Snowboard Size Chart by Weight and Height

The printable version of the snowboard size calculator. Two numbers decide a board and only one of them is length: length follows rider weight, and waist width follows boot outsole length. Getting the second one wrong is why riders catch an edge in every hard carve and blame their technique.

Length by rider weight and riding style

Each figure is the centre of a window about six centimetres wide. Inside that window the choice is preference: shorter is quicker to swing and easier to press, longer is more stable at speed and floats better in soft snow.

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Snowboard size by height

Height is how most people search, so here is the same chart read by height. Each row assumes the average weight for that height; if you are heavier or lighter than the weight shown, use the weight table above, because weight is what bends the board.

Waist width by boot size

Toe and heel drag is the failure mode this table prevents. When you lay a board over into a hard carve, a boot that overhangs by more than roughly a centimetre eventually touches the snow, and when it does it levers the board off its edge. Riders experience that as washing out randomly in exactly the turns they were committing to, and almost nobody diagnoses it correctly.

The opposite error is less painful and still costs you. A small boot on an unnecessarily wide board wastes leverage and the board is slow edge to edge. A rider in a US 7 on a standard-width board will find a narrow or womens-specific waist feels like a different sport.

Stance width by height

Measured between the centres of the binding discs. Most boards mark a reference stance on the inserts and starting there is sensible, because the board was designed around it and the flex pattern assumes it. Move in half-inch steps and ride a full day on each change, because the difference is real and it takes a few runs to read.

Binding angle presets

Forward lean is the other adjustment, and it is the one most riders overdo. Start at or near zero and add a small amount only if heelside turns feel slow to engage. High forward lean is tiring, cramps the calves and is genuinely uncomfortable on a chairlift, and the responsiveness it buys is smaller than the fatigue it costs for most riders.

The raw weight bands

For reference, these are the published rider-weight to board-length bands the all-mountain column is built from, before any style adjustment.

Where this chart stops being right

Manufacturer size charts for a specific model beat a general chart, and rocker profile is the usual reason they differ. A heavily rockered board has less effective edge than its stated length, so makers frequently recommend sizing up two to four centimetres against a general table. Volume-shift boards, the short wide powder shapes, break the chart entirely and are sized by their own charts.

Flex is the other variable a length chart cannot see. A soft board at a given length rides shorter than a stiff one, because it deflects more, so a heavier rider on a soft park board may want more length than the table suggests and a lighter rider on a stiff freeride board may want less.

Sources

• Length by rider weight: the middle of the rider-weight ranges board makers publish for each length, such as Burton's and Nitro's size charts, before any style adjustment.
• Average weight for a height: a body mass index of 23, the middle of the healthy range in the CDC's adult BMI categories, used only to turn height into a starting weight.
• Stance width: the published starting figure of about 31 percent of rider height; binding angles: the standard presets printed in binding manuals.

Related

Run your own numbers on the snowboard size calculator. Boots decide the waist width and the fit decides everything else, so start there: the snowboard boot roundup covers heel lift and dual-zone lacing, and the binding roundup covers matching flex and checking the disc pattern. Complete setups are priced line by line in the build guides.