How to put on snowboard bindings?

I've never seen anything with as many configurations as snowboard bindings. They can be set wider, narrower, forward, rearward, more or less angled... endless possibilities for something so basic.

Let's start from the beginning: how to choose your stance : width, angles, and centering. The first thing you need to do is determine your stance. The easiest way to do this is to measure the distance between the center of your knee and your ankle bone. The distance obtained should match the distance between the center and center of the soles of your bindings.

My favorite way to determine your stance is to stand on a chair and jump off it several times, landing on the floor in your base position. Once you've completed the pirouettes, we'll measure the distance from the center of your insteps to the center of your feet and calculate the average of your total jumps. I think jumping five times is fine.

Stance Variations: First, I'd like to say that there are probably a thousand other ways to calculate stance; I use the two above. Second, I'd like to say that it's not an exact science, and you may feel more comfortable with different averages than the ones I've obtained. I recommend playing around a bit to find where you feel best.

Do we always use the same stance? No, we start with the measurement obtained above and increase or decrease it depending on the type of snowboard we're going to ride:

• All-mountain snowboard : If you're looking to be comfortable on all terrains, whether you're on piste, flat-riding, or hitting the park, set up your snowboard with the stance you've achieved using any of the above methods.
• Freestyle Jibbing : We'll reduce the stance distance a little when we reach an intermediate level. We want to be able to rotate quickly on entries and exits; spreading our legs wider makes us bigger and slower. Look at a dancer spinning in the air; she has a small stance. However, when we reach a higher level and rotate more easily on the exits and entries of the modules, we'll spread the bindings further apart to achieve a better stride.
• Freestyle Jumps : This time, we're increasing the stance distance slightly. We want to land as stably as possible; feet too close together won't balance us effectively, but BE CAREFUL! Feet too far apart won't work either.

Position of the bindings relative to the nose and tail. For this setup, we'll consider the stance you achieved previously and any variations.

• Centered, the same distance between the front and nose as between the rear and tail. We'll set up the bindings this way if we're going to ride both naturally and switch. To achieve this setup, we'll need a twin-mounted board or we'll need to play with the position of the binding's discs. We usually set up this setup on our freestyle boards.

• Set back , more nose than tail, we mounted the bindings with the intention of:
  • Move the center of gravity, or weight, to the rear of our board when riding on fresh snow. When freeriding, we need to raise the nose of the board so it doesn't constantly dig in.
  • Having a larger nose allows you to exert more weight (forward) when you're blasting down the slopes. A smaller nose surface means less force or load can be exerted on the front of your board; if we go too far, it will give way and we'll lose grip.

The last setting we'll discuss is angle . We'll adjust the angle of our bindings using the discs that attach the bindings to the board. The discs are marked with lines and numbers. Each line adds or subtracts three positive or negative degrees from the previous angle.

The angle of the bindings will make us face the slope more or less depending on whether we increase or decrease it. If we're going down the slope only on our side, we'll set, for example, +12º, +15º, or +18º on our front foot and -0º or -3º on our back foot, trying to relax our back knee. On the other hand, if we plan to ride equally on both sides, we can set the same angle on both feet.

We can also play with the angle to improve our snowboarding if we're going to do something specific. For example, for freestyle, we'll look for something neutral, like 6º-6º or 9º-9º. However, for freeride or boardercross, where we know we're going to be going straight ahead in one direction, we'll be very aggressive with the angle of the front foot, reaching up to 21º, and we can also sneak in the back foot in positive.

Angulation will also play an important role in hip rotation, for example, in less experienced riders.