It is important to note that while each style is unique, there is overlap between each style, and often no visible difference. The most common styles today are freeride, freestyle, and freecarve/race.

Freeride

The freeride style is the most common and easily accessible style of snowboarding. It involves, in the most simple terms, riding down any terrain available. This could include the beginner's first time down the bunny slope, or riding down a 60° slope in the backcountry. All the while freeriders may include aerial tricks and jib tricks borrowed from freestyle, utilizing whatever natural terrain they may encounter.

The freeride equipment usually used is a soft boot with a directional twin snowboard. Since the freeride style may encounter many different types of snow conditions, from ice to deep powder, the freeride snowboard is usually longer and has stiffer overall flex. A good example of a binding stance used is the forward stance with both leading and trailing feet in positive degree of arc ranges e.g. +9°/+15°.

Freestyle

This style incorporates the rider with man-made terrain features such as rails, boxes, handrails, jumps, half pipes, quarter pipes and a myriad of other features. The intent of freestyle is to use these terrain features to perform a number of aerial or jib tricks.

The equipment used in freestyle is usually a soft boot with a twin tipped board, though freeride equipment is often used successfully. The most common binding stance used in freestyle is called "duck foot" which the trailing foot has a negative degree of arc setup while the leading foot is in the positive range i.e. -9°/+12°. Freestyle riders who specialize in jibbing often use boards that are shorter than usual, ones that have additional flex and ones that have filed down edges between both feet.

The majority of snowboard competitions concern this style of snowboarding.

Freecarve / Race

This often overlooked style of snowboarding focuses on carving and racing. Sometimes called alpine snowboarding, or the 'euro-carve', freecarving takes place on hard-pack or groomed runs and focuses on the ultimate carving turn. Little or no jumping takes place in this discipline. Freecarve equipment is a hard boot and plate binding system with a true directional snowboard that is usually very stiff and narrow to facilitate fast and responsive turns.

Overall Length

Overall length is the full length of the snowboard from tip to tail measured in centimeters (cm).  When you hear that a board is a 155 or '55, it simply means that the overall length of the board is 155 cm.

Running Length

Running length is the length of the snowboard that is actually in contact with the snow. This is measured as a straight line from the nose contact point (where the flat base ends and the nose begins) to the tail contact point. A freestyle board may have a longer running length than a freeride board of the same overall length, this is because the freeride board has a longer nose length.

Effective Edge

The effective edge measures the length of edge between the nose and tail of the board that is in contact with the snow. It is similar to running length, but measured along the curved edge rather than in a straight line, making it a slightly higher number.

Sidecut Radius

Imagine a giant circle overlapping the edge of the snowboard. Depending on the radius of the circle, the sidecut will be tighter or more mellow. A higher number is typically less aggressive and more stable, while a smaller radius is more performance driven. Some companies have 'progressive' sidecuts which is a combination of more than one radius. This allows the board to have the characteristics of one radius to initiate the turn and another radius to complete the turn.


Waist Width

The waist width is the width of the snowboard at its most narrow point. It is basically the width at the middle of the board.

Stance Width

The stance width refers to the range of stances available on a particular snowboard. Here are some tips for determining your stance.

Snowboard Insert Patterns

Insert patterns can be (1) a slider system, (2) a proprietary system such as the Burton 3-hole pattern, (3) a 4x2 pattern or (4) a 4x4 pattern.

The slider system provides nearly unlimited stance options. The bindings are mounted to a track system and can be slid forward or backward to dial in the perfect stance width.

Burton uses its own 3-hole pattern. In the past, you had to use Burton bindings, but today many binding companies provide a disc that is compatible with the Burton insert pattern.

4x4 was the standard for several years with 4x2 becoming more common. They both use a 4-hole disc, but the 4x2 pattern offers more stance options because the inserts are closer together.