# Physics of carving and skidding



## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Hello all. I was looking for answers to some downhill physics questions and came across this cool article. Even though it's about something called "skiing," it mostly deals with one "ski" at a time --and a "ski" is pretty much just a really long, skinny snowboard. Check it here:

Physics Of Skiing 

A quick search made me think that this hasn't been posted here before. My bad if it has.


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

Where's my spork this feels like spam.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Posting skier shit in a snowboarding forum. I hope you face plant on a mogul. 

:hellno:


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

Wow. Did people up their grumpy pill prescriptions this morning? I don't think anything diabolical was meant here. A good portion of it is pertinent.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

I read the article and got a lot out of it. So I thought I would share. Not sure why people gotta be dicks.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Well for me, I hate everything skier related. 

I hate...

riding on lifts with them. They always have there skies in the way and aren't aware of me wanting to rest my board on the other foot. They always talk about the lamest crap. 

riding near them. They have no rythm or style and just dart around carelessly without consideration for others and group together on cat tracks practically block the entire run. They also cut you off and get bitchy that you are even there. 

what they do to powder. Rather than "carve" they just do tight turns building mounds and chopping the snow to death. 

waking around the base near them or in crowds at the end of the day because they are ALLLLL idiots and carry their skies on their shoulders and swing them back and forth in your face and ski pole swinging all over. 

how they have a pretentious attitude and think they're so special and everyone else is beneath them. Plus they bitch about snowboarders when they're actually the problem. 


I can keep going but you get my point. So no I don't want to read anything skier related.


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

Well first off skiing sucks and this is a snowboarding site. 

Second snowboarders ride sideways, skiers ride facing forward. BIG DIFFERENCE in the dynamics of it.


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## elstinky (Jan 24, 2010)

Sure differences enough, but look at how the similarites outnumber the differences.

Snow? Check!
Wax? Check!
Edges? Check!
Carve vs skid? Check!
Sidecut? Check!
Different cambers? Check!
All those equations? Check!
Universally applied physics? Check!
Assholes? Check!
Nice people? Check!

Give the guy a break, it's an interesting read.




Mystery2many said:


> Well for me, I hate everything skier related.


Doesn't that get tiring or even boring after a while?


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

never seen a skier carve a proper arc the way a trencher does, something else they need to glean from boarding


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## who_it_is (Feb 26, 2015)

Thanks, OP i enjoyed this read. Im gonna go ahead and assume that the people who are hating didnt actually read the article. You guys would be happier people if you didnt waste so much energy being negative.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Yeah I posted that article because what this board and the Internet really needs is another thread about how snowboarding is better than skiing. For those who didn't read it, but posted their disapproval anyway, the article is about the physics and math involved in controlling hard-edged, parabolic-shaped, flat-bottomed sleds down snow covered inclined plains, you dicks.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Doesn't that get tiring or even boring after a while?[/QUOTE]



Yes it does get tiring. I ride about 4 days a week and try my best to ignore them but it seems almost everyday I ride they do some kind of crap to piss me off. Like on Tuesday, my wife was riding up to the lift at the proper slow speed (slow signs) and a skier idiot flys in and cuts her off making her fall and she doesn't fall ever. He had no remorse and didn't apologize. Needless to say he had to deal with me as I was the one who threw him a few feet after he got an attitude. If he would of done it on accident and said sorry then no harm no foul. Everyone makes mistakes. But he did it on purpose.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Mystery2many said:


> Doesn't that get tiring or even boring after a while?




Yes it does get tiring. I ride about 4 days a week and try my best to ignore them but it seems almost everyday I ride they do some kind of crap to piss me off. Like on Tuesday, my wife was riding up to the lift at the proper slow speed (slow signs) and a skier idiot flys in and cuts her off making her fall and she doesn't fall ever. He had no remorse and didn't apologize. Needless to say he had to deal with me as I was the one who threw him a few feet after he got an attitude. If he would of done it on accident and said sorry then no harm no foul. Everyone makes mistakes. But he did it on purpose.[/QUOTE]

I can't tell if you're having a laugh or if you are actually retarded.


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

Fielding said:


> Yeah I posted that article because what this board and the Internet really needs is another thread about how snowboarding is better than skiing. For those who didn't read it, but posted their disapproval anyway, the article is about the physics and math involved in controlling hard-edged, parabolic-shaped, flat-bottomed sleds down snow covered inclined plains, you dicks.


