Snowboard Wax

In essence snowboard binding forward lean is the angle of your calf to the snowboard itself. The amount of forward lean is usually adjustable by a device located on the back of your snowboard bindings highback (the part of the binding that surrounds the back of your leg supporting it when snowboarding). Due to the lack of a high back with snowboard hard boots a built-in adjustment system is usually how you adjust the forward lean for snowboard hard boots.

The more forward lean you have on your hard boots or soft boot bindings high-back the less angle there is between your calf and your snowboard.

Snowboarding forward lean is essential for control on your heel side carves and turns. Companies have been integrating this in to the designs of their snowboard soft bindings with the use of higher, stiffer highbacks for improved control. However, for freestyle snowboarding such as in the halfpipe you are likely to prefer a smaller more flexible highback. snowboard binding forward lean also forces you to bend your knees giving you a lower center of gravity which is better for quick reactions and control.

For more control and better leverage in your heel side turns add more forward lean, however, do note that over doing it and adding to much forward lean causes your knee to bend to much putting pressure on your quadriceps muscles and can actually make it harder to turn. The key is to find a happy middle ground that feels comfortable but also gives you sufficient heel side control and response. Experiment until you feel you have right amount of forward lean.

Snowboard binding angles refer to your foot positioning on the snowboard and are expressed with the front binding angle being written first followed by the rear binding angle, for example: (15°/0°).

You won’t need to get out a protractor to work out your snowboard binding angles because the angles are printed on the inside of the bindings themselves around the circumference of the snowboard binding discs. What angles you choose are down to personal preference and your snowboarding style; freeride, freestyle, racing, etc.

If you stand on your snowboard completely sideways and then attach your bindings where your feet were, you would have binding angles of (0°/0°). If you rotate your feet a little toward to nose of your snowboard you may have binding angles of (15°/15°). If you rotate your front foot a bit more in the direction of the snowboards nose but keep your rear foot in the same position you may have snowboard binding angles of (25°/15°). Again its all down to what feels most comfortable to you.

Freeride binding angles for a typical freeride stance with a freeride snowboard and soft boots & bindings would be (30°/10°). Some experienced riders like to rotate their back foot a small amount towards the tail, which makes the snowboard binding angle have a negative angle (15°/-3°). This is called ‘Duckfoot‘, and is said to aid stability and fakie riding (snowboarding in the opposite direction to the one you normally ride). A racing snowboarder or alpine snowboarder would usually ride with much steeper binding angles such as (55°/50°).

Many soft boot snowboard bindings have an adjustable disc marked with numbers that correlate to your snowboard binding angles. Adjust these to your desired angles. If your snowboard bindings do not have the angle printed then it’s out with the protractor, however, this is highly unlikely as most modern snowboard bindings these days have the angles printed or engraved on them. If you do not have the angles marked the teeth on your snowboard bindings usually force 3° steps at a time so once you figure out where 0° is you can work out your angles from the number of teeth steps in multiples of 3°.

The key here is to try out a variety of different snowboard binding angles in the suitable range for the riding style you are doing. The more you experiment the closer you will get to finding what snowboard binding angles work for you.

Setting your snowboard bindings back on the board is fairly normal these days for all mountain freeriding. Snowboard bindings set back involves attaching your bindings so that the mid point between your bindings is slightly behind the center point of the board. To determine your set back correctly your will need to find the center of the snowboard. However, this is a bit more tricky than simply halving the length of your snowboard and marking the point. You’ll have to perform a bit of calculation first:

1. Place your snowboard on it’s edge on a hard, flat surface.
2. Get a tape measure and note the distance between where the edge touches the surface at the nose of your board and where the edge touches the surface at the tail of your snowboard.
3. Now halve this length and and make a mark on the topsheet of your snowboard where this is because this is your snowboards center point.
4. Get your bindings next and attach them to your snowboard keeping your desired stance width (in this case lets just use 20 inches). The mid point of your stance is halfway between the center of both bindings (in this cases example this would be 10 inches).
5. For a centered stance your snowboard set back would be zero and so your mid point between both your bindings would be in the same place as the center point of your snowboard.
6. For a set back stance on your snowboard the mid point between your bindings must be behind the center point of your snowboard and therefore closer to the tail.
7. If you set your snowboard bindings up so that the mid point between your bindings is one inch behind the center point of your snowboard you have a set back stance of one inch.

