Splitboard.com Forums

Hey all,
I've been lurking on SB.com for a while, like a couple of years. This season I did quite a bit of bootpacking and finally had enough. So I went to the Silverton Splitfest and demoed some gear and surprise, surprise, I'm hooked. Since the fest I've been putting together my setup for next season: Venture Zephyr 168/26, Spark Blazes, and Gecko skins (free skins thanks to the Splitfest raffle!!). Anyway, now you can expect an avalanche of newb questions from me in the near future...

First up: tuning inside edges?? I've always detuned my solid board just a bit, less so ever since I started riding a board with rockered tip/tail.
Seems to me that the inside edges should be razor sharp. I only have two days of touring under my belt but my edges slipped out quite a bit on traverses (bad technique?) and the edges were factory sharp.
Anyway, thanks in advance, and one last shout out to everyone from the Silverton splitfest: thanks again for hooking up the newb!

I think this is normal once you develop better skinning technique it shouldn't be a problem. And then there is always crampons that you can slip on.

With soft boots, you will never edge like a hardboot/ski setup when touring. It just won't happen. As long as you expect that, you can compensate to some degree, but I will say that binding crampons help hugely. You just can't glide anymore going straight. Life is a compromise. Anyway, I would not detune the inside edge.

I detune the nose and tail on the inside and out of each ski. I have poor form and step on my board when skinning, so this makes it not take chunks out of my topsheet. Other then that, I don't touch the inside, and I don't detune anything else.

Thanks for coming to splitfest. Glad we got someone hooked!

Hi Chris, nice to meet ya at SplitFest.
I like to radically de-tune (round them) the inside edges except for a short section right under the foot (in tour mode, perhaps 15" long). By radically detuning the inside edges there is less chance of those edges catching in the snow during slarves, and making the ride less smooth. I find a short, very sharp section under the foot is enough to get good purchase when skinning. Also remember, that a lot of sharpening of the inside edge will, over time, result in a less tight seam, so easy does it.
This approach is similar to why the Chimera Splits have their short inside edges ("Killer Bites").

factory boards come with no bevel on the inside edge am i right?

Christoph: I do not think so? At least it does not appear to be that way on my splits, no base edge bevel would be really ugly when split skiing...

i am "relatively" new to ski teching (been a tech now for 7~ years) but the old timers i learned from say that strait skis have no bevel on base or side edge.

i would think that if this is true you wouldnt want a bevel on the inside edge.

i also like your (barrows) idea of detuning to make a less catchy ride for your "slarves"

Thanks for the info guys... some good ideas and information as always.
I guess the inside edges catching the snow in ride mode would only happen while torquing the board, so that the bottom is no longer smooth and flat across the seam. Also I suppose you'd have to be moving along the snow off the axis of the board. So, is a "slarve" somewhere between a fully edge engaged carve and a skidded turn?
I also wonder whether detuning the inside edges (except for under the bindings) would prevent or minimize damage from the two board halves grinding against each other when flexing the board, particularly on hard snow.
My venture looks like there is zero bevel on the inside bottom edges, but it's hard to be sure by just eyeballing.

Chris, almost all backcountry snowboard turns are a combination of carving and sliding, pure carves are rare in backcountry snow conditions. But, I am referring here to purposefully slarved turns, as a stylistic approach to riding, which has recently been enhanced through new school board tech (rocker, and longer radius sidecuts allowing for an easier/smoother transition between skid and carve, allowing one to become very free and expressive in their riding style). If you have occasion to look down at the center seam of the splitboard while riding, you will notice that it does not take much much effort to allow the inside edges to become offset a little during turns, hence my approach of detuning most of the edge, as I want the board to transition from carve to skid and back as smoothly as possible.

I don't sharpen my inside edges at all any more. Deburr if it's neccesary, but in a season when you're wondering why there some slop/gap between the board halves it'll be a two fold reason:

1) all splittys do this over time, and loosen up from all the vibration/abuse you put them through
2) whatever you take off of inside edges directly contributes to the width of this gap.
(barrows mentioned this, but I've found this is an unfixable event, so think long and hard before you remove inside edge material).
In the end as Phillip AK mentioned, you're never going to have great edge control in soft boots. And even in hardboots (I bet Barrows will back me on this) there is always less edge control on extra wide skis. Your technique will get better, and mitigate this fact, but it's just physics, so there's no amoung of inside edge sharpening that will prevent slipping out on a splitty.

All IMHO of course and YMMV