Why we use longer sidecut radius

Why do (almost) all snowboards have 8 - 9 meter sidecut radius? It took the skiing industry decades to figure out that sidecut used on snowboards would work on skis as well. But the skiing industry took it further. They realized that different types of skis called for different sidecut radiuses. Makes pretty good sense, doesn’t it? Slalom carvers have short sidecut radius and downhill skis and big mountain skis have long sidecut radius. But the snowboarding industry has still not understood this.

Back in 2009, I thought that some snowboard brand must have tried longer radius and found out it didn’t work. But I couldn’t stop thinking about this. The snowboard sponsor I had at the time, wanted to keep using the same old molds they had been using forever. So I started Furberg Snowboards as a little side project. And it turned out that a longer sidecut radius, combined with rocker and reversed sidecut, was a success on freeride snowboards as well. Suddenly the catchy and nervous behavior of the short radius boards were gone. You could now edge the board as hard as you wanted, without having the tips getting caught. And seamlessly go from carving to sliding turns. Freeride snowboarding just became an easier sport. And why all other brands stick to nervous, catchy and difficult short radius boards is still a mystery to me.

//Daniel Furberg