K2 Raygun tested, but still need help

Posted: 14 December 2010 01:08 PM

Hi everyone, I’m back after 5 days riding on the brand new K2 Raygun - Thanks Rich for your advice on buying, i love the board.
My doubt now comes on the riding (i´ll try to explain as clear as my English grammar allows me):
I ride on Regular stand (my “strong leg” is the left one but I feel comfortable on that pose). When I´m riding down the hill, and I turn right, everything is OK. But when i turn back to the left side, my left feet improves the right one and I ended up crossed and close to stopped. I have to turn my whole body to the right to prevent it.
I think it must be a bindings problem but I don’t know which should I move or how. On my left bndg I have a +27º and -15º on the right one. What should I do?
I hope I make myself clear. Last week that happened, I was on hard snow, I fell flat on my face and moved the whole mountain with my ribs!!! (and now breathing is a bit painful…)

well, once more, an s.o.s. sent!!!

Thank you all.

Posted: 14 December 2010 05:10 PM

I don’t think there’s anything wromg with the board, but I think flattening your binding angles would help. Try these angles +15 degrees on the front and -9 on the rear binding.

I’m no instructor, so my brother Tom who also works on the site would be more help, but I will try. Counter-rotating your shoulders to aim the board in the direction you want to go is ver bad technique, it means you’re weight is in the wrong place and your body is all twisted so you won’t be able to absorb any bumps. The secret to nailing your turns and carving is making sure that at least when you start a greater amount of weight is on your front foot, maybe 70/30 when you commit to a turn. When I started I found putting some forward lean on my front binding meant I automatically had more weight on my front foot. When you turn, make sure you are pointing your leading (left) shoulder in the direction you want to turn. Also make sure your legs are nice and bent keeping them straight will make counter rotating your body easier, as I mentioned earlier that is really bad. For the majority of turns and carves unless you are doing a cutback or slash your shoulders should be aligned with your knees.

Hopefully Tom will spot this thread and offer you some professional advice :)

Posted: 15 December 2010 04:15 AM

Hey guys,

Rich is absolutely right with his advise; firstly I’d look at adjusting your binding angles to what Rich suggested….........27 degrees is a race stance.

With regards to rotation of the shoulders and upper body; unless you’re riding 60 degree faces or rotating your shoulders and body for a jib or spin off of a kicker then you shouldn’t rotate your upper body. Steering should come from your feet and and by applying pressure along the boards edges, through up and down movements (flexing your knees and ankles) and movements along the board (for and aft).

What happened to you was a classic result of keeping your weight on the back foot and trying to rotate using your shoulders.

Like Rich said the key is committing your weight to the front leg…...I find a good way of getting students to do this is telling them to point with their front knee exactly where they want to go and dropping the front heel or toe, depending on which direction they’re turning (heel when turning from toe edge to heel edge…...and toes when turning from heels to toes. I also find that if you try and turn across the slope (traversing it), rather than simply just turning down it you’ll get better performance out of your turns and you’ll get rid of that nasty rotation and counter rotation.

Best of luck dude…........just remember practice makes perfect.

Posted: 19 December 2010 09:49 PM

Hello again guys, thank you for your prompt response and sorry for my delay… been off line for a week.
I´ve been reading, translating, watching videos and reading again your text. First next thing, rotating the bindings and try the measures you give me. In fact the first grades I had were about those you said - I checked various websites the first day, but later on, I changed them searching for a solution.
Rich I’ll try too leaning my front high-back as you tell.
Tom the fact of pointing with my front ankle where I want to go is a bit confusing but I get the point, shoulders in line with the board - I had a one-hour lesson last year and I was told to imagine I was driving a truck, and had the wheel on my hands, so turn the whell, turn the body… the board follows.
Also i’ll check the weight point, right now can’t remember what i’m doing but i believe i lean on my front leg. I’m back to the mountain for new years eve, let see what happen ;)

Apart from this, I would like to congratulate you for the Blue Tomato cooperation, I think is great for you and the web but one question Rich: Do you ask for the boards you want to try, or do they call you to try the board they want?
Ah!!! one last thing, pleassssse. tell the mixer to pump domw the music volumen, I can hardly hear you!!!

“Practice makes perfect” - i’ll keep in mind Tom, thank very much you both.

Posted: 19 December 2010 10:01 PM

I’m glad it’s coming together for you, a couple more days and you’ll have it perfect.

THanks for the compliments on the videos. I’m afraid I am the filmer, presenter and editor, it’s useful to get some critism, I’ll makes sure i turn down the music for future videos.

Blue Tomato are really generous. I email them which boards i want to test and they tell me which shop i need to pick the boards up from. When I tested the Burner and Supermodel I had to take the stickers off the base, they were brand new! I’m looking forward to working with them in the future.