Graham Sinclair - CASI Lvl 3 Instructor With the enormous variety of snowboards available on the market, how do you choose the right snowboard shape for your riding style? There are a few key questions you can ask yourself to help narrow down which board will best serve you.
A snowboard profile is the way the snowboard is designed to bend from the contact points, i.e., the places where the board touches the snow when laid flat and without a rider strapped in and pushing down on it.
As a career snowboard instructor, I know how to gauge someone’s proficiency level just after seeing a few turns or even after asking a few questions. To help you gauge your own proficiency level, in this article I’ll run through some of the types of terrain and different maneuvers that snowboarders at each proficiency level can typically do.
Knowing your own ability level is the first step in choosing the best equipment to maximize your progression. Board shape, flex, and profile along with size and width are the key specs to understand when choosing a board.
Simply put, directional snowboards work best with the nose of the snowboard going downhill first and twin snowboards work equally as well with either the nose or the tail pointing downhill first, that is natural or switch.
For freestyle snowboarding, I recommend Twin shape, which has equal tail and nose length versus directional, which has a slightly longer nose and a slightly shorter tail. Having equal nose and tail length allows you to take off and land tricks both natural and switch (i.e., with your natural back leg forward), which is a key part of freestyle.
You might have noticed that not all snowboard boots have the same lacing system. There are three main systems for snowboard boot lacing: traditional, speed lacing, and BOA.
You might be thinking that lessons are too expensive, or that you’re naturally good at skateboarding, surfing, or some other sport and that snowboarding will be easy to learn on your own. While these things might be true to varying extents, taking lessons will save you time, money, and some bumps and bruises along the path to learning your first turns.
Sharp edges grip better and well-waxed bases slide better, meaning that a well-tuned snowboard will actually help you perform better on the mountain.
You’ve invested time and money into selecting and purchasing your snowboard gear. The easiest way to protect that investment is to do some basic snowboard maintenance.
The off-season is an ideal time to review your snowboarding gear, which is why we’ve created our snowboard gear checklist which we’ll share with you below. Why is the off-season the best time to review your snowboarding gear? One big reason is off-season deals from your favorite brands!
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