How To Properly Jump Onto Tall Street Style Snowboard Rails

Today’s reader question:

How do I ollie high enough to jump onto the top of those street type rails? They’re so much taller than the take-off, is there some secret to jumping higher to get onto those rails?

Okay, thankfully I think I already have a photo of the type of rail your talking about. Hooray for re-using images from older blogs!

I’m going to assume you’re talking about one of these types of rails, except that the top of the rail is probably even taller:

The trick to hitting tall rails

The secret to jumping onto the top of those tall rails is that you shouldn’t actually be aiming to land right onto the beginning of that rail. Instead, you should actually be aiming to approach from the left or right side of the rail, then pop off the take-off and land slightly below the start of the rail.

Using the photo above, I’ve let’s look at where you should be aiming to land and where you shouldn’t be aiming to land:

Because we’re not actually aiming to land at that tall portion of the rail, you don’t actually need to jump that high, in fact, because you’re simply approaching from the side of the rail and hopping on, the landing point will usually be lower or equal to your take-off ramp.

Like so:

So there you go. Hope this answers your question!

- Jed

"How To Pick The Perfect Snowboard Setup"

"Grab Snomie.com's Free Snowboard Gear Guide" 25 pages of free tips including how to pick snowboards, bindings, goggles, boots and much more!