Snowboard

overview

• General information
• History and Development
• Disciplines and Tricks
• Snowboard manufacturers and equipment
• Stances
• Board types
• Bindings
• Important Snowboarders today

General information

Snowboarding is a winter sport performed on slopes, jumps and in Halfpipes. The snowboarder stands sideways on a board with his feet strapped to it and descends a snow-covered slope, making bends and performing jumps. In the 70s snowboarding was part of a whole subculture, and even today music (live concerts in combination with competitions) and film play an important role in the sport.
Snowboarding is divided into the categories Alpine (on designated slopes with the emphasis on speed) and Freestyle (jumps and tricks - often off-track).

History and Development

The USA are the birthplace of snowboarding. In the 1960s and 70s Surfers and skateboarders experimented with different materials in order to create a surfboard for snow.
Tom Sims, Sherman Poppen, Dimitrije Milovich and Jake Burton are pioneer snowboarders and manufacturers.

Disciplines and Tricks

Snowboarding can be divided into different disciplines, depending on the technique and style:

Alpine Disciplines

• Slalom and Parallel Slalom
• Giant Slalom and Parallel Giant Slalom
• Super G

Freestyle Disciplines

• Half Pipe
• Snowbnoard Cross
• Extreme Freeriding

Tricks

When performing jumps, creativity is most important, apart from that the rider needs to be ready to take some risks and he needs to have excellent mastery of his board. Some important basic tricks:

Important basic tricks

• Straight Air, 180’
• Frontside 180
• Frontside 360
• Frontside 540
• Cap 540
• Backside 540

For non-snowboarders it sure is difficult to understand, what the names of the tricks mean so as a principal explanation it can be said that the numbers coming with the names stand for the degrees the rider spins during the trick. The difference between a frontside and a backside spin is whether the spin goes in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

Snowboard manufacturers and equipment

A snowboard basically is a flat board which is bent up at the front and maybe also at the back. Generally the board is a little narrower in the middle, but depending on the board type, the surface area and length of the board vary. Some important current snowboard manufacturers are

• Burton
• Division 23
• Elan
• Lamar Snowboards
• Sims Snowboards
• Fanatic

Equipment

Of course snowboarders need to protect themselves from the snow and cold, but apart from that also from possible injuries. In order to avoid injuries when falling snowboarders use protective gear in form of:

• Snowboard jacket and snowboard trousers (usually with elbow protection and an extra high-cut back)
• cap or helmet
• snow goggles and gloves (with wrist protection)
  
• snowboard boots (Hard Boots or Soft Boots)

Stances

According to the position the boarder prefers, he can adopt either of the two following stances on his board:

Constituent parts of a snowboard

• core (synthetics, wood, aluminium or Carbon- Kevlar- compound)
• base (Polyethylene), needs to be waxed to enhance gliding capacities of the board.

Board types

Depending on the conditions in which the board is used and on the slope a rider prefers, there are different snowboards.

Important Snowboarders today

Pioneer snowboarders, which originally were surfers and skateboarders, are:

• Tom Sims
• Sherman Poppen
• Jake Burton
• Dimitrije Milovich
• Chuck Barfoot

Other important names are:

• Terje Håkonsen
• Craig Kelly
• Ross Rebagliati

From an Austrian point of view:

• Sani Alibabic
• Stefan Gimpl
• Tommy Brunner
• Brigitte Köck
• Manuela Riegler