You've been looking at boards by their length. And then you find your feet
are too big. No way to change that. FACE IT: Big feet on a narrow board
are
a drag. Small feet on a wide board means you need herculean power to just
get it on its edge. That's why our DIMENSIONAL CONCEPT works with
different
board widths. When you choose a HEAD board, you check the width FIRST -
and
THEN find your length. It really IS better that way.
Head has a good width finder:
http://www.ridehead.com/main?UID=tec...erview&lang=en
Just a word of caution before everyone goes and plugs in their stats and
gets a "bad" result, panics, and goes out to buy new gear:
That handy dandy little calculator greatly oversimplifies the issue. To
sum up a discussion from last year that is now linked to from the FAQ (link
at bottom of post), the calculator ignores the following:
1) As board width increases, edge-to-edge transitions get harder but the
limit of how much inclination you can get without booting out decreases, and
everyone's got a different happy medium. An aggressive rider with a solid
carving technique needs more width than a casual rider who skids their
turns, because they inclinate more.
2) Just because two boots have the same "inside" length (where your foot
goes) doesn't mean they have the same "outside" length (which is where toe
drag comes from). For example, when I compare a 2001/2002 Salomon
Malamute versus a 2001/2002 Deeluxe Freak, both sized to fit me, the Freak
was over an inch (2.54 cm) longer on the outside, meaning that it had the
same footprint as a Salomon boot about two sizes bigger.
3) Some boots have ramped up toes and heels or rounded off corners on their
heels which reduces footprint and some don't. Those that don't give you
drag much sooner.
4) Some bindings have bulky heel cups that add un-needed drag
So please, consider that before taking the results too literally!
(Yes, I applaud Head for trying to focus on width first... We can put our
heads together and be even smarter though!)
-Mike T
Link to previous discussion:
http://www.google.com/groups?hl=en&l...d4ab74&rnum=25