So over analyzed skier nerd shit. Got ya!


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

I'm not sure how that makes me retarded. But its all good. I'm not gonna insult you. I just can't stand skiers and think skier related stuff belongs in a skier forum. 

And lets be honest. How much is your riding going to change after reading that "amazing" article? thats if you even ride. My guess is non at all.


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## elstinky (Jan 24, 2010)

Fielding said:


> controlling hard-edged, parabolic-shaped, flat-bottomed sleds down snow covered inclined plains, you dicks


:jumping1:

just quoting this again because it's so over the top it made me laugh out loud


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## Soul06 (Dec 18, 2010)

I read through half of it. Decided to give it a chance. Those are minutes wasted of my life that I will never get back.

BurtonAvenger was correct. Over intellectualized talking. Some of it ws down right ridiculous to even be listed as its own section. Like much of the beginning where they get scientific about telling you that the smaller you mass the less wind resistance and there by the faster you go. Really? I learned that in grade school as a child.

Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all.


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Fielding said:


> Yes it does get tiring. I ride about 4 days a week and try my best to ignore them but it seems almost everyday I ride they do some kind of crap to piss me off. Like on Tuesday, my wife was riding up to the lift at the proper slow speed (slow signs) and a skier idiot flys in and cuts her off making her fall and she doesn't fall ever. He had no remorse and didn't apologize. Needless to say he had to deal with me as I was the one who threw him a few feet after he got an attitude. If he would of done it on accident and said sorry then no harm no foul. Everyone makes mistakes. But he did it on purpose.


It sounds to me like you are dealing with a lot of prejudice and self fulfilling prophecy. Do you really believe that a significantly higher percentage of skiers are assholes over boarders?

From the responses here, I would assume that boarders are pretty much all assholes. I thought the purpose of this forum was to provide support and knowledge for snowboarders. This article definitely supplies a lot of technical knowledge about how snowboarding/skiing actually works, so I'm not sure why there is so much hate.

I liked the article, and it definitely gave me a stronger understanding on how sidecut and camber effects the radius of a carve.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Soul06 said:


> I read through half of it. Decided to give it a chance. Those are minutes wasted of my life that I will never get back.
> 
> BurtonAvenger was correct. Over intellectualized talking. Some of it ws down right ridiculous to even be listed as its own section. Like much of the beginning where they get scientific about telling you that the smaller you mass the less wind resistance and there by the faster you go. Really? I learned that in grade school as a child.
> 
> Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all.


So you speak for all snowboarders? Or just the ones skidding down the mountain? By "over-intellectualized" aren't you really just saying you didn't understand it?


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Soul06 said:


> I read through half of it. Decided to give it a chance. Those are minutes wasted of my life that I will never get back.
> 
> BurtonAvenger was correct. Over intellectualized talking. Some of it ws down right ridiculous to even be listed as its own section. Like much of the beginning where they get scientific about telling you that the smaller you mass the less wind resistance and there by the faster you go. Really? I learned that in grade school as a child.
> 
> Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all.


I'm not sure which school you went to, but most of us don't learn physics until high school. Sure you may have learned the concept in grade school, but the article is actually breaking down the forces at play into equations, which I'm fairly certain from your response you never learned.

For one it never says the smaller your mass the less wind resistance you have, that would not make any sense at all. It says that air drag decreases as the surface area perpendicular to your velocity decreases. It also says that the effects of drag are reduced on a larger mass, because the force due to gravity increases. The only correlation between drag and mass, is that heavier people tend to have a larger surface area.

This is still pretty intuitive shit for most people, but the article is actually giving you the equations that govern these situations. I'm probably not going to use those equations for anything, but I'm sure that someone is.

How can you knock something for being too intellectual? Sure it may not interest you, but to say it is worthless to someone else seems a bit close minded. The thread is titled "Physics of carving and skidding" if you aren't interested in physics, why are you reading the thread?


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

Actual act of snowboarding>reading about the forces behind it. Ride more, over analyze less.


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## ItchEtrigR (Jan 1, 2012)

BurtonAvenger said:


> Actual act of snowboarding>reading about the forces behind it. Ride more, over analyze less.


