Author Topic: Skiing vs. snowbarding  (Read 3369 times)

surf4food

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Skiing vs. snowbarding
« on: December 01, 2015, 01:23:45 PM »
I took up snowboarding at the ripe young age of 42 (around 12 years ago).  Being an experienced surfer and skateboarder (well in the 70's and then longboarding along the boardwalk in recent years) I figured snowboarding would come pretty easy.  Being a boardsport guy I was absolutely against being a two planker.  I did take proper lessons though and I am really glad I did because snowboarding did not come as easy to me as I thought it would.  It all came together over time and I can say I did get to the lower end of intermediate.  My wife on the other hand who was an experienced skier had a much tougher time making the adaption but eventually she did.  Last time I went (6 years ago) for what ever reason I was having a tough time.  Part of it my be atribted to the fact that we only went once or twice a year.  So now at 54 I am thinking of making the switch to skis or at least including it in my mountain sliding endeavors.  I will take proper lessons if I do.  So my questions is to any who have switched from boards to skis, was it an easy transition or more specially, was skiing easier to learn than snowboarding?   

Eagle

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #1 on: December 01, 2015, 02:28:11 PM »
Taught both many moons ago - a lifelong ski bum to new age SB - haha.  Management asked the old-school ski instructors to become duel certified - since most teaching SB at that time were very young kids.  They needed old instructors who could teach old adults to SB.  The sport was starting to take off back then.

Took out a SB hard boot race setup and proceeded to learn on that - how hard could it be I thought.  Only needed one major face plant at speed - to fully respect that you could get seriously injured on a SB in a split second.  Needed to be real careful after that to never catch a toe edge again.  In the end took about 40 hours of practice to get fully SB certified.  From there transitioned to a soft boot setup for deep powder days.

With the advent from old skinny long skis - to shaped short and now wide skis - the learning curve is pretty fast.  Should take you no time to progress from snowplow to skid to carve turns.  Like SUP - every board and boot setup will impact what ride you end up with - so would demo as many combos as possible.  Once you have a solid skill set - you may end up building a quiver.

Since you have SB edging skills - the progression to carving wide skis should be easy.  It is very easy to pop a knee skiing - or snap a wrist SB -> so lessons are always recommended.  Just be careful - and in no time you should be having a blast on skis.   :)
Fast is FUN!   8)
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yugi

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #2 on: December 01, 2015, 02:43:26 PM »
I skied before snowboarding so I don’t count. I have, however, “accompanied” some snowboarders over to skiing. Shouldn’t be much of a problem. You have the feel of sliding, edging and slope read down. Just a different technique to pick up. Comes quick.

Skiing is easier than snowboarding the early days, but then technically trickier to master. The biggest challenge for a surfer, where turns are initiated by rotation, as in snowboarding, is to learn the whole counter-rotation thing in skiing.

Yes, get some good instruction. Us adults are creatures of habit, harder to undo a bad habit than just learn right from the get go. Watch Ted Ligety ski (shame Anna Fenniger is out this season in injury - she’s so perfect).

As with many balance sports, things tend to work better with speed.

[edit to add, for illustration]
Came out just a few days ago...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-TXEUb97Wk

« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 02:47:21 PM by yugi »

Eagle

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2015, 04:03:06 PM »
Would agree that skiing is easier to learn at first -> and harder to become expert at.  And SB is harder to learn -> but easier to become expert at.  With short shaped skis though - learning to carve is near automatic compared to the old long straight ski days.

