Question on board dimensions

I'm fairly new to the sport, and wonder about board lengths and
widths. In skiing, beginners start with shorter skis, and usually
seem to move up to longer skis for most purposes except tight turns.
They use wider skis for powder. Using my ski logic, I purchased my
first board this year, a Burton Bullet, which is a short 154 with 256
waist. I am 5' 10", 170 lbs. I live in the East, and make an annual
trip to Western powder. My goal is to learn to board in powder, but
Eastern groomers will be my daily grind. I have no interest in park
or pipe.

What dimensions of board will I be working toward? I guess that my
board is considered mid-wide. What pluses and minuses are there to
wide boards? Short boards?

Thanks,
Jack

On Apr 29, 10:29 am, Jolly_O wrote:
I'm fairly new to the sport, and wonder about board lengths and
widths. In skiing, beginners start with shorter skis, and usually
seem to move up to longer skis for most purposes except tight turns.
They use wider skis for powder. Using my ski logic, I purchased my
first board this year, a Burton Bullet, which is a short 154 with 256
waist. I am 5' 10", 170 lbs. I live in the East, and make an annual
trip to Western powder. My goal is to learn to board in powder, but
Eastern groomers will be my daily grind. I have no interest in park
or pipe.

What dimensions of board will I be working toward? I guess that my
board is considered mid-wide. What pluses and minuses are there to
wide boards? Short boards?

Thanks,
Jack

In addition to length and width, stiffness is another important factor
it how a board handles. I've owned a soft 172cm board that was easier
to ride than a very stiff 155 cm board I had. However, given a
particular board model... like the Burton Bullet. The board will
always tend to get stiffer with length (sidecut radius also gets
longer), so people tend to use length to judge what stiffness they
want. It is difficult to "eyeball" stiffness, but if the company has a
"recommended weight" listing, try to be on the middle to heavier side
of the weight range. The height of a rider is not super important
(despite what you've heard) and again is basically used as a simple
way to guess the rider's weight (much more important).

When you are heavier compared to the stiffness of the board, the board
is easier to flex and turn. When you are lighter compared to the
stiffness, the board is more difficult to bend, but sometimes can be
more stable at higher speeds (as when you make a high speed turn, your
momentum gives you some extra energy to flex the board). As such I
would recommend beginners have shorter, softer boards... while more
advanced riders can pick longer, stiffer boards if they want to (there
is no hard rule on the matter).

Wide boards tend to be a little slower to respond moving edge to edge
(toeside to heelside and vice versa) as they tend to be less
torsionally rigid (easier to twist the board). For a 256mm board, I
would expect you to have like a size 10-11 boots. If you have like
size 7-8 boot, it might be a little sluggish to respond. A benefit of
a wider board is added floatation in powder.

Short boards are easier to manhandle in tight spaces like between
moguls and trees. They are also easier to flip onto rails or spin off
of jumps. However, they tend to be less stable and have a small
"sweet" spot for balance as well as having a little less floatation in
powder (wide and board shape are bigger factors). If you don't plan on
any park, I would suggest going longer... eventually to like a 160 cm
board (notice that is only actually 6 cm or ~2.4 inches). If you rode
the West coast, with more powder and bigger, wide trails you could go
even longer. Often, the construction and design of a board will make a
much greater difference than the length/wide of a board. So don't buy
any freestyle board, regardless of whatever the shop salesman says.

For a slightly more "professional" explanation on things... here is a
link to article on buying a racing snowboard (http://tinyurl.com/
2vu256). Now the exact specifications that they refer to in the
article are specific to alpine/race snowboards (longer, very narrow
boards) but the generalities are still covered and applicable to all
snowboards. Also they cover sidecut radius (very important) and taper
(somewhat important) there.

On Apr 29, 10:29 am, Jolly_O wrote:
I'm fairly new to the sport, and wonder about board lengths and
widths. In skiing, beginners start with shorter skis, and usually
seem to move up to longer skis for most purposes except tight turns.
They use wider skis for powder. Using my ski logic, I purchased my
first board this year, a Burton Bullet, which is a short 154 with 256
waist. I am 5' 10", 170 lbs. I live in the East, and make an annual
trip to Western powder. My goal is to learn to board in powder, but
Eastern groomers will be my daily grind. I have no interest in park
or pipe.

What dimensions of board will I be working toward? I guess that my
board is considered mid-wide. What pluses and minuses are there to
wide boards? Short boards?

Thanks,
Jack

To me, waist width is about clearing the ends of your boots. Any
wider than that is unnecessary. While it's true that you get more
surface area out of a wider waist, the board's already got a ton of
surface area and you'll really only sink in powder if you sink the
nose, which is a matter of binding placement and weight distribution.
That being said, a longer board can be better in powder because you
get more surface area and more nose without getting the slower
handling that comes with a wider board. I do think shape is
important, though. A tapered shape will handle better in powder but
not hold a carve quite as well. The fish shape is an extreme
expression of that. You can see it on the Burton Fish, Never Summer
Summit, and Prior Spearhead (and other boards as well I'm sure.) The
Burton Fish is reviewed as being awesome in powder and a bit
questionable in other conditions. Haven't read reviews of the other
boards.

