 Poster: A snowHead
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| Mike Pow wrote: |
| cerebralvortex wrote: |
| Mike Pow, that's why I said "every time I go to the Alps." |
I can read thanks. I was offering an alternative viewpoint.
And perhaps therein lies the answer.
The 'typical' conditions in Europe suit a more piste oriented ski and the 'typical' conditions in western US and Canada and Japan suit a fatter waisted powder oriented ski. |
The more I think about it, the more I'm starting to think the opposite. It's the 'inbetween' days when fatter/rockered skis really make things easier - in deep light pow it's more just a different sensation rather than being easier, really. If you want to ski offpiste in all conditions, anyway.
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Tue 30-10-12 13:39; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Horses for courses really. Slalom skis are a load of fun, they are so quick edge to edge, agile and energetic it is like strapping a lotus elise to your feet and are a breath of fresh air after skiing long fat skis. Race skis make the groomed fun and make you work on your skiing technique, if you can make carved tight radius slalom turns on the steepest groomed black at a constant speed you are pretty damn good.
Unfortunately all mountain skis are mostly not really very good at any one thing, I often switch skis half way through the day and ski different things with different skis.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| That's one side of the coin. The other side are claims that fat skis are brilliant on piste, just as good as a dedicated piste ski, so anyone skiing a narrow ski is an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud. We see both sides of that particular coin frequently on snowHeads, and my perception is that the "narrow ski skiers are old-fashioned" is probably the more common. |
Can you give some examples of the other side of the coin? nozawaonsen already gave two examples of multi-page threads complaining about fat skis, and the only thing resembling an insult in this thread was the comparison of people on wide skis to MAMILs and their motorcycle equivalents. Everyone else, including those who prefer wider skis, is saying horses for courses or ski whatever you like.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I fall into the situation of having bought the wave magics because I wanted something to learn on and the were cheap through SH,s.. I was gifted the Magfires so didn't have too much choice in what shape they were. I don't think the are wide only that they are wider than my first ones. They are supposed to have a 80/20 on/off piste bias and that will probably do all the skiing that I am ever capable of. TBH given the difficulties I had with just adapting to 78mm I doubt I could physically ski anything much wider. It baffles me how some of you manage to pilot these fat skis the last bit of the way home on the piste.
Edits because I still haven't got the hang of sorting out the spelling errors when posting from my tablet!!
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Tue 30-10-12 23:40; edited 2 times in total
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Has anyone commented yet about the width of the waist being a potential source of the increase in ACL injuries? Apparently the extra torsion through the knee is thought to be the culprit. Another reason for mostly-piste-skiers to stay with a reasonable ski and not be swayed by the marketing to go too wide.
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Megamum, as I was alluding to above its probably not the change in ski width that made them harder to ski.
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flowa, sounds like a claim in need of evidence to support it before making conclusions from it.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
TBH given the difficulties I had with just adapting to 78mm I doubt I could physically ski anything much wider. It baffles me How some of you manage to pilot these fat the last bit of the way home on the piste.
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Are the skis not also significantly stiffer? I wager that's what you really struggled to adapt to.
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| Quote: |
comparison of people on wide skis to MAMILs and their motorcycle equivalents.
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I think what's interesting about this one is the way that there is some form of kit snobbery in every "gear sport" I've come across. Divers will periodically bitch about the merits of poodle jacket BCDs vs. wings. Mostly online and mostly a similarly pointless debate about competing ways of arranging an inflatable gas bag. Seems entertainingly appropriate and is much the same issue - specialist kit being used by some out of its intended range.
Davidof has a post up on Pistehors with Conan Doyle outlining his first ski tour. He's on something 4" wide. Raises the question as to what kit would have looked like had grooming and racing on firm snow never happened.
http://pistehors.com/backcountry/wiki/Articles/Crossing-An-Alpine-Pass-On-Ski
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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"You come to a hard ice slope at an angle of seventy-five degrees and you zigzag up it, digging the side of your ski into it, and feeling that if a mosquito settles upon you, you are gone. But nothing ever happens and you reach the top in safety."