Find a good instructor and you should have no problems.
Fast is FUN!   8)
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lucabrasi

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2015, 04:17:16 PM »
I really can't add much but my two cents......
54 and thinking about taking up skiing? Way cool. I am of a mind that the early days on a snowboard are easier  than the early skiing days but that was just me. I find it interesting I am in the minority there. I already knew how to ski by the time I tried to snowboard so that may be why I think that. Ain't nothing like catching that edge on a board and going THWHACK tho. I haven't strapped a board on in 10 years or so but I may this year as my youngest (19) has decided she may want to try. All my kids went to the dark side after starting on skis and all came back except my oldest. My youngest hasn't skied in 5-6 years so to hear her want to try and board has got me where I will strap one on again for support........or for her entertainment if nothing else. I spent parts of 3-4 seasons on a board, a couple of them pretty much exclusive on a board if I remember right and at those times wondered why I would ever ski again. I have been at the point now for quite a few years now that I have no clue why I ever wanted to board so I think it really is just what you are doing. (naw, skiing by lots. I am not certain I would have ever learned to board if my kids weren't trying to)
Modern skis makes things way easier. Not just long and skinny but who else very first learned when there were like a leash and not brakes on your skis?
Maybe because my boots never truly never fit when I first learned to ski and the equipment was so crap may also have something to do with my learning curve experience. 



Eagle

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2015, 04:28:29 PM »
I think skiing is easier to learn for many because you have a wide 2 legged platform.  The problem of course is to get them in sync - especially in hard bumps and wet powder.

With SB - the problem seems to be for many to balance at slow speed.  And getting off the chairlift.

Many people do suffer a lot with poor fitting boots and the wrong equipment.
Fast is FUN!   8)
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addapost

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2015, 04:30:01 PM »
I skied all my life. 7 or 8 years ago we were ready to start taking our (then) 7 year old son up to the mountains. I gave him the choice of learning SB or skiing. He picked snowboard and I decided to learn with him. I didn’t find it difficult to learn at all. In a few days I was easily carving frontside and backside down intermediate trails. I have to say I loved the way it felt to be carving back and forth down the mountain. I absolutely hated everything else about it. I hate the frigging with the boots and bindings every time you get on or off a lift. I hate dealing with flat sections. And most of all I HATE how bad it hurts to fall. I have been hurt and broken many times in my life but I have NEVER experienced the pain of being slammed to the ground when you catch a downhill edge at 20 miles an hour on a snowboard. To me it feels like every single cell in my body got a wave of hydrostatic pressure that was just 0.1% shy of complete rupture. No damage, nothing broken or twisted just intense complete, full body agony. I only needed to have that happen 2 or 3 times to know this ain’t for me. Needless to say I am happily back on two planks.

As mentioned above, with modern equipment and with a couple lessons, you shouldn't have any trouble picking skiing up pretty easily. And falling hurts oh so much less.
Bunch of old shit

Weasels wake

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2015, 05:27:52 PM »

Modern skis makes things way easier. Not just long and skinny but who else very first learned when there were like a leash and not brakes on your skis?
Maybe because my boots never truly never fit when I first learned to ski and the equipment was so crap may also have something to do with my learning curve experience.
Me, my parents put me on skis when I was about 5, in 1955, (Brighton Utah) wooden skis with steel edges screwed onto them, and with leashes, breaks?  What's that?
When I was about 13, 1963, I got my first pair of my own skis, still wood w/ steel edges screwed onto them, and cable bindings, but still no breaks.
They were red "Elites", they were bought at the Outdoorsman in Sacramento.  But at the same time my parents got these new fang-dangled skis called "Head", some sort of futuristic composite with steel edges molded in!  WTF?!?  And I get wood?!?
But they still had cable bindings by Marker with leashes, I know that because I still have my mom's skis, even though she's long departed. That was back when the ski shops would engrave your name on the skis, her's is on them, so I never got rid of them.
Kept skiing, got modern equipment, loved it, then SB'ing came around, tried it, got fairly good at it pretty quickly, surfing all my life helped, but you don't turn from your rear foot, something that I had to get over, being a surfer.  Noticed the negatives with it that you don't have with skis, so I went back to skis, never looked back.
Thanks mom and dad for strapping skis on me and my brother when we were too young to know about sport addictions.
Sport addictions should be required for a full life, IMO.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2015, 05:36:59 PM by Weasels wake »
It takes a quiver to do that.

