Choosing Snowboard Length: How to Make Sure You Get It Right

Choosing Snowboard length was traditionally considered to be as simple as the length from the ground to your chin. This will sometimes be the right length snowboard but only coincidentally.

Snowboard technology over the years have left this technique obsolete and there a few factors that influence the length of a board, namely:

• Weight
• Riding Style 
• Ability Level; and
• Height

Weight

Weight is the most important factor in determining the length of the board – the weight of the rider, is certainly more important than the height of the rider.

Why is weight the most important factor?

Snowboards are designed with a certain flex in mind. However that flex is also influenced by the weight of the rider. If you are too heavy or too light compared to the weight the board was designed for, the flex won’t behave in the way it was designed to – and the way you were told it should when you bought it.

If you are too heavy for the board (i.e. the board is too short for your weight) then the board will flex more than it should.

If you are too light for the board (i.e. the board is too long for your weight) you won’t be applying enough pressure to make the board flex how it should.

So try to be within the weight range for any given board. Then you can take into account other factors. A lot of snowboard manufacturers will release the weight range for each size of a particular board.

A good first step is to fit within that range. The range is usually quite high so we need some other factors to narrow it down a bit to get a more accurate length.

Snowboard Companies that show Recommended Weight Ranges

The Table below shows some of the major snowboarding brands and which do and don’t, to the best of my knowledge, provide weight ranges. If you know of any others just leave a comment below and I’ll add it to the table.

UPDATE: This table was updated April 26, 2019. When I first published this table (late 2014) there were 5/15 that didn’t publish weight ranges. Now it’s just 2/18, so a vast majority now do. 

It’s not necessary to be right in the middle of the recommended weight range. For example if the range is 110 – 150lbs you don’t have to be 130lbs!

Weight recommendations are helpful, but I would consider them to be general guidelines and not hard and fast rules. Often weight recommendations cover a wide range so aren’t that accurate and brands can change these, year to year, without any real changes to a board.

Typically these days weight recommendations are based on your weight without gear. It used to be based on weight with gear but this has changed. And this makes sense as you are less likely to know what you weight fully loaded with gear.

Note: As you can see in the table above, not all manufacturers release weight range information and they don’t take height into account at all. There are tables further down this post which should help you to get a good idea of the best size for your height and weight.

Ability Level

The ability level of the rider can also influence the length of the board. This is pretty easy though. Generally speaking if you are a beginner then go with a shorter board (3-5cm shorter). Anyone intermediate and up should not take ability level into account when determining length.

A longer board is more difficult to control. Therefore beginners are often recommended to choose a slightly shorter board than a more advanced rider might go with.

Riding Style

Besides influencing factors such as flex of board, set back of stance etc, the rider’s style can also influence the length of board that he/she chooses to ride.

This is also pretty basic though – if you are a freestyle rider then go between  3 and 6 centimetres shorter (depending on preference) and if you are only into free-riding then go a 2-4cm longer (again this will also depend on preference and some rider’s like to go more or less extreme than this).

The length sizing tables further down in this post will show the length for an all-mountain rider. Take off 3-6cm for a freestyle board and add 2-4cm for a freeride board.

If you’re not exactly sure of your style you can check out the article at the following link.

• Figuring out your Riding Style

Height

Whilst definitely not as important as weight, height is still somewhat of a factor – partly because a taller rider will weigh more than a shorter rider (with the same build). But also because the taller rider will typically have a wider stance (though not always).

If a tall rider ends up on a board that’s too short for their stance width, then either they won’t be able to set their stance width as wide as they would like – or they will be at the widest possible stance and that may not be the best position on the board for them.

In the same vane, a shorter rider may end up not being able to go as narrow as they would like on a longer board – or they might end up feeling like they have too much board outside the inserts.