Why are left hand switchbacks, up or down, so much easier than right hand turns?

Mountain Bike Mike

Well-Known Member
As @stb222 said... I’m all ef’d up...

My brakes are setup Moto on my MTB, my road bikes are not, my bmx bike brake is on the right.

My natural stance is right foot forward, I manual and jump this way.

Descending, I switch to left foot forward.. if tou ever follow me down a hill, you will see me back pedal a half crank to get my left foot forward.

Overall I can switch and practice doing oppo tricks for fun.

Oh.. we’re talking about switchbacks, I never noticed a difference in either direction when climbing. When descending switch backs or ripping berms, I always switch to where my outside foot is always back and inside foot is always forward and depending on how much lean determines how much I drop the rear foot to keep pressure on the inside corner of the tire.

At this point, I don’t think much about it, these are all habits now.
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
you have more body awareness/feel - i had to do drills with an instructor to get the heal side working, break it down, and build it up.

got this funny habit when initiating a turn. i roll my lead hand thumb-up or down to start the sequence. perhaps the minimalist version of
pointing the hand/arm and looking where you want the board to go (day 1, lesson 2 after how to stand up?)
Hand positions for turns, dafuq? This is why I am not good at teaching my son how to snowboard since I am like, WATCH, DO.
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
Regular = left foot forward, comes from board stance, if related to bike stance for things like bmx, where you can do grinds and coping stuff in regular and "switch"
Goofy, Right Foot Forward
Switch, Your opposite stance, big deal in skating when you can ride switch and people can't tell the difference from your regular stance. It isn't as apparent in snowboarding because of lack of flip tricks, but it is still the ultimate to be able to do all tricks both ways.
Nollie, your normal stance, but using your nose to start a trick / ollie.
Fakie, your normal stance, going backwards, using your tail to start a trick / ollie.

Stance-less is the ultimate, however there are very few people that you truly cant tell which was is normal.
 

rick81721

Lothar
Regular = left foot forward, comes from board stance, if related to bike stance for things like bmx, where you can do grinds and coping stuff in regular and "switch"
Goofy, Right Foot Forward
Switch, Your opposite stance, big deal in skating when you can ride switch and people can't tell the difference from your regular stance. It isn't as apparent in snowboarding because of lack of flip tricks, but it is still the ultimate to be able to do all tricks both ways.
Nollie, your normal stance, but using your nose to start a trick / ollie.
Fakie, your normal stance, going backwards, using your tail to start a trick / ollie.

Stance-less is the ultimate, however there are very few people that you truly cant tell which was is normal.

Got it - related to snowboarding and skating, neither of which I will ever do, so no relevance.
 

blackburn1973

Well-Known Member
I believe you can determine your dominant leg by standing with both legs together and starting to fall forward. The leg that you put out to stop you is your dominant one. As @stb222 this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether you're right/left handed nor whether you ride goofie or regular. In terms of switchbacks, I've honestly never noticed any real difference between either direction. Guess I'm slightly more comfortable to the right but really any difference is nominal. That said, I feel the same about backside/frontside carving on a board. Makes no real difference to me but this is an interesting discussion.
 
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