the I want and gimme's
Sep. 4th, 2002 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherOnce upon a time, I made a deal with the Boy. I would learn to snowboard if he would learn to ride horses. He's held up his end of the bargain and can now stay on through most shit Joe throws his way. I've gone snowboarding twice. I do really want to learn. Anything that painful must be fun, right? But there are some barriers in my way.
Snowboarding if you don't own your own gear is expensive. Really expensive. We're talking over $150 for a few hours, assuming you also don't own a lift pass to the local mountain. I can't afford to do that all that often.
Also, learning to snowboard is painful. For you volleyball players out there, think being stuck in ready position for the duration of sliding down a mountain. The only way out of ready position is to either fall over (crash) or switch edges. Switching edges it the biggest learning hurdle for snowboarding. Everyone starts on their heel edge. Going onto your toe edge correctly means you are leaning on your toes, shooting down the mountain headfirst. Doing it incorrectly means the front edge of your board digs in and you get slammed face first into the downward slope of the mountain. I almost got edge switching by the end of my second trip. I could get to the toe edge. I just couldn't get back. The back of my head got slammed off the mountain a dozen times. So the first purchase for this year is going to be a helmet. Helmets are your friends. So is Advil but I already have that.
I also want my own board and bindings now. When I rented gear last winter, the first time was at the ski shop at the mountain. Mistake. Shitty board, no edges left on it(all rounded off) and it weighed a ton. Boy's board, which was almost a good foot longer, weighed half as much. Also, they didn't have any boots that fit and my heels kept coming up out of the ones they gave me. I did not have fun, though I did eventually get down the mountain.
Second time I rented from the Underground, a local skate and snowboard shop. Much better board and boots that stayed on. Also a much better experience, though I still hobbled to the car at the end with a splitting headache.
Thing is, I've been reading up on snowboards and I realize now that the second board still made life harder than it should have been. For one thing, I had about two inches from my heel and toe to the edge of the board. This meant my leverage for edge switching sucked. You're supposed to have a board as narrow as you can without having your toes hang over the edge. For another thing, the board was made with a man's body proportions in mind. So the correct length of board was made for a person at least 20 pounds heavier than me. Board stiffness is correlated to person's weight and the stiffer the board, the harder it is to ride.
Luckily, there is a growing number of companies that made women specific boards, narrower, lighter and more flexible than their male conterparts. Now I just have to find one that is both decent quality and doesn't cost a fortune. Preferably without flowers painted on it.
Snowboarding if you don't own your own gear is expensive. Really expensive. We're talking over $150 for a few hours, assuming you also don't own a lift pass to the local mountain. I can't afford to do that all that often.
Also, learning to snowboard is painful. For you volleyball players out there, think being stuck in ready position for the duration of sliding down a mountain. The only way out of ready position is to either fall over (crash) or switch edges. Switching edges it the biggest learning hurdle for snowboarding. Everyone starts on their heel edge. Going onto your toe edge correctly means you are leaning on your toes, shooting down the mountain headfirst. Doing it incorrectly means the front edge of your board digs in and you get slammed face first into the downward slope of the mountain. I almost got edge switching by the end of my second trip. I could get to the toe edge. I just couldn't get back. The back of my head got slammed off the mountain a dozen times. So the first purchase for this year is going to be a helmet. Helmets are your friends. So is Advil but I already have that.
I also want my own board and bindings now. When I rented gear last winter, the first time was at the ski shop at the mountain. Mistake. Shitty board, no edges left on it(all rounded off) and it weighed a ton. Boy's board, which was almost a good foot longer, weighed half as much. Also, they didn't have any boots that fit and my heels kept coming up out of the ones they gave me. I did not have fun, though I did eventually get down the mountain.
Second time I rented from the Underground, a local skate and snowboard shop. Much better board and boots that stayed on. Also a much better experience, though I still hobbled to the car at the end with a splitting headache.
Thing is, I've been reading up on snowboards and I realize now that the second board still made life harder than it should have been. For one thing, I had about two inches from my heel and toe to the edge of the board. This meant my leverage for edge switching sucked. You're supposed to have a board as narrow as you can without having your toes hang over the edge. For another thing, the board was made with a man's body proportions in mind. So the correct length of board was made for a person at least 20 pounds heavier than me. Board stiffness is correlated to person's weight and the stiffer the board, the harder it is to ride.
Luckily, there is a growing number of companies that made women specific boards, narrower, lighter and more flexible than their male conterparts. Now I just have to find one that is both decent quality and doesn't cost a fortune. Preferably without flowers painted on it.