I'm 5'8" and 145ish, and ride a 160. I'd actually like to go longer
if I buy another board. However, board length is as much a matter of
your style as of your dimensions - I have a very carve-oriented style,
so it's not as important to me to be able to throw the board around
and I can go longer.

You might have more fun in powder on a more powder-oriented board, but
since the Bullet's tapered, it ought to be fine for learning. If you
find you're burying your nose a lot or you feel like you have to
actually pull upward on your front foot to keep it from going under,
move your rear binding back - getting up on top of powder and floating
in it at lower speeds are about sinking your tail, and it'll help
tremendously while allowing you to keep the nose down on chop and
hardpack.

Jolly_O wrote:
What dimensions of board will I be working toward? I guess that my
board is considered mid-wide. What pluses and minuses are there to
wide boards? Short boards?

Arvin and Andrew have addressed it pretty well. The board needs to be
wide enough so your toes and heels don't drag in the snow. As it gets
wider, it takes more time to move from edge to edge. This is something
you don't care about as a beginner, but as you get better and look for
more responsiveness you might go narrower. However, as you get better
and start tilting the board more on edge, you'll get more sensitive to
the toe/heel drag (we say "boot-out", as in you get booted out of the
turn by the drag), so you may want to go wider. Wider boards float
better in powder, but any board wide enough for softies is wide enough
for pow IMO.

Longer within the same model line is usually stiffer as Arvin points
out. Longer means more edge on the snow, more stable in the carve and
at speed. Shorter means easier to turn, more responsive, and also
easier to spin if the park's your thing.

Some boards are designed to be long, others to be short. 165 is pretty
long for a park/pipe board, but pretty short for a powder board unless
it's a fish design in which case it's long again. Confused yet?

Neil

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:44:25 -0600, Neil Gendzwill wrote:

The board needs to be
wide enough so your toes and heels don't drag in the snow. As it gets
wider, it takes more time to move from edge to edge. This is something
you don't care about as a beginner, but as you get better and look for
more responsiveness you might go narrower.

Even if your shoe size does normally not permit a narrow board, you could
choose for a narrow board with risers. There are boards which have
integrated risers, like the K2 Recon Riser. I would love to try such a
board with my shoe size (European size 46).

--
Bas.

On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:27:42 -0700, Andrew wrote:

If you
find you're burying your nose a lot or you feel like you have to
actually pull upward on your front foot to keep it from going under,
move your rear binding back - getting up on top of powder and floating
in it at lower speeds are about sinking your tail, and it'll help
tremendously while allowing you to keep the nose down on chop and
hardpack.

Personally, I would never recommand people to change the location of the
binding for the cause of better riding a certain snow type. If your
stance is wide enough for your height and has the recommended offset for
the board, you should simply move your weight from one foot to another to
balance the board.

If you, as you advised, move your binding back to go better in powder,
you have to over-compensate on other terrain. In my experience, the key
is to get a wider stance (if it fits the length of your legs) and keep
the offset as it is. You will both get more response, beter feel and a
good balance on all terrain.

--
Bas.

Thank you all for the great posts. The link at
http://www.bomberonline.com//article..._snowboard.cfm was
also a great reference. I have more than enough information to ponder
on for a while.

Thanks again!

Jack

Bas Mevissen ) writes:
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:27:42 -0700, Andrew wrote:

If you
find you're burying your nose a lot or you feel like you have to
actually pull upward on your front foot to keep it from going under,
move your rear binding back - getting up on top of powder and floating
in it at lower speeds are about sinking your tail, and it'll help
tremendously while allowing you to keep the nose down on chop and
hardpack.

Personally, I would never recommand people to change the location of the
binding for the cause of better riding a certain snow type. If your
stance is wide enough for your height and has the recommended offset for
the board, you should simply move your weight from one foot to another to
balance the board.

If you are riding powder all day, then that back leg gets a major workout
trying to get more weight on the tail.

Last decent powder day I put the bindings back to compensate and the next
day once it was gone, back to the normal spot.

Steve.

On Mon, 07 May 2007 10:41:40 +0000, Steven Slaby wrote:

Personally, I would never recommand people to change the location of
the binding for the cause of better riding a certain snow type. If your
stance is wide enough for your height and has the recommended offset
for the board, you should simply move your weight from one foot to
another to balance the board.

If you are riding powder all day, then that back leg gets a major
workout trying to get more weight on the tail.

Last decent powder day I put the bindings back to compensate and the
next day once it was gone, back to the normal spot.

OK, fair enough if you have a day where you are (almost) always riding
powder.

--
Bas.

On May 7, 5:21 am, Bas Mevissen
wrote:
On Mon, 07 May 2007 10:41:40 +0000, Steven Slaby wrote:
Personally, I would never recommand people to change the location of
the binding for the cause of better riding a certain snow type. If your
stance is wide enough for your height and has the recommended offset
for the board, you should simply move your weight from one foot to
another to balance the board.

If you are riding powder all day, then that back leg gets a major
workout trying to get more weight on the tail.

Last decent powder day I put the bindings back to compensate and the
next day once it was gone, back to the normal spot.

OK, fair enough if you have a day where you are (almost) always riding
powder.

--
Bas.

I've been very happy with the back binding back in all conditions. It
does compromise hardpack performance slightly, but I like not having
to mess around with my setup for different days. Of course, your
mileage may vary.

Andrew