shc89

Well I rarely thought about what's the best way to position the weight when going straight downhill. I'm used to keep the weight on my toes, not totally on the toes tho. I feel more secure that way but sometimes the board starts turning. I read somewhere that if you go straight flat based it is much faster and if practiced you can feel comfortable in that position too. So, when going straight downhill what way do you people do it, keeping the weight on the edge or flat based ? Thanks.

Snowjoe

I and the majority of people always keep a set edge. Ride flat based and the board can slide in weird directions and its easy to catch your edge and go ass over tit.

alaric

I put a slight pressure on one edge. As joe said, if you go flat based, you may catch an edge and enjoy a nice meal of snow.

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mike1two

its fun to put your entire base down and point every once and a while but its not a smart thing to do if there are scattered people because you don't have much control and yes you do catch some gnarly edges when you do it. when it comes right down to it I usually only do it when im aproaching some flat so I don't have to strap out and I don't do it for that long. Just a little nudge you know.

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shc89

Yeah I know what you guys mean. When I just started with snowboarding I tried to go flat based, thinking it will give biggest stability and then I noticed that the board goes in weird direction by itself often making the edge dig in. But I also noticed that when in those moments when you can maintain stability flat based you go much faster. So I've heard from some people that they ride flat based with no problems, so I was wondering if I'm making a mistake and should try more to learn how to ride flat based or that's not the way to be done.

Snowolf

No, just keep practicing riding flat based on the flats to get a good feel for it. You will want to maintain some edge angle at all times to prevent edge catching. When you are trying to get across flats, you have already probably noticed that you get more edge catches. This is because of the low to non existant edge angle and the board will tend to pivot enough to catch the edge on any uneveness in the ground. Riding totally flat based requires you to develope a feel through your board into the bottoms of your feet to master. When doing this, you also must keep your upper body quiet and your shoulders in line with the board; any upper body rotation will cause the board to pivot and screw you.

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PaoloSmythe

well i dunno what hills you're used to but (at the risk of generalising) euro hills seem to have more cat tracks and the like, for us to motor down to link up the pistes etc.

coz of this, there is plenty of practice for flat basing. i grew up with a bias to toe edge, but then i learnt to swip swap, but now i generally try to go edge free, but for this, you need speed to maintain forward momentum as the dominating force of motion, and a flat camber path is pretty useful too.

but yar, practice makes perfect, flat footed with a low stance is fastest, but use an edge if you sense any lateral motion.

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shc89

Yeah there are lots of flats here where I go snowboarding. I'll be practicing flat based riding this winter, hope it will work out good. Damn I wish that damn snow starts falling

mpdsnowman

Its all about the edge. I gravitate to the front edge however use the back side when riding on slopes at angles. I do ride flat based but for minimal timeframes. U definitely have more control with an edge.

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shc89

I'll see how stabile can I be with flat based, if I become good at it, I'll try to go flat based as much as I can, or at least flat based with just a bit toe pressure.