tboooe

Every once in a while I will catch my toe when transitioning from the heel. Of course since I am usually traveling at a high rate of speed, this leads to spectacular and often painful crashes. What I dont understand is why? I dont catch any edges when going from toe to heel, even when my board is pointing almost perpendicular to the fall line. However, sometimes (maybe once a day) I will catch my toe edge, especially when I am going fast and being aggressive with my turns. I dont think I am doing anything different but obviously I am otherwise I would be crashing all day. I had a great day yesterday then on the last run of the day, going down a hill that I would consider easy, I catch the toe edge and further injure my tailbone and elbow.

Any ideas on why I may be catching my toe edge when my board is at a large angle above the fall line? I really need to fix this problem because I cant take any more of these crashes!

Gustov

i kind of have the same problem. if i ever catch an edge, it's my toe edge, but im my case i pretty much always know why. it's easier for me to apply torsional force to initiate the turn if i'm going up on my heel edge. sometimes when im not thinking much, when i try to turn toeside i don't give my front foot enough time to initiate the turn, and i go up on my back toe too soon. this results in a nice edge catch and the usual pain that follows. in my case, it's just carelessness, it sounds like you can link turns usually, so you could have the same problem. it's just something i have to focus on a little more.

my last day of riding this year this happened. i was going pretty fast, and then turned my head to yell to my brother who was following me, and at the same time i was starting a toeside turn. mid sentence i cought my edge. my brother described it as a very nasty, superman style fall. we both thought it was pretty funny, but i don't remember hitting the ground. i was pointing, so i landed on my arm and got the wind knocked out of me, and my jaw hurt, so i also hit it somehow. i didn't tell my brother at the time, but i felt dizzy and concussed for a couple hours, all of which i kept riding because it was my last day, which was probably a poor decision.

tboooe

Thanks Gustov. As I think about it, perhaps what I am doing as getting on my toe edge too fast, instead of gradually?

EDIT: I just re-read a post made my Snowolf and talked to good friend of mine who is an expert skiier. Essentially what I need to do in this situation is "unweight" my board when transitioning from edge to edge. So I need to go from a low squat to quickly standing upright to unweight the board then squatting again to initiate the opposite edge. Makes sense to me but I did not realize I even did this. Perhaps I dont do this and just got lucky all day so it was just a matter of time before I caught an edge.

Snowolf

An edge catch means that you have allowed your board to enter a sideslip. Even though it is still travelling in a line tip to tail, there is an ellement of sideslip. This usually, means that some hesitation has occurred when going from your heel edge to your toe edge. Start the transistion with the front foot and keep that back foot pressuring the heel edge. If you do this, your back foot acts like a safety so you will not lay the entire toe edge into the snow with some side slip going on. Shift your weight forward, roatate your shoulder to place the front shoulder over the toe edge and then weight the toe edge with the front foot. Wait untill the toeside turn has been initiated, THEN, transfer the weight to the toe edge by shifting your hips and releasing the heel pressure on the back foot.

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tboooe

Thanks Snowolf. Do you also agree that I should be unweighting my board as you mentioned in a previous thread?

revhi

Are your tip and tail detuned on your board?

colortv

i love charging down a hill full of pow and just hard-breaking. that spray of pow is soooo good.
i think i kinda know what your talking about cus every now and then ill catch an edge and come dangerously close to eating it HARD, while going really fast, i get a couple little speed wobbles but usually catch my balance and save myself...but the times where i wasn't so lucky....OOoooh that was painful >.<

tboooe

Are you talking about going straight on the flat portion of the board??? This is different than in my case which occurs when I am doing turns but the end result is just as painful. Try charging down the hill on a slight edge. Riding on the flat portion of your board easily lead to catching an edge.

Snowolf

For dynamic carving, yes. For a skidded or standard turn, unweighting is not necessary and I don`t when making skidded turns. In a skidded turn, it sounds to me (hard without being able to see you ride) like you are using both feet to switch that edge too early. As an example, you are on the heel edge, semi traversing the slope and decide to go into a toeside turn. Along with the traverse, you are also slipping downhill which causes the track you leave behind to be smeared. You are using both feet at the same time, or you are not waiting long enough for the turn to become established with just the front foot. I see this a lot.

So, as you try these turns next time do this: As you set up to go toeside, keep the back foot on it`s heel to keep the board locked into the hill. Relax the heel pressure on the front foot but do not let that end of the board to go flat (just less heel edge than the rear portion) Hold that and allow the nose of the board to gently fall down the fall line (in a sense, you are pivoting the board around your rear foot) When the board is pointed straight down the fall line, allow both feet to flatten out so you are momentarily flat based. Immediately pressur the toe edge with the front foot to get the board to turn up above the fall line on it`s toe side. You will still be flat with the rear foot here. When the nose of the board is about a 45 degree angle from the fall line, begin to pressure the toe side with the rear foot as well. This will then tilt the board onto it`s edge and rapidly complete the turn.

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tboooe

Snowolf, thank you as always for your detailed and informative reply.

I was looking at a video my wife took of me from a previous run down the same hill and I can see sometimes when transitioning to the toe edge, I lean my body instead of using my feet. This would seem to cause my entire toe side edge to dig in and catch. Actually, I find that I lean so much on the toe side that I can easily reach out and touch the snow during the turn. When I am going good, I will initiate my turns with my shoulders followed by my front feet and legs, leaving my upper torso relatively vertical.

You make mention of waiting until the board is at most 45 degrees from the fall line before initiating the edge transition. Is this a good rule of thumb? Would you not recommend changing edges if the board is more than 45 degrees above the fall line? Is this just asking for trouble?