Unweight board on kink??

[slyder]

Boardslides??
Ok I'm studying my training videos and watching lots of fellow riders to study their movements.

I"m gonna try some boardslides this year. I have 50/50 kinks and have done some boardslides on straight boxes.
When boardsliding a kink do you unweight your board just prior to hitting the kink?
I would think so but I have never heard it discussed. It's always just keep your base flat and adjust your body to stay perpendicular to the feature.

Hoping to nail this down this season.

[ThunderChunky]

A little bit. It's more of just keeping your knees really loose. I don't have a whole lot of experience with kinks so I'm not 100% sure. I just keep my knees loose. Unless it's a significant kink.

[BurtonAvenger]

It's a lot of ankle and knee mix and knowing that going into that kink you have to slightly rock the board. Or just say fuck it and buy an Echelon that 3d base doesn't catch.

[Cr0_Reps_Smit]

ankle flex is def key for hitting kinks, you want your knees a little loose too but i think its more in adjusting your ankles to match the pitch of the rail. i remember the first time i really did a kink rail the thing that really stood out to me was how i used my ankles to get through it.

[slyder]

That makes sense. My biggest fear is that edge just jammming in there and throwing me good onto the rail. I have my edges detuned so I'm good there

[tylerkat89]

Originally Posted by slyder

That makes sense. My biggest fear is that edge just jammming in there and throwing me good onto the rail. I have my edges detuned so I'm good there

This is something that interests me as well, as one of my goals for the season is to be able to boardslide rails. All of my friends bitch out saying that rails are way too hard and slippery. Is there anything I should expect, or anything I can do to prep myself for a rail?

I quoted the above because it also brought up another question with detuning because apparently I never detuned my new board, and learned everything from carving to hitting jibs on non detuned edges. Does it make that big of a difference, if so should I also detune my newish Attack Banana since it has magnetraction?

[slyder]

Originally Posted by tylerkat89

Is there anything I should expect, or anything I can do to prep myself for a rail?

Make sure you can 50/50 rails would be a good starting point. I have also been practicing my body form and rotations needed on a balance beam. This I'm hoping is building balance and some muscle memory for when I hit the real feature.

Originally Posted by tylerkat89

it also brought up another question with de-tuning because apparently I never de-tuned my new board

I ride a skate banana, I de-tuned my edges 2 degrees. I'm not that experienced a rider so some the of veterans can chime in on this. I haven't caught an edge.
I'm also guessing that if you haven't tuned up your board all the riding you've been doing will have dulled your edges but still worth looking into to make sure

[ShredLife]

its always scary to go fast, but the faster you go (within reason) the easier it will be as you'll have more forward momentum and less downward mo...

try hitting your flatbox or flat rail or down rail as fast as you comfortably can, or at least try to step up the speed on those smaller features so you can take it to the kink with more speed... the more you're traveling forward the less impact you'll have onto the rail, onto the kink...

[tylerkat89]

Originally Posted by Snowolf

Truth here!

The biggest problem we face as new park riders or when advancing to bigger stuff is our fear causes us to want to slow things down. Speed is the hardest thing to maintain when you are apprehensive about committing to hitting a feature. My limited box riding has shown me that what Shred is saying is true. Speed offers an element of spatial stability and that translates to more stability on the feature.

Its really tough to make yourself do it and trust it. Take Shred`s advice and go to an easy, low consequence ride on box that you are totally comfortable with and just start lapping it at higher speeds. This experience will help you trust the stability offered by speed.

Yeah that helped me land my first boardslides. Going throughout the season with just my GF, I obviously didn't advance too much as she didn't know much herself, and was scared. It wasn't until I went with a buddy for the first time and he told me "just go faster, features will be easier". Having to keep up with him, because I'm not the type to be left behind, it quickly made me advance. It helped with everything from maintaining my carves better, to hitting features a lot easier.

[Donutz]

The other benefit of going faster is that if you hit the box with a rotation, or slightly off center with your line, going faster means you're off the feature before this becomes an issue.