Board Size for Beginning Snowboarders

Series Summary

Skiing has always been a relatively popular sport. It's fun, exciting and a great workout. As all things do, however, skiing evolved into other forms of powder transportation. Snowboarding is one of those offshoots. It became popular in the late 1970's and early 80's because of men like Dimitrije Milovich, Jake Burton and Tom Sims. They were just a few of the early snowboarding pioneers that took a then, hobby and turned it into the gigantic sport it is today. It was not until 1985 that it was officially declared a sport but as many would let it be known snowboarding was always in the hearts and minds of adventurers in the 70's.

So you want to be a snowboarder huh? Do you have the guts? Of course you do. We all have guts or we wouldn't be living. This free video series is a good one. Our expert, Kevin Byford, is an accomplished snowboarder. He will walk you through many of the important details of the sport of snowboarding and make sure that when you hit the slopes you are ready to roll. You will learn about the proper equipment, and the basics of how to go down the slopes. Uneasy about getting in and out of the lift chairs with your snowboard? Not to worry, our expert will talk you through this intimidating task. You will even learn safety tips for those inevitable falls on the slopes.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Kevin Byford with the Ski and Snowboard Schools of Aspen on behalf of the Expert Village. The first thing you want to do is find a reputable snowboard rental shop. Somewhere that is used to renting boards out every day. At the shop, you're going to look for a board. You want to find out what stance you have. Stances can be right foot forward or left foot forward. If you're right foot forward you're called goofy, if you're left foot forward you're called regular. The way to determine the stance is have you ever skateboarded before, have you surfed, or have you maybe ridden one of those Razors? Whatever your front foot was, or your first foot forward, that's the the one you're going to use. That's your snowboarding foot. Once you've determined your stance, you want to see what size the board is that you want. A good indicator is somewhere between your chin and your nose. Definitely nothing longer than nose. You could go shorter when you're learning, but something in between. The second key thing is the width of the board. You want it to be wide enough so that your foot is not hanging over the toe side edge, or the heel side edge. No toe drag. If you have a size eleven or above foot, then maybe go for a mid-wide or a wide board to keep that foot inside the edge."