I'm finally starting to break out of my shell of carving up a downhill run and have a few questions:
First off, I'm doing some big sweeping carves and am still finding that about 5 carves in, I'm still picking up speed to the point I'm starting to feel the wobbles kick in. My solution to that was to do a u-turn on the street so I would be going up hill to slow down instead of trying to run it off. When carving, am I supposed to keep accelerating as I progress down the hill or maintain a comfortable speed? If the second answer, what am I doing wrong? Am I supposed to hear the sound of the wheels grinding into the street? Pardon my noobishness as I mainly skate flatland.
Second question is that is it normal to for the back of my leg, closer towards the ankle, to feel sore from doing some deep carves? It's usually felt when I carve a right turn. (I skate regular foot) Thanks.
Well it depends on the hill your on, but yes sometimes if its at a steep grade, your gonna rapidly accelerate and if hard carving doesnt shave off enough speed, your gonna have to start breaking the wheels loose and then returning back to center. So, what is hard carving? To me, I can carve at such an angle that on some hills doesnt allow me to kill enough speed to stop accelerating while standing higher on the board, and I find the getting into a drop knee type position (thus lowering your center of gravity) will allow you to not only carve at sharper angles, but also utilize your hands so you can really throw your turns. Beyond hard carving, you can use speed checks, breaking the traction of your back wheels and then returning the board back to its direction. Thats a lil more advanced and you will need to practice doing that, its easier to do this without grabbing the rail of your board, itll allow you to return the board back to a forward direction and progress down the hill. Good luck.
PS - If you havnt already, start using your footbrake. It was hard for me at first, but I got better and better and beleive me it is absolutly essential. What kinda setup are you on?
Footbrake I can do. My bro blew a hole in his shoe from breaking as he only uses the toe. I use the whole sole of the shoe to wear it evenly. I actually did part of that coming down just to get through some of the hill. Setup wise, I was using my C29 with the Randal 125mm trucks 10 degrees wedge in front (52 degree total) and 42 degree rear with a flipped hanger Wheel-wise, I'm using my grippy Kryptonic 65mm wheels. I am using the max wheelbase choice there is on the deck as there's multiple mounting holes. I'm sure it's not the ideal carving setup as I use it a lot for pumping the flatland.
And my idea of hard carves would be applying some extra force and body weight into those leans to get those wheels to grind into the street. Not sure if I'm thinking on the same page as the rest of the longboarding world.
Am I supposed to hear the sound of the wheels grinding into the street? .
That's a slide. Learning them is must They are the best brakes you have. There are a lot of things you can do to feel more confident in you carves. Drop you body lower into turn. The lower you are the less likely for wobbles. Work on being able to ride in drop knee position. This will allow you to turn much sharper and use your hands for balance and control. The acceleration is why bigger hills are more fun. When I'm carving hills I rarely get more than 3 arcs before i tuck and ride it out.
Yea learn to footbrake and slide. Those are the easiest ways to slow down on a hill.
If you like carving on hills then I think sliding will be more your style, remember you don't need any sort of big slide to slow down. Go into drop knee put your hand on the ground (With slide gloves SVP) and carve hard enough to slide out your back wheels a little bit then go back to carving.
If you do it this way it'll feel more mellow than a full out slide and you'll be able to incorporate them into carves whenever you like.
That's just the way I do it if I'm looking for a mellow ride and I find myself speeding up.
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When carving down a hill, even a steep hill, YOU are in charge
of your speed. As long as you have good equipment and loose
trucks you should be able to carve off the speed (or add to it)
as needed on most hills (as long as the road is fairly wide).
A golf cart path, however would be too narrow to apply this.
Take WIDE turns, that should help.
If you speed check on every (or every other) carve, you should be fine.
+1....also, if you learn stand-up speedchecks, it will really add to your carving. When you carve, the more you point the nose of the board uphill, the more you will slow down.
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Several carving questions
juesting27
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