Snow boarding board types

Raceboard

A raceboard is a fairly stiff snowboard that is designed for use in races. It has a flat, short head (nose). Race boards are often longer than freestyle or freeride boards.
For the slalom: 9-11 meters radius, length usually 155-165 cm (mostly at the World Cup 165 cm with 10-11 m radius).

For the Giant Slalom: 12-17 meters radius, length usually 175-185 cm (185 cm, with most of the World Cup 15-16 m radius)

To ensure precise control at high speeds, raceboards are driven exclusively with hard boots and plate bindings. A raceboard is not really suitable for any kind of jumps with rotations in the air, mainly due to its high swing weight. For straight jumps, as in the cross snowboard, a raceboard is just as good as a softboard.

Carving Board

Carving boards are, in contrast to raceboards, solely for carving and are designed to drive on the edge. They are driven more aggressively than raceboards. While raceboards permit the drifting of gates, carving boards – once placed on the edge – make very dynamic carvings.

This depends on the board, and is achieved by high torsion stiffness and high bias of the board. They are squared at the rear and rounded at the nose, and are not too far bent allowing one to achieve an effective edge for as long as possible. For binding, a rigid plate binding is used.

Depending on the foot size, there are very narrow carving boards that are only 14-16 cm wide, medium carving boards at 19-20 cm wide and for the extreme-carver, wider medium-wide raceboards at 21-23 cm wide. Of course there are raceboards of various widths ranging between them.

Freeride Board

A freeride board is wider and softer than a raceboard or a carving board. Freeride boards are typically much longer than free-riding freestyle board. It is intended primarily for off-runway skiing. The freeride board can also make a runway carving or be used for small tricks. The rear (English: tail) is slightly bent to allow one to reverse (fakie).

Freeride boards are almost always used with soft bindings. The shovel of a freeride board should be long, high and soft to provide much lift in deep snow. The binding position is also strong for more lift back to the board center.

Longboard

A longboard is a lot longer than a freeride board to provide much lift in deep snow. In most cases such boards stay at 2 m in length. The binding position is also strong for more lift back to the board center. It is usually driven with soft boots.

Swallowtail

A variant of freeride boards, swallowtail boards are freeride boards equipped with a V-tail. They are usually somewhat wider than race boards, but narrower than normal freeride or freestyle boards, and driven in groups. People meet, especially in expert freeride areas such as La Grave in France. They can be driven with soft or hard boots.

Freestyle board

Freestyle boards are for jumping, landing and rail-drive designed. Therefore, it is possible to mount the bindings centrally on the board in order to ride backwards (fakie, switch to drive). It is entirely driven by soft bindings. The newer generations are finding it difficult to withstand the immense pressures that arise in long jumps, and thus facilitate the handling at high speed.

Alpine Board

Alpine board is an umbrella term; it separates the carving-oriented board of Freestyle and freeride boards. In general, the Freecarve, race and carving boards, and snowboard cross (BX) boards can all be considered Alpine boards.