How to Ride Fakie on a Snowboard

Once you become conformable riding a snowboard, you'll probably want to learn to ride fakie. This term means that you're riding down the mountain and leading with your non-dominant foot. It can be useful to know how to ride fakie on your snowboard if you like performing fun tricks. Read on to learn more.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Friend

Teach Yourself to Ride Fakie on a Snowboard

1. Head back towards the beginner trails. For some, learning to ride fakie can be like learning to snowboard all over again. You'll want to start on the easiest trails.

2. See how natural riding fakie feels to you. Many people have a tendency to try to control the board by using the rear foot because that's the dominant foot.

3. Practice carving heel-side and toe-side individually. You may need to focus on perfecting each turn before combining them. At first, try wide turns that take you from one side of the trail to the other.

4. Resist the urge to switch back to your regular stance. If riding fakie is hard and you fall a lot, you'll probably want to give up and just ride normally. Remind yourself that learning fakie will help you once you start doing tricks that land in this position.

5. Bring a friend along to learn fakie with you. Alternate who rides in front and try to make comments on each other's riding. For example, if your friend's turns spin him around to a regular stance, he probably isn't putting enough weight on his front foot while turning.

6. Incorporate riding fakie into your general snowboarding. You may want to slow down and try riding fakie on the easier parts of other trails. Spending a whole day on beginner trails probably won't be very much fun for an accomplished snowboarder.

Tips & Warnings

• You may want to adjust the angle of your bindings for riding fakie. Many people who ride both ways like to keep the bindings set almost perpendicular to the snowboard.
• If you get into a dangerous position--either on the edge of the trail or too close to another skier--try to quickly change to your regular stance so you'll have more control of your board.
• You don't really need to be a great fakie rider. It's a useful position to start or finish tricks in, but it's usually easier to switch back to regular stance than finish the trail riding fakie.
• You cannot ride fakie on an alpine-style snowboard. These boards are racing style, and the front is distinctly different from the back. The rear has no nose and cannot be used for carving.

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