"The snow was rapidly softening now, under the glare of the sun, and without our ski all progress would have been impossible. We were making our way along the steep side of a valley with the mouth of the Furka Pass fairly in front of us. The snow fell away here at an angle of from fifty to sixty degrees, and as this steep incline, along the face of which we were shuffling, sloped away down until it ended in an absolute precipice, a slip might have been serious."
A talent for fiction, rather than a grasp of geometry and physics, was definitely Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's forte.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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"the most capricious things upon the earth. One day you cannot go wrong with them; on another with the same weather and the same snow you cannot go right"
So he had a pair of adolescent teenage skis then?
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moffatross, but one does get the idea that some of their fun might have all gone a little horribly wrong!
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You know it makes sense.
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moffatross, unless he is measuring down from the vertical rather than up from the horizontal. Going up a icy 25 degree slope and along a slope that is 30 to 40 degrees seems right.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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under a new name, no doubt.  Eight foot long planks, without metal edges, strapped onto shoes with leather lashings and metal clips.
meh, ah yes, that'd explain it. Horribly feasible at those angles and horribly, horrible, with their kit.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Megamum wrote: |
| I fall into the situation of having boutght the wave magics because I wanted something to learn on and the were chap through SH,s.. I was gifted the Magfires so didn,t have too much choice in what shape they were.. I don,t think the are wide only that they are wider than my first ones. They are supposed to have a 80/20 on/off piste bias and that will probably do all the skiing that I am ever capable of. TBH given the difficulties I had with just adapting to 78mm I doubt I could physically ski anything much wider. It baffles me How some of you manage to pilot these fat the last bit of the way home on the piste. |
What is it you find difficult about them? When I first used fatter skis (90mm wide) I found I got tired very quickly skiing them on piste I thought due to the extra effort in edging required, I got the alignment of my boots seen to and had no more issues. A small misalignment in the force from the ski edge can have a big effect.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I found 90mm took a bit more concentration than the 76mm I was used to - but that was likely mostly because they were longer and stiffer too. Better in the soft stuff though.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Farley Goode wrote: |
What dimension does Snowball use for his off piste, may I ask? |
Just had to go and measure my Missions: they are (I think - the light was a bit dim) 128 89 113 length 178cm
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Megamum, Don't forget they are also 8 cm longer and it also takes time to get used to even if longer length is more suitable for you. I learned on 156 length, don't remember the waist but something abot 66-68mm wide and kept them for 4 years or maybe bit longer and when I moved to 165, 76mm waist I was at first like "how do I turn these things" even that I was fairly competent on piste by then. So there is learning curve when moving to a different equipment. But in the end they worked just fine, I certainly appreciated more float they provided when it was snowing and they gave me confidence to move to ungroomed. I did try ungroomed on my first skis too but they were very uncooperative there and really bad on a powder day, there was nothing I could do to keep them from diving, it was simply exhausting and I could never last the whole day. I moved on to 94mm waist since, and on piste they were giving me quite a work out at first too. But great off-piste and very easy to pivot on top of bumps because of their 20m radius. So you are not alone and your experience is totally normal.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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My badass magfires dumped me on my backside 4 times in the first 100 yards because they wouldn't turn and I VERY seriously nearly checked into the hire shop for the rest of the week! Then I got cross with them. I don't know if it was the extra width, length or stiffness - or as is most likely a combination of everything. I am tall enough for them, and err.....def. heavy enough for them, but they found all the holes in my then poor technique - they forced me to ski in a technically better way, when I started to apply what I had been learning they started to work for me, and have an edge hold that I really trust - a big advantage during one week that I spent literally 'dancing on ice'. They also go plenty fast enough for me if I don't look out for them. never summer, like you I ended up really liking the bigger skis in the finish, but the transistion wasn't easy, despite having got on really well with a hired set of Rossi SX(?) Ti 'oversize' (the big orange jobs - loads around on the slopes) the year previously. The wider skis are much better in the slush and I'm sure cope better in deep new unbashed snow than the narrow ones.
However, as mentioned above is ski width the only issue? Do the other factors - length and stiffness also have their place in the 'fashion' wars.
