Wintersports
Snowboarding
What is street snowboarding?
Learn the basics of street snowboarding, including the best techniques and the ways to break into this fun community.
Brothers and pro snowboarders Craig and Mark McMorris traveled around the world stopping in Finland, Alaska, and Aspen, looking for unique slopestyle and street snowboarding.
“There’s no better feeling than spending your entire day outside, being scared, the adrenaline rush that gives you,” Craig said while filming. “Conquering that fear and battling a trick, battling, battling, until you almost pass out. I don’t know if there’s something wrong with me, but I love it. My life revolves around it.”
22 min
Finland
Snowboarders Mark and Craig McMorris link up with their childhood hero, Eero Ettala, in Finland.
Street snowboarding, or urban snowboarding, is snowboarding’s more aggressive and creative cousin! “Sliding on rails, jumping down stuff. I grew up doing a lot of urban snowboarding because we didn’t have mountains or good resorts,” said Mark McMorris.
In this article we’ll break down the basics of street snowboarding, including the equipment you need, the best techniques, and the ways to break into this fun community.
01
Equipment
There are several types of snowboards you can choose from for street snowboarding. The big three are:
- Camber boards: they are very springy and perform well on harder snow.
- Rocker boards: they have a dip in the middle and the ends lift up, allowing it to float over softer snow.
- Flat boards: they offer a mix between the two and are a very stable ride.
Street snowboarding is often done on no more than a few inches of snow on top of some sort of hardtop like asphalt or concrete. Those hard surfaces require a board that combines elements of the three snowboard design types to add to strengths and minimize weaknesses. In other words, the best snowboard for street snowboarding is a hybrid profile.
We recommed a camber-rocker-camber snowboard:
- These boards have a dip (or a rocker) in the middle separated from the nose and tail by an arch (or a camber) on each side
- Doesn’t have sharp edges ( so you won’t catch an edge on a rail)
- Has lots of pop, as well as flex
Street snowboarding gear
In addition to your board, you’re going to need the usual gear, which means a mask, googles, helmet, base layers, lightweight outerwear and quality bindings. Some snowboarders also wear protective gear like impact shorts, wrist guards and knee pads.
For your clothing selection we recommend layers, and strongly encourage you to avoid cotton, which retains moisture instead of drying. This is especially important for your socks. The best materials for snowboard socks are nylon, acrylic, polyester or a blend with wool.
You also need to bring something that can shape or move the snow around. Shovels are really good for this, but if there is not one available, a rake is a good substitute for breaking up hard-packed snow. A sled is also a simple yet fun way to simulate groomed trails that you would see at the ski resort.
02
Basics of street snowboarding
Since street snowboarding is rooted in freestyling, a lot of the skills and fundamentals you need on the street are the same ones you need on the mountain. Simply put, a street snowboarder needs a tremendous amount of balance and coordination.
The two biggest challenges you’ll come across when street snowboarding are:
- finding safe areas to snowboard
- planning your tricks
To avoid issues while you are street snowboarding:
- make sure that the spots you choose are in areas that are trouble-free
- look for areas that are open for public access
- look for locations that are relatively out of public view
- research to find the best spots
- visit an established terrain park
Types of tricks
You’re not going to find a halfpipe or a super tall jump on a random street corner. That doesn’t mean there are not loads of opportunities. The types of tricks you perform are solely based on how well you can think outside the box.
What to look for when you’re street snowboarding:
- stair rails that you can grind down
- tables that you can jump
- cities have a lot of buildings around, so there is a good chance to find drops and other features that are obscure and out of the way
- local playgrounds have slides and benches that you can jib on, and they are typically cushioned to protect kids from fall injury. (These areas are also generally unbothered when it snows, so it gives you ample extra snow to build jumps onto features.)
03
Tips on Improving Technique
Freestyle snowboarding is all about riders elevating their ingenuity to new heights, and street snowboarding resides in its stratosphere. If you want to improve, aside from the typical training and practicing fundamentals, you have to flex your creative muscles.
- check out prospective spots and either take photos or make a mental note of them
- brainstorm with a friend or two and just see what kind of ideas you come up with
- use visualization techniques, which can include rehearsing a trick on a safe spot like a trampoline
- record yourself and rewatch to see details like your knee placement and balance
Safety considerations
Obstacles are a lot more common on the streets than on the slopes. While sprains and fractures are the most common injuries, contusions, lacerations and dislocations can also happen. To decrease the likelihood of injury you can use safety equipment.
In terms of terrain, there are the obvious considerations like cars or trash cans, but things can remain hidden under the snow like broken glass or pieces of metal jutting out from the ground. That’s why we recommend checking out the places you want to perform tricks first. That way, you can make a general assessment of the possible risks in the area before the snow hits.
04
Community
There’s a lot of information available online that talks about street snowboarding and offers tips, locations and other helpful ideas that can assist you.
Red Bull’s snowboarding hub offers lots of tips on how to improve your snowboarding ability. Sites like Reddit are also a good place to find other snowboarders interacting and offering helpful tips.
Just as valuable as the online information is the information you can glean from the locals of a given area. They can give you loads of pointers from the best locations to equipment recommendations for specific terrain.
Ethics and responsible street snowboarding
Regardless of where you ride, street snowboarding requires you to respect other boarders and the environment. Keep these tips in mind:
- Don’t destroy public or private property. That just leaves a mess for other people to clean up, and if you’re a visitor, you won’t be the one facing the ramifications unless someone catches you.
- Clean up after yourself. If you arranged some tables for some jumps, put them back when you’re done. If you shovel some snow for a ramp, break it once you no longer need it.
- Be mindful of where you are. Sometimes, you will be in public view, and the way that you carry yourself will pay dividends to future street snowboarders. Don’t act too rowdy or be unnecessarily noisy. And if someone tells you to leave and you can’t reason with them, it’s better to just cut your losses.
Street snowboarding is a relatively new genre, but it has already drawn a lot of fans and participants. If you want to see more of the action, check out Red Bull Heavy Metal, a street snowboarding competition where snowboarders from around the world took over the streets of Detroit. Still unsure whether street snowboarding is right for you? Learn the difference between freeride and freestyle snowboarding and get tips on how to be great at both.