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Powder board side cut?

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terekhov
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Post by Lurch Sun Nov 19, 2017 12:09 am

So what are the thoughts of all you Bomber refugees about sidecut on a powder board? I am in the market for a new stick and after sniffing around various brands I'm none the wiser. Scr's vary from 6.5 to 12 (with everything in between). Let’s concentrate on deep pow performance.Thanks!
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Post by Workshop7 Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:41 am

As with everything else in snowboarding, it depends. If I'm riding only on big mountains in wide open terrain I would want a 200cm Tanker or Cheater with an 11m or 12 m side cut. That being said, last year when I was in Steamboat Springs I spent a lot of time in the steep trees. I was riding a Nomad 170 that had a variable side cut radius of 8-12. That worked out well.


Last edited by Workshop7 on Sun Nov 19, 2017 8:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Post by Lurch Sun Nov 19, 2017 1:07 pm

Thanks Workshop7. 100% get it's different stokes for different folks - probably didn't word my question well.
If we assume all other variables are unchanged i.e board length, shape, construction etc, I'm asking how noticeable a different side cut would be in deep pow?
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Post by TinMan Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:48 pm

In deep pow? Almost none I would think but I'm sure someone will correct me. I would think the flex pattern, rocker profile, shovel shape and taper would all be vastly more important factors. If I was buying a big pow gun the only way sidecut would factor into my decision would be how it tracks on groomed runout between the trees and the lift.
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Post by snowwjob1 Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:24 pm

In deep powder I don't think side cut matters. I second Tin man. Length and width are more about displacement. My personnel choice is a 190 Hazelwood 10-12 vsr and 1 inch taper. Spent 4 days at revelstoke heli boarding with it the staff tried to get me on a Burton Fish and I laughed at them.
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Post by Lurch Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:42 pm

Agree. I figured you more use the displacement of the board 'pushing' against the snow. Are Hazelwoods soft in the nose?
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Post by snowwjob1 Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:51 pm

No very stiff. Depending on how Sean builds it.
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Post by Lurch Sun Nov 19, 2017 7:06 pm

Ok so can I assume you are more using the whole length to turn rather than starting the nose and letting the rest follow?  (if that makes sense)
Reason I ask is that I have ridden a pow board of indeterminate origin which had a very soft nose and hated it - felt like it was going to fold up under me. Couldnt work out if it were the soft flex or the small scr ( think it was around 7m) that was cuasing that feeling
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Post by philw Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:17 am

What they said: the sidecut doesn't make that much difference on it's own, although it tends to follow the overall design. I know about bottomless powder only, preferably laced with trees.

Mostly you never know what the sidecuts of powder boards are: I at least don't care. I just looked up a couple of significant boards, and the Fish has a 6m sidecut, with the Malolo running at 8 or so. Those "match" their designs - the Malolo is a bigger board, but that's probably about it. You don't turn with the sidecut in the same way as race boards do. You can of course ride race boards in powder - they're really bad at it, but not because their side cuts are huge. Taper is probably more important.

Lurch wrote:... can I assume you are more using the whole length to turn rather than starting the nose and letting the rest follow?  (if that makes sense)
Reason I ask is that I have ridden a pow board of indeterminate origin which had a very soft nose and hated it - felt like it was going to fold up under me. Couldnt work out if it were the soft flex or the small scr ( think it was around 7m) that was cuasing that feeling

Yes. Your weight should be centred on your bindings at least. Boards like the Fish have a built-in set back and bog-all tail, but the "feel" is not to push the nose then let the rest follow, more to bank the whole board over. It's not "railing" on the sidecut.

A soft nose is "the wrong design", although old powder boards may have suffered from it. I at least want a relatively stiff nose to bang through any tree-bombs or whatever it may hit, but a tail which is soft enough to be responsive to my input.  I would say your problem was a poor nose design, from that explanation. The tail is actually much more important and the key issue in "sizing" - you have to get the way the tail works in turns is "just right". When that is true, the harder you pussh with your back leg, the more you break on the corner: that's your throttle.
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Post by BlueB Mon Nov 20, 2017 10:02 am

Yeah, what others said. In a bottomless nirvana it doesn't mater. But the bottom line is that almost no one ride those conditions for entire day... So choose the SCR by your personal prefference for moguls and chopped up piste. It has to work in unison with flex and taper, though.
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Post by Lurch Mon Nov 20, 2017 1:12 pm

