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Snowboarding Style Terminology

7K views 83 replies 24 participants last post by  Leo 
#1 ·
Alright, so I've been seeing some confusion as to what style of riding people do. Not sure if there was a post about this, but my search didn't pull up anything. Now, I'm not sure that I myself am completely right on this so feel free to add input.

Here are my explanations for the various type of riding styles:

All-mountain: This is your groomer cruiser. This guy will hit just about anything that is groomed. They will also hit ungroomed trails so long as it is in-bounds.

All-mountain Freestyle: This is your groomer cruiser on drugs. This rider will hit anything groomed or in-bounds ungroomed while launching of natural kickers, jibbing natural features, bonking everything, buttering, flat land tricks, etc... This rider will also take the occasional park lap on the way down.

Freestyle: This is your park rat. This guy literally pitches a tent in the terrain park and hits anything in it.

Jib: This is your park mouse. This guy will only hit rails and boxes and rides uber noodly boards.

Urban Jib: This is your broke park mouse. This guy will gather a bunch of fellow mice and jib on anything they can in the streets. School yard rails are a popular breeding place for them.

Free-ride: This is your powder sniffing, power carving, tree line eating, cliff dropping master. This guy's name is KillClimbz and he'll take a minute of untracked powder over a full day of riding at any resort any time.

Pipe: Self explanatory.
 
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#2 ·
You forgot

Gaper: Someone wearing obnoxiously bright and flashy clothing, while knowing absolutely nothing about snowboarding. Enjoys standing in the middle of cattracks, standing at the bottom of jumps, standing at the entry of rails, and always veers right in your path when you are passing them, causing you to eat shit indefinitely.
 
#11 ·
What if you get consistent days of untraked powder on a big resort with about 100 people? Got at least 6 days like that last season...that makes me an All-Mountain-Free-Rider-day-trip-soloist?

Getting out of the woods and off powder when your legs can barely take you down a groomer..;)
 
#25 ·
Here is a couple more.

Heelside Heros- the one edge sided people you think they are good enough to ride the blues and blacks without knowing how to ride that toe-side.

SnoHoes - Dress with all the bling and usually ride with the blinged out jibber that talks a good game but can't back it up.

Cruiser - typically the 40-50 plus crowd that just like riding down a blue groomer(my belief is they are all ex-skiers)

Tree-Rat - or Flying board squirrel - These riders only ride tree line, and usually kick-ass at it.

Mogul Invader - Trys to beat skiers at their own game in the Moguls.(I'm afraid I fall into this one a lot)

I guess they aren't really over all styles so much as style of riders. Typically in the AASI world we classify riders as
Freeride(back-country, moguls, groomers, trees, all -mountain dabbles on natural terrain features for freestyle),
Freestyle(i.e. Parkrat, jibbers, pipers, jumpers) and
Race/Carve(race courses, groomers).
 
#28 ·
Hard to classify to the exact on a persons riding style because it all comes down to opinions. What one person sees as all mountain may include back country as well or may be someone who loves a good carve, or someone who just loves everything all balled up. Sorry hate labels for the most part. Is kind of like the flex rating system what brand A has as a 3 may be a 4 or 5 on brand B.

There is just to much grey area on what belongs in what label.
 
#29 ·
Yea, I totally agree about riding style, but the labels are there to provide a starting point for beginners mainly. Riders like us here already know our brands and boards fairly well so labels aren't as important to us.

Even though one company rates a board's flex as 5 and the other a 4, a beginner is going to have a general clue as to the board being around medium flex. It's not accurate to seasoned riders, but it's accurate enough for newbies.

They would be so lost if snowboard equipment didn't have any type of scale or labels. Heck, they are still very lost even with the labels :laugh:
 
#30 ·
You have to admit when you walk into a physical location and start looking at snowboards, unless you did your homework and had previous knowledge of boards, it's pretty hard to know what board does what. On the boards themselves, there doesn't seem to be alott of info most of the time. I guess that's what shop employees are for, but often time they actually know jack-shit and are making things up for a sale.

They figure if the rider is new enough to need advice anyways, they won't know the difference until it's too late.
 
#32 ·
I'm going to be honest, most of the newbies (and even more experienced riders) need to stop freaking out about equipment out so much and just go ride. Skill makes a much greater impact on your riding than your equipment. Once you can actually get down the mountain without falling on your ass everytime you try to link a turn, maybe then start worrying about equipment...

I'll be completely honest though, I don't have much nearby so most of my year is spent fantasizing about mountains and researching new equipment... this would explain the increasing equipment supply and rapidly decreasing bank account. :laugh:
 
#36 ·
It does get expensive. I must have taste for expensive sports, because the other thing I really got into was paintballing. $450 gun, $150 electronic hopper, $125 Comp air tank, $100 gun upgrades, $200 in apparel, and then blowing through about a case and 1/2 of paint ($60+) every time you go plus admission. I had to give it up, on the bright side my equipment bought me a new Evo. At least with snowboarding once you get your pass and gear, all your spending money on is gas/food, (Off course I'm one of those cheap motherfuckers who makes his own PBJ).
 
#38 ·
Well, the biggest issue with newbies is the gear. Too many new snowboarders go out and get and expensive setup like a Burton Custom-X. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a new snowboarder on the bunny hill with a CusX. In this situation, board matters a great deal. Boards like the CusX are really stiff and are really hard to control for a beginner.

Another prime gear mistake they make is buying boots based on color and price rather than fit. They also go and find boots that are super comfy out of the box only to end up with too much heel lift and frozen toes.

All of this totally ruins the experience, makes it too difficult to learn, and just plain wastes money.

When you pick up experience and gain in skill level, that's when gear doesn't matter as much. I can shred on the stiffest board, but still have loads of fun on a noodle. This is because I know how to compensate for the type of gear I'm on. Newbies don't know how to do this.

I do agree that sometimes they read way too much into it. This is because of the labels like you guys say. Every company is different, but they aren't going to be drastically different. So when you view it this way, you get a basic ballpark estimate of where the board stands.

I see a Lib Tech 7 flex board and a Rome 8 flex board. Okay, the Rome in reality is softer. However, I do know that both of these boards are on the stiff end of the spectrum. This is how a newbie's approach should be. Trying to figure out which is stiffer than which is pointless at this point because both are on the same end of spectrum and the difference will be highly negligible to a beginner.

And yea, we are all suffering from the off-season blues. PRAY FOR SNOW! Meanwhile, I'm going to live vicariously through forum discussions about snowboard related topics :D:D:D
 
#45 ·
Freecarver here, always looking for the perfect groomer with the perfect pitch. Freeride moguls, steeps, and crud once in a while, too. Being predominantly a carver, I do avoid things that jeopardize my edges like steel rails and rocks. I love riding through trees, too, and if off-piste opportunities weren't such incredibly rare events in the mid-Atlantic, I'd have a separate hardboot/freeride setup just for that.
 
#47 ·
Hey speaking of snowboard terminology (not style), here's one that I've been wondering about. What are you riding if you're not riding switch? Not "regular", because that means left-foot-forward. Not "normal", because that's too, uh, normal. Is there a term for that?
 
#60 ·
The fact of the matter is that you can only ride in two directions, so if your not riding switch anyone can assume you are riding your natural stance, Goofy or Regular.

BUT. If you are one of those people who boardslides down the mountains and screws up all the runs because you can't make a turn, you could actually ride in 3 directions!!

"Yeah dude, I totally killed that run on my boardslide edge."
"You sure did, someone better call the groomers"
 
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