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| Megamum wrote: |
However, as mentioned above is ski width the only issue? Do the other factors - length and stiffness also have their place in the 'fashion' wars. |
Yes, stiffness (especially torsional stiffness) is important in getting the whole ski length gripping in the turn, on a hard, icy slope - but side-cut can give you a similar effect when the ski is on edge (though creating a natural turn-radius as well).
However in light powder you don't want a stiff ski or it will tend to dive and not bend enough, but in heavy snow you want it a bit stiffer and in crud a stiff ski is good to smash through. A ski cannot be optimum in all conditions so to some extent a go-everywhere ski will be a compromise. Also as you go faster (or ski aggressively) you need a stiffer ski to get the same bend because the forces are greater. Fortunately you can have some torsional stiffness in an off piste ski, to help it ski on piste, without affecting the softer longitudinal flex for powder. However, torsional stiffness is technically a bit more difficult to create.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Wed 31-10-12 11:17; edited 2 times in total
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The to answer the OP, surely the answer is to not become too fixated on preferring a narrow waist (or indeed a 'fat' ski), unless you only intend to only ever ski during a certain fixed set of conditions. For the average holiday skier who owns skis I think you need something that is a bit of an all rounder esp. if you can only cart one pair with you. I've skied everything from blue/grey ice to pure icing sugar light dry powder in 1-2 weeks skiing per year over a number of years. One specialised sort of ski would have only been ideal for some of that. Surely for practicality a multipurpose ski is a better better - a bit mid-range on everything?
Last edited by After all it is free  on Wed 31-10-12 11:22; edited 1 time in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Megamum, I'd say ski width is simply a trivial issue in comparison to both of those. You could for example have gone the other way and gotten a pair of race spec slalom skis which you'd probably find even harder to ski despite losing waist width.
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Megamum, & how you ski, what you like to ski and how much experience/learning/talent/athleticism you have determies how that mid-range sits. One person's impossibly wide powder only ski is another's daily driver. One person's everday piste ski is another's specialist race ski.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Quote: |
However in light powder you don't want a stiff ski or it will tend to dive and not bend enough, but in heavy snow you want it a bit stiffer and in crud a stiff ski is good to smash through.
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Which is the real genius of rocker, 'cos then you can have it all in one ski (as long as it's not absurd amounts of rocker).
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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[quote="clarky999"]
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Which is the real genius of rocker, 'cos then you can have it all in one ski (as long as it's not absurd amounts of rocker). |
Yes, it turns like a shorter ski but uses the length in powder. Or so I am told. Being an old conservative in such things I remain to be convinced about them (as I was with carving skis when they first came out  )
What is the stability like at speed? Would you enjoy them on steeps?
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snowball, as always it depends on the ski. Plenty of big mountain chargers abound with rocker that routinely get used on steeps at high speed.
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You know it makes sense.
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[quote="snowball"]
| clarky999 wrote: |
| Quote: |
Which is the real genius of rocker, 'cos then you can have it all in one ski (as long as it's not absurd amounts of rocker). |
Yes, it turns like a shorter ski but uses the length in powder. Or so I am told. Being an old conservative in such things I remain to be convinced about them (as I was with carving skis when they first came out )
What is the stability like at speed? Would you enjoy them on steeps? |
I was thinking more in terms of a very stiff ski that deals well with crud and high speed, that still skis well in powder as there's less need to bend it to avoid tip dive. I find my rockered fatties great at speed, but they're also about 20cms longer than any of my other skis. They're fine on steeps (also have normal camber underfoot which helps) aslong as the terrain is relatively open, or unless the snow is very firm (when frankly I don't want to be on something very steep anyway). Bit less nimble (due to the length) on tight couloirs (one entrance near me is only about 2 metres wide for 20 metres or so), and harder work on terrain involving lengthy pitches of 'jump turn style' skiing - but that's down to the characteristics of this particular ski, rather than rocker in general, and I have other skis for that purpose (though when they die [sadly will be soon], the replacements will have tip rocker).
Last edited by You know it makes sense. on Wed 31-10-12 19:37; edited 1 time in total
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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FAQ