Thanks for all the info - has really helped to crystalize a few things for me. For pow, seems more like shape is king with board length the personal preference part.
I have buddy with a fleet of tankers who uses the "no replacement for displacement" mantra - maybe I should join the 200 gang after all!
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Post by Lurch Mon Nov 20, 2017 2:35 pm

philw wrote: The tail is actually much more important and the key issue in "sizing"
Phil along this line, can you offer any comparisons between a regular shape with a lot of taper (20>) and a swallowtail?
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Post by snowwjob1 Mon Nov 20, 2017 3:53 pm

A swallow tail allows less displacement at the tail. Similar to taper it allows the tail to drop allowing more rise at the nose. Good luck finding someone who wants to part with a tanker most love them. I broke my 192 and had to go to Donek to replace.
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Post by TinMan Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:01 pm

philw wrote: You can of course ride race boards in powder - they're really bad at it, but not because their side cuts are huge. Taper is probably more important.

A much younger and dumber version of myself once hucked a ~30' cliff on a PJ6 and megaflexes going entirely too fast on a big pow day at Willamette Pass. The moment I reached the point of no return I realized how fucked I was. I'll be damned if I wasn't amazed I survived.

philw wrote: A soft nose is "the wrong design", although old powder boards may have suffered from it. I at least want a relatively stiff nose to bang through any tree-bombs or whatever it may hit, but a tail which is soft enough to be responsive to my input.  

If I understand what you are suggesting: the nose is stiff and the tail is soft such that with the bindings centered the tail flexes at lower speeds (and when punched); effectively reducing its displacement and allowing the nose to rise and making the board want to plane to the surface. Is that correct? I've never heard of this but it makes a lot of sense to me.
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Post by philw Mon Nov 20, 2017 5:16 pm

I can't really talk for STs - I've never seen anyone ride one two days in a row. I think they're for wall mounting not riding, bit Nils needs to find this place and then he can come and give you a different perspective. But STs and long boards are almost never seen at heli operators these days.

The thing with the tail... I suppose it depends how you think about it. I don't personally feel it's "pushing the tail down to make the nose rise" though - I don't care what the nose is doing as I never look down there anyway. Modern powder boards to tend to ride low (so if you do look down you may not see the nose - it doesn't matter). If you have a board which is too big, then the tail feels like it's "pushing you out" of the snow, and you have to "kick it down" to make it turn. If the tail is too stiff then it just feels unresponsive... you do want it to flex and give as you load it. All this is probably overthinking it ;-)
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Post by BlueB Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:59 pm

I ride a swallowtail when I know there will be plenty of space and lots of fresh snow.
Scooby and I both rode medium size swallies at a trip with pow cats. We handled the not too dense trees just fine, but outblasted everyone on open slopes. I'd do it again for the same destination...
However, for busy resort days, where I know I'd end up in steep trees and moguls, I ride shorter conventional boards.
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Post by terekhov Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:12 pm

Lurch wrote:So what are the thoughts of all you Bomber refugees about sidecut on a powder board? I am in the market for a new stick and after sniffing around various brands I'm none the wiser. Scr's vary from 6.5 to 12 (with everything in between). Let’s concentrate on deep pow performance.Thanks!
libtech banana hammock teach us all for years (and yes, I own one): any sidecut radius is bad and unneeded in deep pow, best powder board have radius like GS boards or more
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Post by terekhov Mon Nov 20, 2017 11:16 pm

BlueB wrote:Yeah, what others said. In a bottomless nirvana it doesn't mater.
it DOES matter. 8m sticks dive when edged in deep pow, and 15m sticks dive considerably less. so on low-radii sticks you cannot really carve pow - but on furberg or undertaker198 - you can.
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Post by Lurch Tue Nov 21, 2017 12:48 am

terekhov wrote: libtech banana hammock teach us all for years (and yes, I own one
Hey Terekhov is that one of those wild looking 'reversed' boards with the waist wider than the tip/tail? What was the idea of that?
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Post by BlueB Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:18 am

it DOES matter. 8m sticks dive when edged in deep pow, and 15m sticks dive considerably less. so on low-radii sticks you cannot really carve pow - but on furberg or undertaker198 - you can.

You can't "edge" in bottomless... It's the base that "carves", not the edge.


