Experimenting with Crazy Snowboard Stance Angles

My Gear List

[r_lonef]

Try +45 on the back and -45 on the front.

[ristokoskinen]

The problem with very high positive angles like the 45/45 you tried is that alignment of the knees gets mechanically bad. If you think of the knees as hinges the are, the "hing pins" are on very different line on the front and the back. This is why you can feel locked in place and not be able to move correctly.
I run +59/+50 on my alpine snowboard. The hardboot bindings have toe-lift on the front and heel-lift on the back foot which corrects the alignment of the knees.

[jae]

In Asia, lots of riders love posi posi position with really stiff deck. It looks like alpine position but with a regular board. They do crazy tricks and focus on true deep carve. The way you need to ride with more than 40 angles is different. You need to use angulation more than upper body rotation. Japanese and Koreans are big fan of the position.

[emilybrooks]

I started riding duck, but have been getting gradually more positive over the years. I now ride +23 +18 and find it's just fun for carving and steeps. This has inspired me to experiment some more! I grew up surfing rather than snowboarding, where a front-on (aka positive) stance is preferred to open up the shoulders for turns and improve flow, so find the positive angles give a more surfy feel to snowboarding too, which I enjoy!

[shredandenjoy]

+21 +6 is about where I ride. Really good directional control but not too excessive! Only thing I'll add is if you ride centered, you'll want to scoot back just a bit since you've now rotated both balls of your foot just a bit over center.

Would be interesting to combine this all with an asym board built around positive foot angles. Adjust where the sidecut starts on each board to essentially center you.

Oh and forward lean!

[DazDaz]

I learned to ride in the very early 90s when really posi posi was the only game in town it seemed back then. I do ride duck from time to time but really I ride posi posi (+27, +12) for 95% of my riding. I love the position. Switch sucks of course (more like riding backwards) but when it comes to ripping it forwards it's just such a powerful position. It allows you to get your hips facing more downhill and opens up your body for those huge carves. The main reasons I don't ride much duck these days is that I primarily love to turn and burn with my board on/in the snow rather than in the air or on a park feature. It's also because I'm carrying a lifetime of wear and tear on my body and any negative angle on my back foot causes me knee pain these days - I'm 52 and been riding for 32 years - and posi posi is just so easy on the knees for me.

It's not a stance for a beginner (even though I learned that way) because it makes those early falling leaf drills and early turns etc much more difficult.

Just saying that although you felt awkward in posi posi, it was clear that elements of your riding looked so nice in some moments there. Stick with it and add it to your arsenal of riding.

[mlandsl]

Pro tip for positive stance angle riding. Keep the front and back angles 9-12 degrees different for best carving positioning. I used to ride 36/24 back in the 90s but over the decades have gone more and more neutral. Now I’m at 21/12. When I started snowboarding I came from skiing so I use the cross under carving technique which is why duck stance just doesn’t feel great for me.

[bdave]

More of this! We alpine carve in hard boots at 55 angles. When I’m not soft booting. Thanks for the analysis 🤙

[randifolwell]

Believe it or not I learned from the famous Kevin Delaney. He taught us to go positive, positive. This help in learning to first carve. Today I ride a positive 30 on the front and 15 on the rear. What ever will work for ya!

[sma_l]

I'm positive +21/+6, it's more comfortable for my knees. I started like many in duck +15/-12, then quickly +15/-9, +18/-6.... until now. I think that's the beauty of snowboarding compared to skiing (I don't know how to ski 🤣🤣) but the diversity of board stance angles is fantastic, that's why i love snowboard 😊

[jorssyy]

I used to feel very unstable in duckstance untill i switched to posi posi, never felt better, MUCH more control and really really happy.

[emceeboogs]

Older rider here. I have an uncommon stance, but it works for me and my lead knee. Front +27 / Rear 0 to -3. Enjoy the holidays, and keep riding into the new year! #oldguysrule

[georgeg]

I've been riding with angles +30 +12 (regular) for many years. I rode an alpine board with more angles and when I realized that an alpine board does not provide as many opportunities as a regular one, I started using regular boards with these angles, since I mostly do carving anyway. The riding technique is different, but the speed control is no less if you know the technique. It's fun, but not suitable for a park.

[burakurgancoglu]

So the logic of the +/+ is so that you can collapse your back knee forward into the front knee, which enables the deep vitelli turns/euro carves. Downside is you lose leverage during ollies and switching means going properly backwards. I find that once you internalize the collapsed knee one can go back to +/- and still collapse knee and get in some really deep carves.

I used to watch you a lot Kevin during my early days. It’s really interesting to see things that are normal to me now can be novel to you. There’s no one way to grow in snowboarding and that’s the beauty of it.

Thank you for instilling the love of snowboarding in me, and merry Christmas!

[sethbowers]

This year is my 40th year snowboarding. I’ve seen everything. Late 90’s, maybe early 00’s I had a Rossi GS race board and plates I would break out for a handful of runs first thing. That board was a tank. 45 or more on both feet, narrow as hell. Scary as all get out at slow and medium speeds. As soon as your eyes were watering you were locked in and trenching. That’s as close to skiing as I’ve ever come. +27 +9 with some variation depending on the board anymore. Still can dig a trench and revert out when needed. I’ll keep an eye out for ya at PC this year.

[marcooberto]

After years in duck stance I saw yor video and decided to try posi posi. Yesterday I had my first ride using +36/+18. What a discover! Now I have to try almost all the suggestion found in the comments. Thank you for sharing and thanks to all.

[Batwing]

Been running +18 front foot and 0 on back for years now and it’s been a keeper

[sorenwolff]

The only reason to increase angles is to reduce or eliminate toe & heel drag. Once you have moved angles to the point where your toes and heels no longer line up over edge, you have lost the ability to pressure either edge effectively. Racers only run high angles, because the narrowness of the boards dictate it. Narrow boards are much faster edge to edge, hence narrow boards for slalom and GS. One of the reasons it became so difficult at the higher angles was, you fell out of the range of your “high back”. The lower leg movement was lateral as opposed to for & aft. In addition, soft boots don’t give you the lateral support you would need to ride such high angles, whereas an alpine set up with plastic/race boots would.
Very Cool, fun to watch!

[andrewfurlong]

Running a 42/42 on my Alpine board, still soft boots and regular bindings instead of the ski boots and base plates. It gives such an amazing tuck but since it's hard to find angled risers for regular bindings to get the angle for your back foot, I stacked three insoles into a wedge and placed them inside my boot. It gives the additional pressure you need for the back of your board when you lean that far forward, but the speed and lean you get in your turns is completely insane.

[Bloodysugar]

I learned +45 +40 on alpine board, then went to some "V-Turn / euro carve on way too long, stiff and catchy full camber freeride board" and rode it +45 +35 for a decade. I can tell it was a pretty steep learning curve at first. It was more like riding an oversized skwal than a snowboard : very sketchy, and so very engaged (landing jumps like that is something...), but after a while it became a continuous fulfilling blast. I had to stop riding, and after 2 decades I'm back into it. Now I'm about 50 and got the luck to spend about as much time as I want in Swiss Alpes, so I'm considering getting in a way more playful and mellow ride, learning stuff I almost never tried like butters and switch, yet going duck is the crazy weird stance to me... XD