Makes sense to me.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

BurtonAvenger said:


> Actual act of snowboarding>reading about the forces behind it. Ride more, over analyze less.


NO NO NO! They need to know the density of the air vs drag force of their butthair in relevance to their spandex wedgie. 

I need a puke gif because this isn't snowboarding. Its some nerdy ass no style having skier shit. Making me sick.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

BurtonAvenger said:


> Actual act of snowboarding>reading about the forces behind it. Ride more, over analyze less.


I agree. We can't all be smart.


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## jlm1976 (Feb 26, 2009)

*For the OP*

Article by hardboot snowboarders on the physics of a carved turn: 

Bomber Online

For those that enjoy geeking out, enjoy. 
For those who don't, don't enjoy it.


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

BurtonAvenger said:


> Actual act of snowboarding>reading about the forces behind it. Ride more, over analyze less.


Act of snowboarding = the forces behind it. You don't need to understand the forces to snowboard, just like you don't need to know how a car works to drive one, but some people find that shit interesting. I am assuming that everyone on this forum likes to read about snowboarding, not just snowboard, that's why we are here.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

JonSnow said:


> Act of snowboarding = the forces behind it. You don't need to understand the forces to snowboard, just like you don't need to know how a car works to drive one, but some people find that shit interesting. I am assuming that everyone on this forum likes to read about snowboarding, not just snowboard, that's why we are here.


Too bad that shit was about SKIING! Not snowboarding. 

If he would have posted the article that jlm1976 posted it would have been all good and mutually accecpted. For you guys to think you're so smart you sure are dumb as hell.


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Mystery2many said:


> Too bad that shit was about SKIING! Not snowboarding.
> 
> If he would have posted the article that jlm1976 posted it would have been all good and mutually accecpted. For you guys to think you're so smart you sure are dumb as hell.


Really dude? Most of that shit applies to snowboarding just as much as skiing. I'm sorry that you have some deep seated hatred for all things skiing, but most of us aren't going to dismiss something solely because it is skiing related.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

But by being here, and posting and reading, and participating in this open dialog about snowboarding, aren't you acknowledging that there is some value in this activity --not just in snowboarding itself? Some of you dudes poopooing my post have thousands of posts to your names. Surely you must've found some value in talking about and reading about snowboarding or you wouldn't have done it so often and for so long.

I'm interested in fundamentals. I think that knowing something about sidecut, camber, surface friction, and the math and physics that explains how these things operate can increase my enjoyment of the sport. Knowing fundamentals can help me refine my on-board mechanics and style. That knowledge can also help me determine which product innovations may have real value and which ones are just marketing bull. 

Fact: downhill skiing has been around for a lot longer than snowboarding. Skiers and the ski industry have amassed a body of knowledge about physics, materials, and snow itself that any serious snowboarder could use to his advantage.


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## Soul06 (Dec 18, 2010)

Fielding said:


> So you speak for all snowboarders? Or just the ones skidding down the mountain? By "over-intellectualized" aren't you really just saying you didn't understand it?


No by "over intellectualized" I am saying that are giving a supremely overly detailed and unnecessary explanation of simple terms.
No I don't speak for all snowboarders.......but then neither do you right? So kindly explain to me how its okay for you to decide its useful information for all but its not okay for me, or any others, to say that we found the article useless?

**edit**
Just want to add that I find it funny that I didn't direct my original post at you but you seemed to take it personally as if I did. I gave my opinion after reading the article. Why are you offended by it? Did you write it or something?



JonSnow said:


> I'm not sure which school you went to, but most of us don't learn physics until high school. Sure you may have learned the concept in grade school, but the article is actually breaking down the forces at play into equations, which I'm fairly certain from your response you never learned.
> 
> For one it never says the smaller your mass the less wind resistance you have, that would not make any sense at all. It says that air drag decreases as the surface area perpendicular to your velocity decreases. It also says that the effects of drag are reduced on a larger mass, because the force due to gravity increases. The only correlation between drag and mass, is that heavier people tend to have a larger surface area.
> 
> ...


I don't know what school you went to but I learned the basics of wind resistence vs surface area in junior high. By "mass" I was refering to surface area which it most definitely did speak about. 
As for the threads title, I opened it because I thought it might have someting interesting about SNOWBOARDING. But it doesn't. Its about skiing. For what do we need to know about the physics of nordic skiing? Or Ski jumping? Of freestyle skiing? What do those have to do with snowboarding? What useful information are we supposed to get from that?


