp Mike and I went to - the instructors were AASI III, CASI II/III
certified and included current/former World Cup racers.

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
lonerider wrote:
Being able
to use your toes to pull up and push down is a key skill, and often
neglected by stiff/hardboot riders who rely on their knee/hips too
much
and then are unable to snowboard when using medium/soft boots -
they
assume it's the boots that are fault - which is only partially
true.

It's completely true. Having to pull up on your toes is ridiculous -
I
can't think of a weaker way to use your legs, and for me that just
leads to cramped calves.

Hehe, so you are saying all of the people who can snowboard at expert
level with freeride boots either

1) have super-calves!
2) hallucinating!

Just kidding, I can see how freeride boots fail to satisfy your
personal riding style/preferences... especially if you are trying to
use them like alpine boots. It would be like trying to drive a car like
a motorcycle (whoa... this thing is so hard to lean). Dang, bobjenney
on BOL changed his avatar pic - otherwise I would have added a link to
it. My personal belief is that you simply need to understand freeride
boots in their own lift and not view them directly from a alpine
perspective - of course I could be hallucinating (since I don't have
super-strong calves) and therefore not only wrong... but insane! =] =]
=]

Waitaminnut. There's a big difference between anxle flexion/extension
and using your toes. Using your toes in softies to me means lifting up
on the toe straps in order to drive the heel edge into the snow. Really
you want to use your heel to drive the heel edge in, and your toe to
drive the toe edge in. You want to be pushing down, not pulling up.
Without flexible ankles in softies you can't do this as effectively, and
even in hard boots you should have some ankle flex (even in ski boots).

Did that make sense? I'm trying to say there's a difference between
pulling up on the toe straps and flexing your ankle so that the heel can
drive down (using the highback or boot cuff depending on hard or soft).

FWIW I use pretty soft hardboots (224s) and seldom am on the groomed.

Neil

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
Waitaminnut. There's a big difference between anxle
flexion/extension
and using your toes. Using your toes in softies to me means lifting
up
on the toe straps in order to drive the heel edge into the snow.
Really
you want to use your heel to drive the heel edge in, and your toe to
drive the toe edge in. You want to be pushing down, not pulling up.
Without flexible ankles in softies you can't do this as effectively,
and
even in hard boots you should have some ankle flex (even in ski
boots).

Did that make sense? I'm trying to say there's a difference between
pulling up on the toe straps and flexing your ankle so that the heel
can
drive down (using the highback or boot cuff depending on hard or
soft).

FWIW I use pretty soft hardboots (224s) and seldom am on the groomed.

Neil

Yea sorry for the misunderstanding, I used the wrong terminology in my
first post (wasn't describing it right). That's why I wrote a
"reiteration/elaboration" posting soon after and switched to
ankle/flexion for all future posts. Most of my discussion kind of
pre-assumes that you are already an intermediate rider who uses the
stiffness of the boot/highback to support you turns and applies
toe/heel pressure to the toe/heel edge of the board. I'm not say you
try to do a heelside by *only* lifting up your toes, but in the
middle/end of a carve you can increase the tightness of your turn
noticeable if you flex your ankle (which pulls your toes up in your
boot). So my point is that which such a stiff boot people sometimes
assume their ankles are locked in a position and neglect to use them in
the way we are describing.

Anyways, could you elaborate on needing flexible ankles in softboots? I
would think that you would need "stronger" ankles more than flexible
ones beause you have less "structural support". I have extremely
flexible ankles (two bootfitter just commented in the last few months)
probably from sprain/rolling my ankles too much in the past but I like
stiffer boots myself because my ankles aren't as strong as I think some
other peoples (I do a lot of strength training via balance boards and
dynadisc to help improving my ankle strength and priopreception(sp?)).
I play ice hockey (B level) and tie my skates rather loose at the
bottom, but pretty tight on the last two eyelets to support my
ankles... but I've heard several of the advanced/pro players barely
tie their skates and have such strong ankles that they can keep
themselves up all via ankle strength.

lonerider wrote:

Anyways, could you elaborate on needing flexible ankles in softboots? I
would think that you would need "stronger" ankles more than flexible
ones beause you have less "structural support".

I think "needing flexible ankles" implied the wrong thing, I meant more
that you need to flex your ankles. I don't think they need to be
abnormally flexible. Besides, strong and flexible aren't mutually
exclusive.

Caveat - anything I write about riding softboots should be taken with a
hyooooge grain of salt as I don't ride them myself and haven't ridden
them for 15 years. More modern equipment has probably changed things
greatly. But when I was riding softies back in the stone age, I started
by trying to do a lot of stuff with the feet, and ended up finding that
it worked better to use my legs, with my feet/ankles getting involved
mainly to allow the legs to do the bulk of the work. When I switched to
hardboots, it wasn't that big of a leap for me.

Neil

Arvin,

I think I agree with you about the ankles but perhaps not the toes, or
I am misunderstanding the toe part. I took some time to pay attention
to my ankles and toes last night -- I definitely tend not to actively
use the toes most of the time. I can feel them sitting there pressing
passively against the bottom of the boot, but I am not gripping with
them unless to make a correction. I do use the ankles to adjust the
angle of the edge -- it makes sense since it is the closest joint to
the board. But I tend to feel the ankle movements in my whole foot,
not in the toes. This is with relatively stiff soft boots, flow
bindings, and 30/20 angles.

-- Robert

Neil Gendzwill wrote:
lonerider wrote:

Anyways, could you elaborate on needing flexible ankles in
softboots? I
would think that you would need "stronger" ankles more than
flexible
ones beause you have less "structural support".

I think "needing flexible ankles" implied the wrong thing, I meant
more
that you need to flex your ankles. I don't think they need to be
abnormally flexible. Besides, strong and flexible aren't mutually
exclusive.

Ah yes, that's what I mean too... that you need to be able to "flex"
your ankles and if the boots is *way* too stiff for you, you won't be
able to flex it - that being said I don't think softboots in general
can be that stiff for most people. For my personal experience, I am
riding the AF600 alpine boots (compared to my old 224s) and I think
they are a little too stiff for me as I have a little bit of trouble
flexing my ankles on steeper terrain (I just got a pair of 324s that I
want to compare).

Yes, strong and flexible ankles aren't mutually exclusive - I'm just
saying I figure strength is more important than "wide range of motion"
especially from my personal experience as I have the latter more than
the former.

lonerider wrote:
that being said I don't think softboots in general
can be that stiff for most people.

Yeah, see I just don't know because I haven't ridden any of the modern
stuff. I keep thinking I should try some new softies, but I have all
this money tied up in hardboot gear, and I keep getting reports from
people that for all the improvements they still have the weaknesses that
caused me to switch. That being, strap pain and insufficient support
for riding hard at speed.

Also, I'm in love with the Intec step-in system and I don't think I
could ever give it up.

Neil