ISSA - International Slalom Skateboarding Association

Hi, i'm new to all this and i'm finding that it is so hard to get any standard measurements? I understand that hill angle must come into it, but there must be a rule of thumb for basic, normal, how it all started slalom!! Am i as a newby supposed to wait for the first meeting i can get to, to be able to have a go? Has nobody tried to standardise it atall. Any pointers?? Thanks, Steve.

Steve, It's not that anybody's dissing you, it's just that there are no "standard" cone spacings. To many of us, standardizing course set-ups is almost an antithesis to what is best about the sport. Slalom skateboarding is racing with variety. We're not hanging on to a rope attached to the back of a boat, and every hill (or flat) is different, so there's very little point in trying to do the standardized, exact same thing, wherever you go. (Evenly spaced six-footers on flat is elementary, while more than a few evenly spaced six-footers on El Fuerte St. in La Costa, CA might be hazardous to the health of all but the best racers in the world) Nonetheless, there are probably hundreds of thousands of words out here on the subject of coursesetting. There's even a whole group of forums right on this site entitled "Course" and a forum called Gates: Cones and Placement. Read them. If, in all of that material you can't find anything about standard cone spacings, I'd recommend you go to Ncdsa.com and Search things like "coursesetting", or "cone placement". You ought to find tens of thousands more words on the subject there, many of them written by me, on the subject. If you still find nothing about the "standard cone spacings", perhaps you can accept the prevailing wisdom that slalom skateboarding is better off without them.

If you're just taking up slalom, you should realize that learning to slalom and learning to set courses are absolutely complementary activities. Get a board, get some cones. Throw the cones out on a hill, any ol' way. Try to ride the board through the course created by the cones. Too hard? Make 'em easier or get better. Too easy? Make 'em harder or never learn. Notice how the changes you make in your courses affect your riding and vice versa. Don't get all hung up in your head about what is the right thing to be doing, just be doing something. Keep yourself challenged and entertained. Design course features that nobody's ever seen before. Design courses that give the sound of your runs an almost musical rhythm. HAVE FUN.

While we like to believe we do different courses each time, in reality they are all pretty similar. At least within each slalom discipline. We all want to preserve this freedom of cone spacing, me too, but in reality our boards and the way we are used to ride courses limits our imagination when it comes to course settings. Maybe this is something we should try to challenge every now and then?

Just look at the course behind Andys avatar and you'll see a good example of a very traditional special slalom course. From a distance it looks identical to for example the European Championships special slalom course of 2004. Courses are most often not more varied than that.

But still, even if the course looks similar from a distance, even subtle differences can make courses very different. When it comes to special slalom, the challenge is to be able to make it though an irregularly spaced course with a couple of suprises thrown in all while maintaining speed and control. In Sweden we used to call special slalom "Irregular slalom", I think that was a good description. We later changed the term to harmonize with the rest of Europe and with ski slalom.


Here's a few brief examples, although in-precise, of what kind of cone spacings you might find in the different slalom disciplines:

- In straight slalom you'll find that most courses have cones that are 5-7 feet apart.

- In special/hybrid slalom you are most likely to find cones 6-12 feet apart with a bit of offset (1-2 feet).

- In giant you'll find a greater variety of cone distances from 6 to 20/30 feet apart.

- In Super G it'll go even wider. The longer/wider the better. The width of the road will be the only limiting factor.

/Jani

Might I also add, If you're just entering the arena..timing aides in enjoyment/success/betterment! If a cone seems a bit off ...simply adjust it!! Once you get the flow of the hill/course, then alter it to create a challenge! When I ski raced, a book called "Pianti Su" (sp?) was of utmost inner value, it touched on mentally invisioning yourself as the critter that would do best on a given trek! IE: a bunny rabbit would kick a grizzly's ass in a true tight , a thourough bred horse would lose to a wolverine on a gs etc...
Be the hill, weed hoppa' Nascar bullies, would shit on an F 1 specialty track!! HAVE FUN DAMMIT!!!!!

dave,you chickened out again?alright,i will ask the question for you.do you have to wear shoes?cf

Uh..Chef, I don't know what to say (that don't happen often) WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT???

Steve, if looking down 3 topics in the competition rules section you could have seen another very simular topic to your created "Cone spacing standard". It is called Cone spacing basics and have a link to more info than you can ask for.