How much do you lean back in the pow?? even with pow sticks

rememberscott

rememberscott

Active member
do you guys ever find yourself leaning back with your pow sticks on? Are you on the balls of your feet, or leaning forward when it's steep and deep? If yes/no provide your skis mm underfoot and what you find is most enjoyable. I'm talking 12"+ pow day
 
Never lean back.

If you have decent technique you don't need to. I've skied 12'+ snow in both 81mm underfoot and 120mm underfoot and although the pow skis are easier and more fun, you do not need to lean back with either.
 
You only need to lean back at low speeds. If you dont, well, you wont go anywhere fast.

Speed is your friend on a powder day.
 
not at all.

and not to sound cocky, but /thread. Any issue you have leaning forward, op, is due to other technique problems with your skiing, not the depth of the snow.
 
skiied waste deep pow today at niseko with travelling circus skis, they seemed fine and plenty of face shots due to no floatage what so ever, but yeah never lean back, the only time i've ever leant back in pow is when you're going for a tail butter and you skis just stick up vert like will wesson in europow
 
All that matters is your weight distribution in relation to the slope.

Ideally on a powder day you're making turns on the steepest runs you can find, and you can maintain a forward or centered athletic stance because the speed and angle of slope allows you to.

I think what OP is talking about, however, is traveling straight in deep snow on mild slopes. if it's flat, and you aren't going fast enough, of course you'll have to lean back to prevent tip dive.

and OP I have skied 86mm waist park skis and 125mm waist Volkl chopsticks in deep snow. The only real difference going straight foreward is that the chopsticks maintain speed much better by floating up, so you certainly don't have to lean back as much.
 
it really depends on the snow and the terrain, if its steep enough, and predictable, then no need, but if its unpredictable with a lot of bumps, then you might want to lean a bit to prevent some of the tipdive frontflips.
 
I never get why skiers don't fork out for a pair of pow sticks, you can use the same stuff for years, my older board is 4 years old and still destroys
 
you dont need to lean back in japan because the latititude is higher than canada and USA so the learn back isnt neeeded nearly as much as you would back home
 
what i am getting at is that when you are located in the western hemisphere, aka USA and Canada, the lean back factor you need to maintain is about 6%. This is a recommendation based off of recent charts and trends that were studied by the NLBSA regarding the lean back factor trends of 2012.

The eastern hemisphere was studied by JSTED and they recommended a lean back factor of 12%, or about 17 degrees off of the fall line. This was based off of the higher gravitational pull that is caused by the seismic activity of 2003.

its pretty complicated but its pretty easy to figure out.
 
That's pretty ignorant of you to say considering some skiers, such as myself, will get maybe 3 or 4 good powder days a year. This year I am at one. I cannot justify buying a pair of skis to use them 3 or 4 times a year, even if they last for numerous years.
 
this. people will over do it and be all "you should never lean back for one split second or youre gay" but the reality is if youre going really slow on a low angle slope you will probably need to lean back a bit and point straight down the fall line for a sec to gain the speed you need to have your regular stance and start some turns. at that point, yeah, you generally will almost never lean back too much unless you are out of control in hard chop
 
#centermountedskiproblems

Guys it's a question of basic physics and your equipment choices. If you're on a traditional mount and in deep pow on pow skis, you can rail good forward weighted turns with a little speed and use your momentum to charge it once you establish your balance point with the snow's buoyancy. If you're on center mounted sticks you're already way farther forward, and may feel like you have to compensate for the squirreliness at speed in 3D snow by leaning back, which is bad. It's bad for your shins, it's bad for your turns and it's bad for your whole body position.

See on a traditional mount, even when the tips do dive you've got more energy required to dive that tip enough to send you over the handlebars, also it gives the tips more ability to plane out and flex the ski since your weight is driving them down less. In center mounts, your fulcrum point is dead center, meaning you could very easily be thrown over if you get the least bit sloppy.

If you're going to ski your center mounted park sticks in pow you're going to have to drive the fuck out of the tips- literally try to drive them into bedrock and stay stacked as fuck and stay down in the pow and charge like a pissed rhino. Only then will you be able to compensate for their non-ideal mounting point in a sexy manner.

I hope that helped. Powder for the people!
 
don't lean back. You still want your shins in the front of your boots, that's where control comes from. You do however, want to push your weight backwards by sitting down a little bit.
 
totally. it's not like i'm leaning back nonstop, but especially on the more mild slopes, or at the end of the run to maintain speed and get out I definately lean back.... oh well I might look like a "douche" as some of you has said but I know that most of you lean back in the pow with park skis on... it's da truth!
 
People saying you don't need to lean back ever have never ridden centermount park skis in soaking wet pacific coast snow
 
I wouldn't say that's ignorant. first year I got my pow skis, I only had like 5 real good days of pow. the rest were just cruddie skiing and shit. fatty skis are also fun to rip cruddies on, as well a lot more stable than 80mm waist park skis
 
Well for 1, it's not about ball of foot. Pushing with the BOF extends(opens) the ankle and will take away shin-tounge pressure. Which prevents you from driving the ski.

It's about being balanced over the whole foot, and using the flex of the boot to work for you. Ie. Shin to tongue or calf to cuff.

Sometimes I take away shin pressure, when it's medium density snow and on a relatively flat slope. I certainly am never on the rear cuff of my boot, except when I am out of control and trying to recover.

 
this lol

i've never been skiing in powder without leaning back. but then again i've only been skiing in east coast pow and i've only done that on my center-mounted armada el reys.
 
100% correct. On center mount, you can also do a lot shorter turns for the 1980's style powder 8-ish stuff. It doesn't look as cool, but looks cooler than tip diving.
 
See me in da pow like

Belly%20Dance%20-%20Lean%20Back%20-%20Group%20of%203_full.jpeg
 
I think you also have to take the snow quality into consideration. I live in central Oregon, and ride Mt Bachelor. Here we have something called Cascade Cement, named after the Cascade Mountain range. I ride Atomic Blogs, 110 mm, mounted midway between center and back, and on blower pow days I never have to lean back. Most often though we get that thicker heavier snow, and with that stuff you really have to be hauling to maintain a fully upright position.
 
One thing no one has mentioned is that rocker helps a lot in low speed powder applications. A traditional speed requires more speed to flex the ski and get lift/float. If you are going too slow, you need to lean back to adjust the angle of attack to get the necessary float. A rockered ski is essentially already flexed and has a greater angle of attack, allowing for more float at less speed and no need to lean back. The reason you need float is to decrease drag and let gravity to work and let you ski down the hill. This is why you would have to lean back in heavier/ wetter snow and not in light POWWWW
 
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