rustydomino

I recently decided it was time to graduate from my cheap Kemper learning board. I bought a Salomon Prospect 160 (the '06 model). My dilemma is that the screw slots for attaching the bindings are different on the two boards. On my old Kemper, the distance from the bindings in the front was 22 inches and in the back 20.5 inches. On the Prospect, if I use the center screw positions, the bindings are 19 inches both from the front and the back. IN other words, the stance is centered, and wider. I am excited to go try out my new board this Sunday, but I have two questions:

(1) I mostly free ride groomed blue/black runs (no park stuff, I am too old and brittle for that :P oh and I know the Prospect is a more freestyle oriented board, but the Prospect was on sale, and its marketed as all mountain). How will the wider stance affect the ride?

(2) On my old board, my binding angles were +21/-9. If the mounting positions are wider, should I keep the same angles or change them?

Tentatively I'd like to try +15/-15 because I want to learn to ride switch, but should I keep the old angles until I get used to the wider stance? Or will it make much of a difference?

thanks for any help!

Grimdog

Your best bet is to take your tools to the hill and adjust until it feels comfy.

__________________
My experience and what I do in snowboarding is really quite
independent of the industry and the more independent it is,
the more pure and better I feel about snowboarding.- Craig Kelly

powershiftz02gt

Alright man. i have a solomon prospect. its a fast board in my opionion. Specially if you get the right wax on it. the one i have Carves alright. Mine is about 3 years old maybe 4. It has a really hard time carving on black runs but you just gotta throw your weight into it so the edge digs in. But if you bought a newer prospect maybe they have upgraded to more edge. But anyway i ride left foot forward and my stance is -16/13. I can ride switch really good with this set up. I tried doing -16/16 and i couldn't turn at all. It was really hard and it felt really awkward. Id just didnt feel rightputting my back foot angle even with my front foot angle. But thats just me. I wasnt able to do it. i just keep it -16/13 and i can ride switch fine this way. My stance is also as wide as i can get it. So i use the first 4 holes clostest to the front of the board and the last 4 holes closest to the end of the board. this allows you to have more balance because you weight is more in the middle of the board. Its works great for me. This also alows you to turn really nicely and put down a really clean carve if you ask me. if you free ride you may want more board in the front than in the back so you float over powder better. So your front bindings may want to be set back a little more. But my stance works great for me and i mostly free ride. although if i hit lots of powder in flat land ( not on a slope) then i get stuck sometimes. But stance/angles are all preference. you just gotta play around with it. next time you go to the mountain bring a screw driver so you can mess around with the set ups.

rustydomino

OK, I hit the mountain with my new board today, following Snowolf's suggestions. I made it so that the stance width was as close as it was to my old board as possible (it was still about an inch wider, and centered rather than set back), and used the old binding angles (+21/-9). For a relative new boarder like myself (this being my only second board), riding a new board is a very strange experience. The flex, the base, and the responsiveness are totally different. The best analogy I can come up with is if you are a guitar player you know that different guitars play completely differently. At first it felt completely un-natural, as the board would not turn the way I "wanted" it to (based on my old board's performance). After a day on it though, it felt much better, and interestingly you can actually tell that the Salomon is a much higher quality board than my cheap Kemper. The edge to edge transition is much smoother and the board also carves much MUCH better.

The bottom line I guess is if you get a new board, break it in before you mess with new stance width and angles

snowblind

with my board i ride it at 15/-15 and i find switch very easy with this setup because it is symmetrical. i would suggest a stance that is the same on both sides (or very close) but really it comes down to trying different stances until you find what you like