A few years ago, my friend Rob asked himself a question: Can I ride a snowboard like a kayak? We set off to resolve the issue. Short answer-> Yes. Long answer-> Not really. At least not as originally conceived. We learned a lot along the way, and incorporated those discoveries into a new vision. After a lot of testing and thinking and more testing, we built something that works nicely. We’ve seen considerable enthusiasm from whitewater paddlers,…
Photo: Cranberry Sunrise 1/19/21. Part 4 in a multi-part series on skiing/snowboarding on hard snow. The late comedian George Carlin had a routine called ‘Icebox Man’, in which he reviews his difficulty identifying leftovers. “Perhaps the worst thing that can happen is to reach into the refrigerator and come out with something that you cannot identify at all. You literally do not know what it is. Could be meat, could be cake. Usually, at a time like…
Alpine sport relies heavily on the management of energy with respect to time. If we move effectively, we ‘gain’ time, consuming less of our own energy, meanwhile utilizing more of the energy provided by our working environment. Movement analysis is not about assessing and copying someone else’s motions or criticizing an athlete because they don’t conform to a particular standard. It’s about understanding where movements come from and how they affect the performance You can learn the…
Third in a multi-part series on skiing/snowboarding on hard snow. In 1959, Volkswagen introduced what might be the most famous ad campaign of all time. They promoted the Beetle with the tagline : Think Small. They emphasized the scale and contrast of the agile VW, and questioned the assumptions of the market, where the majority of manufacturers were turning out massive hulks of steel and glass. The pursuit of enhanced athletic performance often takes the highway toward…
Second in a multi-part series on skiing/snowboarding on hard snow. Speed control while carving is a combination of selective friction and turn shape. Removing a little more snow from the trench consumes energy through work, while extending (hooking) the end of each turn slightly uphill consumes momentum. Given how difficult it is to displace ice, most speed control on ice will have to be done with turn shape. Turn shape can be a challenge if the edge…
The introduction to a multi-part series on how to ride better on firm snow. The well-groomed surface makes liars of us all. Inevitable ice reveals our folly. Nobody likes being called a liar, but with incomplete information, the stories we tell ourselves will likely be false. Many of us have learned to ski and snowboard based on body positions, rather than the underlying concepts that lead to those positions. Most anything will ‘work’ when the snow is…
What? Depending on who’s speaking, ‘footbed’ can describe the sockliner inside a new set of boots, the insoles found at the corner drugstore, the neatly packaged options on the rack at the local ski shop, the custom molded variant from that same ski shop, and orthotics provided by a pedorthist. Also the highly-tuned products that I make at Beckmann AG. All of these products fall into the category of ‘foot support’. How they differ is an important…