Play and experiment with different amounts of set back on your snowboard to determine what you are comfortable with and under which types of riding and terrain you prefer which amounts of set back. Usually when riding powder you need to have a bigger set back then normal to keep your nose from diving and prevent your back leg taking all the strain from having to lean back on it to much.

Snowboard bindings are designed so that they can be moved around the snowboard to suit the individual rider or the terrain/conditions the rider is going to be snowboarding on.

The definition of a snowboarders stance width is the distance between the center of each of your snowboard bindings when they are attached to your snowboard. The stance width for an average sized man going freeriding using a freeride snowboard with soft boots and bindings will range between 18 to 21 inches. For an average sized woman who is going freeriding their stance width will usually be between 16 and 19 inches. Hard boot snowboarders will normally ride with much smaller stance widths for increased control and speed from edge to edge.

The best way on how to determine your stance width is to simply experiment with different sizes, but a good stance width to start from is with the same distance as the distance from the base of your heel to the middle of the back if your knee. This should end up being a little wider than your shoulder width. Starting from this will provide you with a sensible stance width to begin snowboarding with. From there you can keep adjusting the stance width to determine what stance width feels right for you.

If you find yourself trying lots of different stance widths and nothing seems to feel right you can also base your snowboarding stance width on your height using the following table:

Your Height –> Stance Width

less than 5′ –> 17″ - 18″ wide
5′ to 5′5″ –> 18″ - 19″ wide
5′5″ to 5′10″ –> 19″ - 21″ wide
5′10″ or more –> 20″ - 22″ wide

The first thing to consider when determining your snowboard stance setup is which way round you prefer to stand; left or right foot first? The terminology for this is goofy or regular. Regular being left foot forward and goofy being right foot forward. Think of it as like begin left or right handed; everyone has a natural lean towards one or the other.

Interestingly your left or right foot preference can change from one board sport to another. If you skateboard, surf or do some other board sport you may already have an idea as to your preference but it could well be different for snowboarding. So far with every board sport I have tried I found the regular stance to always be the most comfortable position. However, many of you (including some big profile pro riders such as Gian Simmen & Jussi Oksanen) will prefer to ride one way snowboarding and the other way with different board sports.. strange but true! Jussi Oksanen for example snowboards with a regular stance but skateboards with a goofy stance.

How to determine your snowboard stance of being either regular or goofy can be a bit tricky until you actually start riding and even then, when in the early learning stages, it can be hard to tell until you have progressed a bit so you can get a clearer idea as to which snowboard stance you are more comfortable with. However, there are a few tricks you can do before then to help you decide which snowboard stance you are:

• Run over a non-grip floor such as kitchen tiles or lino in your sicks and then try to stop quickly and slide. You foot that automatically gets put out in front is likely be the same foot you want at the front of your snowboard.
• Ask someone to give you a gentle(!) shove forward when you are not expecting it. The foot you use to catch yourself to stop you falling over will the foot you’ll likely want in front when snowboarding.
• Get a friend to throw a ball to you but have them throw it short so you have to step forward to catch the ball before it hits the ground. Again the foot you put forward here is likely the foot you should put at the front when snowboarding.
• When you ride down a hill on a bike stand up on your pedals so they are level (horizontal with the ground) and note which foot you put in front. This is the front foot you should try first when snowboarding.

I hope these help clarify which snowboard stance, goofy or regular, you are. In the next setting up snowboard stance section parts we will be going in to closer detail about precise stance positioning and how to setup your snowboard bindings properly.