Tailblocks

Tailblocks are super fun tricks to do on bad weather days, or when it’s nice and slushy. It looks sick as fuck, and will help you with your balance.

Chris’ Top Tip: “Make sure you commit..”

Tripods

Although the tripod sounds like something Silvio Berlusconi would ask his junior cabinet members to do at a late night at the office, the name comes from the fact that during this manouver, you have 3 points of contact with the snow. 

Baden’s Behest: “What you’re looking to do is make sure that the weight is on the outside of your back binding, this means your board will pop this high”

Powder Slashes

The slash is not only an essential trick that every snowboarder in the world should know how to do, it’s also THE most fun trick to do in the history of doing things on wooden composite boards. Learn ’em and perfect ’em. 

Stenti’s Words of Wisdom: “Make sure you have enough speed. Speed is your friend. Remember to use the angle of the slope to your advantage, don’t approach it head on and finally, remember to shift your weight at the apex of the turn.”

Tailblock 180 Out

A video posted by Eero Ettala (@eeroettala) on Dec 17, 2014 at 6:34am PST

Inevitably we’ll get some shit for calling this a tail block, but it’s a hybrid of 3 tricks so we’ll call it what we want thank you very much. 

Onboard’s Opinion:

Basically, this is a ‘backside shifty tail press to switch’ for want of a better explanation. It’s only your legs that should be shifting round, whilst your torso stays facing in the direction of travel. As you approach a roller with a decent amount of speed, pop and initiate a backside shifty.

As you approach the apex of the roller, the easiest way to start is to kick your back leg down so that you bonk the snow – then you bring your torso round and release out of the position to bring you round so your switch.

For extra points, hold the shifty position until the last moment before initiating the spin. Style for days.

The more you get used the feeling, then you can begin to press the tail into the snow as you go along. SUPER IMPORTANT TO KEEP YOUR WEIGHT OVER YOUR TOES – if not, it’s really gonna suck.

Backside 360 Double Hand Drags

The most fun trick to do off knuckles or steep rollers and one of this author’s go to tricks. The steeper the landing the better, as you come in with quite a lot of speed and you don’t want to overshoot. 

Chorlton’s Charter: “Pop an ollie over the knuckle a few times to get the feel for it. Come in and jump a tiny bit off your toes and spin backside. The more pressure you put down on your hands, the faster you’re going to spin”.

Eurocarve/Vitelli Turn

The Eurocarve is pretty much the most fun you can have whilst turning – once you’ve got it on lock, we personally really enjoy putting the trailing hand behind the head so people can paint you like one of those French girls. 

Onboard’s Opinion: You’re going to have to have turns on lock before you get to this. The trick is to take the weight onto your elbow as you lean down, before extending into the full turn.

Remember to use the sidecut to your board to really apply the pressure onto your edges.

Layback

Another trick that has made a comeback in the past few years is the layback. You’ll need a certain degree of flexibility for this, but it’s not a million miles away from a tripod. 

Onboard’s Opinion: It’s best to try these out at fairly low speeds at first as it’s pretty easy to just end up as a heap on the floor.

Orientate your body as if you were going for a tripod, but instead of keeping all of your weight loaded in the board, shimmy your feet forward and bone your legs out in the direction of travel.

Then begin to take the weight off your hands and onto your body, so that your torso is effectively dragging along the floor.

To get up, give yourself a push, and shimmy your legs back underneath you. Good luck!

Check out the full Hot Boy’n Edit here!

Buddy Bonk

On a flat light day, this is a super fun thing to do when you’re riding with pals. You’re gonna want to make sure that if you’re the bonker, you actually think you can do the trick, or if you’re the bonkee – you trust the ability of the bonker.

Onboard’s Opinion: Your pal lies on their stomach with their board behind them with their legs up as if they were about to grab method. Ensure the bonkee has their knees on the ground so that when you bonk, there’s as little shift in their board as possible.

Then, simply put, you come in, pop and smack that mother’s base as hard as you can. Top tip – don’t fall over.

Slasher Bombs

This is hands down one of the funnest things you can do on a snowboard. Kicking up a big-ass cloud of snow rules, and this is how to do it right.

Ryan’s tip: “It’s really just an extension of spraying just a little snow on a toeside turn”

Fastplants

Another trick that has made a resurgence recently due to the superhuman powers of riders like Scott Stevens. 

Lisa’s Lesson: “On re-entry, keep the weight on the front foot to follow the transition out of the feature you’ve planted on.”

Frontside 360 Nose Bonk

Combining the skills we’ve learnt so far, this is an evolution of the pole tap and the buddy bonk. It’s one of the most satisfying tricks to have on lock. You don’t need a barrel to bonk on – it can be a tree stump, a helmet or any other static object that could do with some sweet, sweet tappy love.  

Onboard’s Opinion: We reckon the sickest way to do them is to tap the object when your at 90 degrees, and then you throw the shoulders into a 270.

Spinning Frontside Off the Toes

Whilst Jussi’s example above are of a pretty big size, off the toes and heels on rollers is by far the easiest way to learn hardway spins. For a long time, riders didn’t really spin on the heelside edge and instead spun frontside spins off the toes every time. 

Onboard’s Opinion: It’s probably best to start on off-the-toes spins – approach a roller with speed that you would be comfortable ollie-ing off, as you approach ensure that your weight is engaged on the toeside edge.

Then twist your torso as if you were spinning frontside, then pop off your toeside edge keeping your eyes fixed on the direction of travel. Release your body position and rotate the torso, bring your knees up towards your stomach otherwise you run the risk of catching an edge on the roller.

As you land, you’ll want to be slightly on your heelside edge to stop the rotation. Then, ride away looking like a steezy bauss.

Spinning Backside Off the Heels

Arguably spinning backside off-the-heels is harder than off-the-toes because of physics. However, some people have a directional preference when it comes to spinning: some spin clockwise and some anti-clockwise. This is where the variations of what you prefer will come from.

Onboard’s Opinion: When spinning either off-the-toes or off-the-heels, we think the key is to really exaggerate the pre-wind to the spin, as you’re not generating a massive amount of momentum from a setup turn.

BONUS

Once you’ve incorporated all of this into your trick arsenal, you’ll be able to get le sidehits in like Mr Horgmo.