- Hi, I'm Brennan Metzler
with the American Association of Snowboard Instructors
and REI Co-op.
I'm here to talk to you about splitboarding.
People have two questions about splitboards.
First, they wanna know: you cut that snowboard in half,
how does it ride on the downhill?
And the answer is, they're great.
They're absolutely awesome.
Second question that people have about splitboards is,
how do I take it apart and put it back together?
So today we're gonna walk you through that process.
(upbeat music)
There's a few steps you're gonna take
to transition your snowboard from downhill mode
in solid form into two skis
and uphill mode to take you up the hill.
As you practice these steps,
they're gonna become quicker and easy
and that way you're kinda keeping pace
with all your partners.
The first thing that we're gonna do,
is take our bindings off our snowboard.
To take your bindings off,
either pull the pin out of your splitboard binding
or release the toe lever.
Pull the binding off the pucks
as you take your bindings off,
be sure to adjust the forward lean
to the amount that you like for the uphill.
By taking away the forward lean,
it's gonna take a lot of the kind of weight off your legs
and just make it easier to stride uphill.
We're gonna repeat with the other binding,
releasing the toe lever, pulling off the binding,
adjusting the forward lean into uphill mode.
After we take our bindings off our board,
we're gonna release the tip and the tail clip
and turn this solid board into two skis
to take us up the hill.
Tip and tail clips are pretty simple to release.
The board will slide apart.
To go uphill,
we're gonna take our splitboard
and we're gonna flip it
so that our outside edges become the inside.
This is significant so that when you're sliding uphill,
you don't have anything catching
or breaking on the way up.
Next, when attaching your bindings to your skis,
it's important that the ratchets
and the toe and the heel straps are
to the outside of the ski.
This'll keep them out of your way.
Attach the other binding
again, giving a visual check to make sure
that the ratchets, the straps are all to the outside.
Once we have the skis
separated and the bindings attached,
it's time to put on our skins.
Skins are designed to go on a specific ski.
So be sure to match the shape of the skin
to the shape of the ski.
To attach your skin to the ski,
start at the tip,
attaching the skin
and pull the tail out,
fastening the skin as you move down the ski.
It's important that your skin is in the middle of the ski
with equal amounts of edge showing on each side.
Smooth the skin to the bottom of the ski
and then attached to the tail clip to fasten it.
Fastening the tail clip
pulls this part of the skin against the base
and makes sure that no snow gets
inside the skin on the way up.
We're gonna repeat that with the other ski
attaching the skin, the tip
making sure the skin is centered along the splitboard
smoothing the skin out and finally attaching the tail clip.
It's got our splitboard skis on the right side.
We've got our bindings on,
the skins are attached.
To go uphill we're going to step into our bindings.
Fastening them to be snug.
We're gonna extend our trekking
or hiking poles to a comfortable length.
Throw our pack on and we're ready to go.
For tips on how to skin uphill,
check out our other uphill video.
(upbeat music)
All right, so we've made it up the skin track
we're at the top of our line.
It's time to talk about how to break these skis
down-get your snowboard back together
so you can have an awesome descent.
First thing we're gonna do,
get out of our splitboard,
kinda get comfortable up here, get ourselves
a nice little area to make this transition happen.
As I unstrap from the splitboard
and step away, I'm gonna be taking my bindings
off the board first.
It's important just like when we were transitioning
at the bottom, to remember to adjust your forward lean.
I'm now at the top of the line so,
I add some forward lean, gives me that performance
I'm looking for on the downhill.
I'm gonna do that to both bindings.
Remember if you have a pin, it'd be pulling the pin
out to release the binding.
You have a toe lever.
We'll be releasing that.
Again, adjusting forward lean to your desired amount
with the bindings off to the side,
we'll get back to them in just a second.
With our bindings off, it's time to take off our skins.
To take off your skin, release the tail clip,
pull from tail to tip
doing your best to keep the skin off the snow surface.
Once the skin is off the ski,
we're going to put the sticky side to sticky side,
fold it up and that can either go in our pack
or in our jacket pocket.
We're gonna repeat that with the other ski
releasing our tail clip, pulling the skin
folding the skin up, and she's ready to go.
At this point, we have two skis.
We're gonna put those back together
into a solid splitboard.
Something to do before you try to put them together
as to check your yin-yang clips,
you're tip and your tail clips to make sure they're all
in a position where the board can be put back together.
With the clips ready, I'm lining up my board
almost looks like a snowboard with a little gap
in the middle, we're gonna put the inside edge together.
And for my particular configuration I then can slide
the board into place.
There's a few different yin-yang clips out there.
Either way, the principles are the same
which is get the inside edge together, lock it
into place, and then move on to the tip and the tail clips.
I had some ice on the tip and tail clip.
So it's important to clear
that out of the way so that this will fasten,
it has a nice lock to it when it's in place.
Same thing on the tail, a little bit of snow in that clip,
knock it out no problem.
Fasten that clip.
Now my board is in solid mode.
With the board back together,
we have one final step,
which is to put our bindings back on.
Similar process to what we started the day with,
just in reverse.
We're gonna slide the base plate along the pucks,
give it a little nudge into place,
press down on the toe lever and we're good to go.
Again, if your binding has a pin system,
you would slide the pin through and that keeps that binding
in place for the downhill.
We're gonna repeat with the other binding
give it a couple of hits.
Toe lever's good to go, got a downhill snowboard.
So while today it's pretty easy for me to slide my binding
on and off these pucks,
there are times when you've toured
through actually like soft snow and powder
and it can kind of get on these pucks.
If you have that happening it's gonna be hard
for this to slide over.
One thing you can do before you put your binding on
is you can just take your pole,
and just kind of clean around the pucks.
If there's any snow on top or on the sides of them
'cause these grooves need to be available
for the actual binding to slide across.
So you can give that a check in case it's hard sometime
for you to attach that binding.
A couple of final steps would be just collapsing the poles,
putting them in the pack just so my hands are free
and I can do what I want
and then stashing the skins in the pack as well.
That way, all I'm thinking about are my turns.
So we've worked through the steps of putting our splitboard
into uphill mode, getting it into downhill mode.
And it's going to take you a little bit
of time to be smooth with that.
So practice this at home when it's nice and warm
and comfortable, practice this at your resort on a groomer.
That way you're nice and efficient and smooth.
So you're not holding up your partners
or if you're in some weather, it's easy for you.
More than anything,
I hope you have a great time splitboarding
and you get to enjoy turns that you can remember
for the rest of your life.
Thanks for joining us.
(upbeat music)