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Heel edge

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
I noticed on last year's trip that occasionally I was losing my heel edge when I was carving hard going down steeper sections.
A couple of times this put me on my back side, so in order to avoid this on this years trip I thought I'd try messing around with my binding setup.
My discs allow me a fair degree of flexibility so I have moved them sideways a notch so that my heels hang a little further over my edge.
My rationale for this was that I would be putting a bit more weight over my heel edge and would therefore gain better edge hold.
Does this make sense or am I just going to completely unbalance myself? Puzzled
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Try setting your highbacks further forwards.
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OK, but does that not just put me more on my toes, moving my centre of balance (and weight) away from the heel edge?
Cheers
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ronaldothefrog, sounds like it could be a rotation in the upper body. I was suffering similar myself on the toe side till I worked it out. Looking back at the video, the other interesting result was that it also caused me to to get in the back seat which made things worse.

Once I stopped the rotation (for me at least, it was trying to carry on looking down hill which caused the 'twist') all was well.
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It'll mean less pressure is needed to engage the heel edge: pushing onto the highbacks puts you on the heel edge.
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OK, gotcha. Cheers for the advice (both).
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got any video ?
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Bend your knees more perhaps, and maybe your stance could be too wide - which can make it difficult to bend your knees and get a good heel edge . I found pushing my highbacks forward caused other problems for me. I suppose you could have a play around with your set up and try a few variations, as certain set-iups suite certain people.
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Stop twinsting the shoulders and put more weight in the back leg is what I keep being told.


He's got me doing Tai Chi exercises, swears it will help. Shocked
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if youve got big feet on a smallish board too much heel edge and youve lost your grip as your boots are touching
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I had a similar problem. This was solved by touching the back of my binding on my back foot with my back hand.
I kinda imagine im going for a stalefish grab.

This corrects my upper posture and pressures the back edge as I go through the carve.
If you running duck, also make sure your not pushing your knee forward.

Tux
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rayscoops wrote:
Bend your knees more perhaps


That was the other suggestion I was going to make. If you are riding 'tall' in the legs you will not have enough flex to absorb the pressure coming back as you complete the 2nd half of your turn. 'Juddering' from the edge is a give away.
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david@mediacopy, yes, with my wide stance I tended to lock out my front knee at times - not good at all, but I found narrowing my stance helped me bend my knees more and get better edge grip. Likewise when I pushed my high-backs forward it caused massive thigh burn because it put me in an uncomfortable position and I must have been compensating for it with my thighs - I put the high-backs back and the problem was solved.

I think different things work for different people, but for me bending my kness more and getting my center of gravity lower perhaps put more force/pressure through my boots to the edges to get a better grip
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
rayscoops, Boarding set-up is so much more technical that ski set up and takes a while to get right. Stance is a tricky one and I suspect will vary with the stiffness of the board in question. The rule of thumb I was taught was to centre the bindings using the tip of your middle finger and elbow as a guide for stance width.

High back position is tricky too. I ride flows at the mo, so there isn't as much adjustment as I would like. I suspect the optimum setting is to have them snug at your 'normal' riding position - ie slightly flexed at the ankle. If they are too far forward that's going to force you into a 'over' flexed posture - which means that your ability to flex 'more' is reduced, which is not good.
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tuxpoo wrote:
I had a similar problem. This was solved by touching the back of my binding on my back foot with my back hand.
I kinda imagine im going for a stalefish grab.

This corrects my upper posture and pressures the back edge as I go through the carve.
If you running duck, also make sure your not pushing your knee forward.

Tux


My tip's similar, try grabbing the board inbetween your legs on your toe edge in effect doing a 'indy turn'. This will just get you bending your knees and realising how low you can squat on a board, be warned though you will pick up a lot of speed so check around before going for a mega long indy carve turn!!!!
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 Poster: A snowHead
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touching your boots etc is effectively the same as bending your knees and lowering your center of gravity, but an easy 'trigger' to get you to do it. Normally fear of a fall works in the same way for me
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Funny those last few comments actually as I found myself "sitting" into turns to try and correct it - seemed to work too so maybe I should just keep doing that Very Happy
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rayscoops wrote:
david@mediacopy,Likewise when I pushed my high-backs forward it caused massive thigh burn because it put me in an uncomfortable position and I must have been compensating for it with my thighs - I put the high-backs back and the problem was solved


this answers it. You are riding with your legs too straight. Straight legs, no pain, can't hold the edge.

Crank your highbacks forward and do more exercises for your quads.
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bar shaker, nope, and seriously I have very big calves (leg not cow type) !

Do not get me wrong I do not have them set back particularly and they are normally set to a forward bias, but when I set them really forward it was quite uncomfortable and very unatural. I was trying a very wide stance setting too so it might have been a mixture of both because I changed both at the same time Little Angel
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The big calves may be part of the problem. Generally large muscles are useless for stamina work as they fill with lactic acid. That said, riding is all about quads. Calves will play more of a part in toe side riding as you will use your calves to load your toes, much like standing on a partial tip toe.

Heel side is solid quads and the muscle in your shins (forgotten it's name). Try more quad exercises and get those high backs forward.

I'm in Tignes on day 6 of a 12 day boarding trip so have a fair idea of what muscles are doing what.
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bar shaker, my reference to big calves was intended to suggest that I may already be in a slightly forward biased position without even having the high backs set forward much (i really do struggle with the top of my boot digging in to my calf to such an extent that I often have bruising of cuts after a few days), and if I put the high backs substantially forward it seems to put my stance in an unatural and uncomfortable postion. Nothing wrong with my quads either after playing prop and cycling for most of my life. I simply found it uncomfortable and unatural with the high backs pushed right forward and on that particular day I had thigh burn by late afternoon, I eased them back a bit and the burn disappeared. I think we are all built differently and our set up affects/effects our riding and comfort in different ways Very Happy

Hope you are enjoying your self out there, you luck bi_igger snowHead
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rayscoops, it might worth renting an ICS board and messing around with angles and stances, for a day.

Yep, I'm not being complacent, especially as today was a powder day.
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Ray, I forgot to say, when carving a heel edge, I am quite far forward with no lot of rear heel pressure at all.
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bar shaker wrote:
rayscoops, it might worth renting an ICS board and messing around with angles and stances, for a day.

Yep, I'm not being complacent, especially as today was a powder day.


I have done all that messing around with stances many times and two years ago spent 3 full days trying all sorts of strange arrangements, only messed around on the last trip because I was with people in lessons all day and thought I would do a bit of experimenting again, stance width, high back, feet angles, riding switch etc and it was only one configuration that gave me a bit of trouble on one day; not a big issue really Very Happy
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After the earlier posts, my mate said he was having trouble holding a heel edge on The Icy Wall of Death down into Les Boisses in the evening. He had previously wound some lean off as it was hurting his quads. He's a lot stronger now so I suggested he wind some back on.

Heel edge hold sorted and his boarding control improved overall.


Powder is a different matter and deep powder needs upright high backs, for me.
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