Tom

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2015, 05:33:16 PM »
I skied maybe about 10 times from when I was 20 until I was in my 40s. I have problem feet and the rental ski boots were the worst torture I have ever endured. By the time I got from the lodge to the first lift, I was ready to quit because of the pain.  Then along came boarding in comfortable boots, sign me up. I got a lot of how-to explanations from my friends before I tried it. My wife and I went to try it out, she took lessons and I tried to figure it out on my own. This worked out well for the both of us.   

The best advice I got was speed is your friend and fear is your enemy.  You can't turn unless your moving fast and when you get scared you slow down and weight your back foot, which is wrong.


surf4food

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2015, 05:53:56 PM »
Thanks guys.  Yeah falling sucks and yes also it is weird steering with your front foot vice rear foot like in surfing and skateboarding tho I did adapt.  Like I said I really only got to the lower end of intermediate and from what most people say, skiing is easier to learn than snowboarding, whether or not you surfed and/or skateboarded.  Also with the wide twin tip skis out now it seems like they will replicate the floaty feel of a snowboard when on powder.   And like I said I will take proper lessons.  It just seems like it will be interesting to have two planks and face forward with my feet parallel (like SUP but not the same).   

TallDude

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2015, 07:27:59 PM »
The year after I quit teaching skiing, about 1986, they just started allowing snowboards up the lifts. In the late 70's they came out with a mono ski. My friend had one, but I couldn't try it because of my size 13 (46-47) boots. Because of that, I can ski on my boots pretty good. The Mono ski is sort of a mix of the two, and probably what brought about the snow board.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xodKlVFOVVo

I have my old Skateboarder mags from 1979-80. There are ads for various early versions of what eventually became the snow board. Cool to look back at those mags.
It's not overhead to me!
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surf4food

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2015, 07:52:19 PM »
The mono ski I believe was developed by surfing legend Mike Doyle.

p06781

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #12 on: December 01, 2015, 09:04:01 PM »
I grew up in wisconsin and learned to ski when I was 6 and moved to snowboarding after buying a burton backhill out of skateboarder magazine.  I switched from softboots to hardboots in the late 80s.  When my daughters were born I started skiing again to teach them .  I think skiing is way easier to learn as a beginner .  I bet you will have no problems jumping on skis . In fact skiing is making a huge comeback with sidecut, wide waist,  reverse camber and all the crazy stuff they have now .  Its like any sport you need to do it regularly to get good !

I still love snowboarding and ride hardboots yet along with splitboards , at skis , carving boards .  It was my first love, riding the earth's gravitational waves down mountains .  Now this new sup surf thing has totally taken over and competes for my time.  Luckily in Oregon we can do both almost year round ! (well maybe not with global warming).


TallDude

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #13 on: December 01, 2015, 09:13:36 PM »
Here's one of the ads:)
It's not overhead to me!
8'8" L-41 ST and a whole pile of boards I rarely use.

Off-Shore

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Re: Skiing vs. snowbarding
« Reply #14 on: December 02, 2015, 12:44:07 AM »
I'm a similar age. I started skiing early, mono-boarded (I'd almost forgotten) in my mid 20s for a few years then switched to snow boarding in my 30s and then back to skiing in my 40s and have skied ever since. I find skiing easier now with the kids and in groups; and I find that I can charge more difficult terrain than I would on a snowboard at my age. Just feel safer somehow.

I'd agree with some who have posted above if you already have mountain sense, get a good teacher and a good pair of comfortable boots and short skis you'll learn skiing quickly. I have many friends who started skiing in their 40s when their kids started and who manage to ski intermediate slopes with them having never been on the snow before. Some you'd never know started so late in life. Falling sucks as you get older so choose a place with nice groomed soft runs if you can to start with as its all part of the learning experience.
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