Snow boarding

Snowboarding is descending a snow covered slope with a board attached to your feet. The board is commonly known as a snowboard.

There are three primary sub-disciplines in snowboarding:

Freeride?

This covers most snowboarders - the object is just to have fun cruising down the mountain.

Freestyle

Though the term itself is rather nebulous, it is mostly used to describe snowboarders who prefer to spend most of their time [getting air]? with jumps and halfpipes. Freestyle can of course mean anything, but for historical reasons the term has come to be associated with this style of riding.

Alpine?

There aren't very many people persuing the Alpine subdiscipline. Alpine snowboarders are the ones with the longer narrower boards, and the hard-shelled boots, and they're most happy when they're travelling very fast.

Each subdiscipline tends to favor a slightly different snowboard design. Freestyle and freeride snowboards are typically around 25cm in width (with some freestyle boards as wide as 28cm), around 145-165cm in length (depending on the rider's height), and the use a [sidecut radius]? of 7 to 9 meters. Alpine snowboards run from 160 to 200cm in length, 16 to 21cm in width, and sidecuts typically range from 10 to 17 meters.