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Post by philw Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:16 am

terekhov wrote:... it DOES matter. 8m sticks dive when edged in deep pow, and 15m sticks dive considerably less. so on low-radii sticks you cannot really carve pow - but on furberg or undertaker198 - you can.
We'll have to disagree completely on that: if you can carve it, you don't need a powder board for it.
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Post by terekhov Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:29 am

Lurch wrote:
terekhov wrote: libtech banana hammock teach us all for years (and yes, I own one
Hey Terekhov is that one of those wild looking 'reversed' boards with the waist wider than the tip/tail? What was the idea of that?

yes. it's imho the only board (geometry) which surf when edged in pow

BlueB wrote:
You can't "edge" in bottomless... It's the base that "carves", not the edge.
yes - but only if agressively sidecut'ted edge will not deep dive all of the board before that! and... if you ride fast enough on undertaker198 (13m sidecut) - you have possibility to change edge in the air and bigboard floatation make tracks almost like clearly carved turn (in pow of knee deep or deeper)

philw wrote:
We'll have to disagree completely on that: if you can carve it, you don't need a powder board for it.
pity me, I can carve everywhere so my pow boards is just museum pieces Wink
and yes, I definitely prefer smallest possible board for conditions, so if pow is less than 20cm over base - I will ride oes 164fc in it. add some - and it will be coiler177am. and if coiler became diving machine - it's time for some pow magick sticks
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Post by crackaddict Tue Nov 21, 2017 1:11 pm

Gotta add my two cents here. My opinion is that sidecut is in fact very important with a powder board. Having ridden a Prior Fissile 172 split for a few seasons (6.5m sidecut, lots of taper), I would advise against any board with less than 9m scr. I found the Fissile way too responsive for the kind of turns I prefer (wide, fast, screaming arcs). Fine and maneuverable in trees, moguls and couloirs, but I really had to back off the edge pressure to make a wide turn in open bowls. When you pressure the edge on a small scr board, it's gonna kick out into a turn very fast, which precludes the kind of high g-force powder carves that I'm sure a lot of hardbooters like. I sold that board because it just wasn't fun to ride fast. I could never really get any power behind my turns, nor could I get it to carve hard on groom.

Contrast with the Prior Pow Stick swallowtail (176cm, 10m scr): this is a fantastic ride in open bowl powder. Since the tail drops down in powder, the nose is effectively unsinkable. This means that you can lean forward, down the fall line and really charge ahead aggressively, instead of having to ride the back foot to keep the nose up, tongue depressor style. Very fun in open bowls, maybe too much board to throw around in trees or tight chutes.

Finally, the Furgerg 168 with 18m sidecut (reverse sidecut at the tip and tail). Very different board, hard to describe the feeling or the ride. It doesn't really make a classic sidecut turn, not even on groomed cat track. But after one day in powder to adjust I found a new level of confidence and control, making extra turns through tight sections really fast where I might have hesitated or made fewer, slower turns with another board. This board inspires fall line charging in complete control. Very playful, but not in the same way as a "fish" type board which can get squirrelly at speed. I highly recommend this board, especially for a split (because it's weird on the groom, but mind blowing in deep pow).

Bottom line Lurch? My opinion is that for aggressive riders who know how to carve, 9m scr is a minimum, and more is better for many applications.
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Post by Lurch Tue Nov 21, 2017 2:53 pm

crackaddict wrote:Gotta add my two cents here.
Great feedback thanks – it was actually the comparison between a PowStick and Slasher which started me on this topic. Both similar shape & specs, but one a 6.5m and the other a 9m scr. Clear and obvious how they would handle on harder snow, not so much in deep pow. I want this board for those 5% days of deep pow with free lunchtime refills, so that is the only focus.

The reverse side cut thing has me intrigued. To be fair, Terehkov’s banana sounds a bit ‘out by the wire’ for me, but the Furberg less so. Guessing it doesn't come out much - does it take you long to adapt to it's 'alternate' feel?
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Post by crackaddict Tue Nov 21, 2017 6:26 pm

Hey Lurch,

Four runs to feel really good on the Furberg. With a classic crash on the first. It still doesn't feel good to me on the groom.

If you're trying to figure out what pow board to buy, tell us more about your style and terrain. 5% of days at which resort? Are we talking Tahoe or Baker? Very different snow. Do you want to land switch once in a while? Not likely on a swallowtail. Tight trees with moguls and cliffs, or screaming arcs in open bowls? Both?

I loved that pow stick at Grand Targhee in the super-light champagne powder that fell there, but found it too heavy and awkward to maneuver in the moguls and trees at Revelstoke. With the higher density snow here I don't really need the swallowtail to float (not even heli-boarding) so I traded it for the Furberg last season. I'll miss the Pow Stick, but it was the wrong board for the terrain and the snow here.



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