Rider weight vs efective edge

It's not the length of the wand, it's the way that you wiggle it.

Think what ice hockey players manage to do with the effective edge of their skates.

That said you need a certain amount of board beyond front and rear bindings in order to get the board to bend correctly in a carved turn. Designers take all this into consideration when they design a board, place the binding inserts, and recommend a rider weight range.

So your minimum effective edge would be determined by your stance width rather than your weight. Considering a board that was designed to be carved (and flexed) by someone in your weight range, you are not going to buy a board so short that it won't allow your favoured stance distance.

i don’t know much so maybe i’m about to ask some dumb questions….

but hockey players aren’t trying to carve the way that we are. can expert carvers get hips into the snow on heelsides with a short effective edge? doesn’t the effective edge combined with the snow wall determine how much speed you can carry into a turn and how much you can angulate the board before it judders and kicks you out of the carve?

Posted by: @riotsupercarver

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It's not the length of the wand, it's the way that you wiggle it.

True, but a longer effective edge is added security and more forgiving of bad technique/laziness.

At 200lbs I'd certainly want to be over 1200mm on an all-mountain, more for serious carving.

Thank you for your replyes, my question was started when this season i started to use an Oxess Bx 159 with 139 efective edge, lets call this a medium flex, and a Virus Avalanche 163 with a 139 efective edge, lets call this a hard flex. Best angles and edge grip i have got from Oxess, but i like more the shapes of the carves and energy from the Virus.

in the video below, James is making a technical analysis of a rider with 115 lbs riding a 160 board with 120 efective edge.

So, wiggle or no wiggle, i think that efective edge is one of the most important caracteristics of a carving snowboard, but i do not know how far should i go.

@Trapper effective edge is just one factor in the mix that determines board performance. As you point out you have 2 boards with the same effective edge but quite different carving characteristics. I weigh around 180lbs and carve in hardboots but happily carve boards with effective edges between around 135 to over 170cm. I've not tried shorter because I haven't had the opportunity on boards that are designed for my weight and purpose. I have a link to an old YouTube video with a guy carving turns on a 252cm carving board.

The general physics theory of an ideal carved turn suggests that board SCR is the limiting factor in terms of speed and turn radius, rather than effective edge. Note that a turn going faster than the ideal carving limit for any SCR results in snow spray, not the rider falling because of loss of edge hold.
I've put a link at the end of this post.

The wiggling part of a carved turn is how well board twist is controlled. Board with better torsional rigidity built in carve better. Beginners tend to control this poorly and slide/carve their turns.  Even expert carvers notice the improved edge hold and narrower tracks when a sliding axle isolation plate is mounted on a board that then reinforces mid section torsional resistance.

For me torsion control is one of the crucial determinants in how well a board will hold a carved turn. My quads strength is a determinant in how many Gs I can pull in a turn and still control edge angle and board twist. My legs give out more often than my edge does, even on my Kessler 162cm slalom board. And my quads are not weak, I rode a 15,000m (50,000 ft) vertical day of carving at Revelstoke in 2023. 

But all the boards I've ridden that are designed to be carved by someone of my weight, and that will allow my stance distance, have enough effective edge (and therefore base surface as well) to carve a turn, even on hard pack.

Physics of a carved turn link - For non-mathematicians and non-physicists, jump to Section 4 - Implications and Conclusions
https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0310086.pdf

Lars from the Justaride Snowboard Channel has a video covering:sidecut, effective edge, flex etc. you might be interested in checking it out to get some perspective on the relationships between them.

@cravingcarving You might want to check out the current Comments discussion going with that video. 😉