poutanen

Damn it all I want to do both! Never in the park really though, just off piste jumps...

I'd say 30% of my riding is carving groomers, 30% of my riding is in glades with some powder, 30% of my riding is down technical terrain, steeps, chutes, etc. with LOTS of powder, and 10% is spent trying freestyle tricks in one of the 3 locations.

I was also helping teach my neighbour today who rides regular (I'm goofy ) so it was nice to be able to ride switch for a while with him.

Guess it can't hurt to try though... The guys over at bomber online just about cast me into the pit when I posted a picture of a Virus with a duck stance! It IS a freeride board so I think they were a little out of line.

ig88

I used to have tremendous heelside chatter problems. Recently the problem has improved a lot to the point of almost non-existent ...... but maybe I just have not tried it in even steeper and icier terrains yet. I am trying hard to analyse and single out the most important factor which helped me. But until I am more certain what's has helped me, I don't want to make false suggestions here. I really wish I could nail it down scientifically (and even give a p-value to it, just kidding) to explain what contributed.

But anyway for the time being ...... I declare I am not an experienced rider at all. Are those boot angles above for alpine borders or are they usable on our typical snowboards? (Suppose we really just want to go out and carve and that's it.)

I have always wanted to know, do alpine borders (hard boot) ever complain about heelside chatters?

poutanen

YES, big time... So it's not just my angles. Although that could contribute but I'm going to take Snowolfs advice and leave the angles alone for now.

There are multiple threads on a hardbooter forum and the general advice seems to be to focus on getting your weight over the tip on corner entry as much as possible.

What worked for me yesterday was being mindful of my weight, and exaggerating bending my knees even more than I usually do. If I really want to rail a heelside corner I'm entering on the nose, then bending the shit out of my knees and pressing through the turn.

Was putting so much energy into the board I saw my tracks and there was a couple feet between each carve where I wasn't touching the snow at all...

ig88

Poutanen. Please post me a link to one of those hardboot forums. I would like to read a little what they like to discuss about in my idle time haha.

Could you kindly remind the new board you are using now, if you have already mentioned it somewhere in the forum earlier.

I understand your frustration. When we heelside chatter people put so much conscious effort into assuming some new body movements upon some advice, just in the hope of getting rid of that chatter and regain some of that steep slope confidence ...... we are pretty miserable, and even more so if we do not get consistent improvements after each run. And at the same time, toeside edge-hold is a piece of cake no matter if you enter the turn hard or mellow.

You were not touching the snow? Care to elaborate?

poutanen

Not sure if I'm allowed to link to another forum on here... I'll post this link as it's really not a competing forum to this one. heelside chatter

The board I'm riding is the Virus Avalanche FLP AFT 160. The effective edge is over 140 cm on it, vs 123 cm or so for the T7 so it REALLY rails. Not as hard as a hardbooter but leaps and bounds over a traditional shaped freeride board.

Not touching the snow meant that I was loading the board enough to actually catch a bit of air when transitioning from edge to edge. I used to do it on the old board too, yesterday was the first time I've really got into it carving turn after turn on the new board.

ig88

I just clicked your link to view your new board. Very beautiful. I did not know it's an alpine board just hearing the name of your board. So there was some misunderstanding on my part about your board. From my limited experience, I really have not come across an alpine boarder not using positive boot angles on both feet, let alone a gross duck stance. Maybe I have not observed enough. Again, don't exactly take my word for it, but it may be worth your while to consider the more standard alpine board boot angles, rather than keeping the change to an even later date. Cheers.

Do keep reporting back about your heelside chatters, even if they for some reason disappear altogether. At least I want to know what you did.

poutanen

Actually earlier in this thread I did make some progress... Here's the post http://www.snowboardingforum.com/557202-post8.html

The board I got isn't an alpine board it's actually designed to be a freeride board for on and off-piste. The builder primarily does alpine boards and skis though, so its construction is more carving oriented than a typical freeride board. Also the shape is boardercross oriented, with very squared off tips, long effective edge, etc. In another one of my threads I actually compared the specs as I measured them vs. my T7 and it's wider than the T7, so not a narrow carving board by any means!

Thanks again all, it seems like it was just a minor technique issue that is working itself out as I put more days on the board!

Donutz

Today while I was hitting Unicorn I thought about Snowolf's comments and realized that I wasn't shifting my weight back on heelside turns. I started paying close attention on a few turns and realized that my technique was significantly different for heelside and toeside, even allowing for the obvious asymmetric issues. So I worked a couple of turns making a point of shifting the weight as I came across the fall line, et voila! I could feel the board lock in like I'd just snapped a binding shut. Damn it's scary how subtle some things can be and still make a big difference.

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