1st Season! Advice please!

Buy the most expensive board and clothes (gear) you can find right away.  According to Matt's research at snowkarma.com, that is the fastest way to becoming a pro at snowboarding.

Seriously though, we would need to know some more info to make a worthwhile suggestion for you.  Height, weight, gender (too lazy to check your profile).  Also, do you plan on riding freestyle, all mountain, park?  The more info we have to work with the better the suggestions you'll get.

Yea...I don't know what most of that means. I am a 5'2" female, 115 lbs. I've only ever ridden a bunny slope, so I am sure there is a more advanced slope that I'd eventually like to make it down. I'd like to try it all.

Originally posted by Dooley can i know how you got injured going down the bunny slope?

I would say it doesn't take much to sprain your wrist, for example.

It's tough to say what you should buy as far as gears when you have no preference. Here's my suggestion:

...oh, and I was wearing wraparound sunglasses with a tether that first year...the wind kinda gets in and they fall off when you wipe, but I managed.   





Boots (if not renting), water resistant pants and goggles...then the rest.

haha, i doubt despite what you may think, youll actually be specialising for a good couple of seasosn yet. Hell, you probably wont even touch the park for your first year or so unless youre a headcase (unles its like that super baby park at hakuba where none of the badass kids are watching and hating your very presence every time you fall off a rail and hold up the queue).

Get yourself a nice softish board, (speed aint exactly your priority nor is powder), and learn to control the board. DEFINITELY buy your own, because switching from board to board every week means youre spending an inordinate amount of your day getting comfortable with the size or the stance setting, or the width or the flex. Somethig will be annoying your guaranteed. With your own board youll find you progress a lot faster because aftrer your first two or three runs youll have a real feel for it.

Id definitely recommend you look fo ra nice 2007/8 board (theyll be ridiculously low price) and one that fits your size (which im too lazy to look at), youre really looking at a board that will carry you through your next couple of seasons. And unless you live near the snow, that will consist of really bringing around your technique and dealing with the terrain. You wont really be specialising, so as your first board, really just look for something thatll rock the whole mountain, but isnt a door with a base coat.

Soft and flexy is fun, you lose out on speed and nice buig carving but youll find the whole mountain is your oyster, and if you rock something with a bit of rocker, well youll even cover the nasty days.

My advice: Go buy a bataleon evil twin :) Ive seen a few of them at basement prices form last year and the year before, and if i wanted something that soft (though not as noodly as a fun.kink), id definitely be all over them. :) They seem nice decks, plus TBT is definitely something that sounds like itll carry you through a few seasons. Itll cover all your wants and needs for your experience level and because theyve been doing it a few years it doesnt restrict you to just this years range (as a lot of decks seem to do - boo! the impossible to find never summer evo-r 2009):)

Ah what do i know anyway, im only a couple of years ahead of you, and thats frankly nothing in the cosmic scheme of things. I definitely second the whole lesson thing. Doing it on my own took me nearly three sessions to link a turn, people doing it in a morning session because they took lessons pissed me off :) Youll definitely feel the difference!

Maybe you should pick up a helmet?