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

Wow, you guys have been grumpy these days. Is it because it's almost end of season?


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Soul06 said:


> No I don't speak for all snowboarders.......but then neither do you right? So kindly explain to me how its okay for you to decide its useful information for all but its not okay for me, or any others, to say that we found the article useless?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No one ever claimed that it was useful information for everyone. I just think it is wrong for you to claim that it is completely useless information, and that it doesn't deserve to be discussed, because you don't find it interesting. This is a forum whose purpose is to discuss all things snowboarding related. You should not piss all over someone's thread just because you don't find that facet of snowboarding interesting. Being a dick doesn't help anyone on this forum.

I guess that you must have gone to a better school than I did, but I'm not sure where you get the idea that the term "mass" can ever be substituted for the term "surface area". They have completely different definitions. Also, what do you consider the basics of wind resistance? It is one thing to learn that wind resistance is affected by surface area, a very basic concept, it is completely different to try to teach someone how to use a quadratic equation to calculate the drag force on a moving body, and why the equation works.

I'm not sure if you are either highly unimaginative, or are just trying to win an argument at this point, but almost the entire article can be applied to snowboarding by just substituting the word snowboard in for skis. The sections that you cite make up less than 25% of the article, and half of that stuff can still be applied to snowboarding.

I agree that it may have been better to find an article that discussed these things from snowboarding perspective, but it doesn't make this information irrelevant/useless for snowboarding.


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Oh, and guess what? The only reference cited in the article about snowboarding physics is:

Skiing Mechanics, John Howe
Poudre Press
1983

I guess the physics of skiing can be applied to snowboarding


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## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

Sure are a lot of over analyzers in here. 

Act of snowboarding > reading about it and not actually out doing it. 

FYI went out and ripped some super g carves around people on skis, they looked like they didn't know what they were doing. 

Also downhill skiing has different dynamics as I already said they fucking face forward, we face sideways. They don't have a dominate foot, we do. GAH you people are what I absolutely fucking hate about snowboarding. You're also the people that try to tell me that a wax job is more important than the structure in the base of a board.


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## chomps1211 (Mar 30, 2011)

jlm1976 said:


> Article by hardboot snowboarders on the physics of a carved turn:
> 
> Bomber Online
> 
> ...


At least the focus of that article was in fact how the math related to snowboarding. 

Hate math! Always sucked at it! I definitely don't want to associate something I hate with something I love! :blink: having said that,..? I've always Loved science n geeky shit! Physics,..? Way too much math! Otherwise, theoretical physics (...when dumbed down for mental midgets such as myself) involves some pretty cool and thought provoking concepts! 



JonSnow said:


> Oh, and guess what? The only reference cited in the article about snowboarding physics is:
> 
> Skiing Mechanics, John Howe
> Poudre Press
> ...


Ok! Give credit where due! You proved your point about the potential for applying the information contained in the OP's article! I will admit I was far more inclined to read and delve a little deeper into an article with far too much technical discussion of the physics when it was snowboarding specific. Biased,..? Prejudiced,..? Yeah! Most certainly. But then I can't ski and have no interest in the activity! (...hence my involvement in a SNOWBOARD forum and not TGR!) :dry:

So,.. Your point concerning the crossover nature of the math, having been substantiated and proven,..? Can you gracefully accept and concede the win, avoiding further argument? 

...Or, do you feel a *"Neener Neener!" *directed at the rest of us "Philistines" is in order! :lol: 

:hairy:


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

When Newton published the Principia he specifically states in the foot notes that it should only be applied to skiers.

Is it meant to make you carve better? No, it's an attempt to keep his students off of facebook and tinder while in class. Or maybe an attempt to make a connection with a cute freshman in his class who skis.


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

chomps1211 said:


> At least the focus of that article was in fact how the math related to snowboarding.
> 
> Hate math! Always sucked at it! I definitely don't want to associate something I hate with something I love! :blink: having said that,..? I've always Loved science n geeky shit! Physics,..? Way too much math! Otherwise, theoretical physics (...when dumbed down for mental midgets such as myself) involves some pretty cool and thought provoking concepts!
> 
> ...


c'mon everyone loves a good "neener neener", but yes, I can stop the argument lol

Really, the only reason I was continuing it, is cause I thought the dude was being an unnecessary dick. 

It just seems that a lot of potentially interesting threads get shut down prematurely when people immediately just start hating on the topic, instead of adding something productive to the conversation. I would rather not see that happen, but I guess I'm part of the problem in this case.


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## elstinky (Jan 24, 2010)

JonSnow said:


> I guess I'm part of the problem in this case.


Meh, if there were ratings for proper behaviour you'd still rank higher than lots of others here. While there is a wealth of good info here at the same time it's one of the more 'hostile/hating/let's flood this thread with posts of no value whatsoever' fora I ever frequented. Especially in threads like this: lots of info, but buried in shit - always makes me wonder if these people behave as they do here in real life as well, and whether this is some way to deal with their frustrations, or something else. What drives these humans? Ok you may not be interested, or not understand, or see any value in the topic why drown it in a shitstorm then instead of just showing at least some respect and leave it alone or respond in a normal way?


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## Soul06 (Dec 18, 2010)

JonSnow said:


> No one ever claimed that it was useful information for everyone. I just think it is wrong for you to claim that it is completely useless information, and that it doesn't deserve to be discussed, because you don't find it interesting. This is a forum whose purpose is to discuss all things snowboarding related. You should not piss all over someone's thread just because you don't find that facet of snowboarding interesting. Being a dick doesn't help anyone on this forum.
> 
> I guess that you must have gone to a better school than I did, but I'm not sure where you get the idea that the term "mass" can ever be substituted for the term "surface area". They have completely different definitions. Also, what do you consider the basics of wind resistance? It is one thing to learn that wind resistance is affected by surface area, a very basic concept, it is completely different to try to teach someone how to use a quadratic equation to calculate the drag force on a moving body, and why the equation works.
> 
> ...


Clearly you are too anxious to post a reply to really stop and read what I said.

I said "Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all. Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all." 
There is no snowboard version of nordic skiing.
There is no snowboard version of ski jumping.
The freestyle skiing part didn't even get into the physics of freestyle skiing.
These three portions make up 3 of the 6 talking points of the article. And thats if I'm including the ski maintenance (which also didn't discuss any physics). That makes up about half the article. Therefore "Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all."

Additionally, show me exactly in my first post where I said, "completely useless information".
As you said, this is a forum where everyone is alloted the opportunity to share their opinion. I shared mine. Whats the problem?


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## JonSnow (Jul 24, 2013)

Soul06 said:


> Clearly you are too anxious to post a reply to really stop and read what I said.
> 
> I said "Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all. Much of the rest of it is of no use to snowboarders at all."
> There is no snowboard version of nordic skiing.
> ...


I think you are correct, and I was being reactionary to your posts. I also think that I was posting replies to you, that were more meant for everyone bashing the post in general. 

You never stated that the "information is completely useless", but the vibe I got from several posts (yours and others) was that nobody should care about this information and that any "real" snowboarder shouldn't give a shit about it. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but by basically stating that it is a stupid topic to discuss to begin with, you are ending the conversation before it even began. 

If you don't want to talk about it, don't talk about it. Almost all of the first posts in this thread are basically about how stupid the subject matter is. There's some dude hating on it cause it's about skis and not snowboards, someone hating on it because it's too technical for them, someone hating on it because physics are irrelevant to a skilled boarder. 

All of those things are valid opinions, but I guess I just don't understand why they are presented in the first place. It's like hearing two strangers talking about something and walking up to them and saying, "this topic is stupid, you shouldn't be talking about it". What is the point? Just let them talk about it if they want to. It's just straight up negative.

A forum is a place to help and discuss topics with other people. It is not a place to throw out your negative opinions, just cause. If you are going to be negative, please have a legitimate reason for it, otherwise it just gets everyone heated and shuts down an otherwise productive conversation.

3 out of 6 topics is 1/2 of the topics in the article, but look at the content. The sections that you cited as having no application to snowboarding make up less than 25% of an otherwise pretty lengthy article that is surely applicable to snowboarding as well as skiing. They are almost an incomplete afterthought, on an otherwise informative article. Are you just trying to win an argument at this point?


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