fatbob, major drag, hope the knee injury isnt too bad... did you at least get much skiing in before the crash?
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
fatbob, Bummer. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
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?
Thanks guys. 5 days (including 4 of the "ungreatest snow on earth" per the SLC locals. spyderjon, did have the pleasure of riding a chair and skiing a lap with Tom your Dominator wax guy though, small world.
JT, won't decide until the night before. quite fancy the fatties though since skinning doesn't seem to be on the cards
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
fatbob wrote:
........spyderjon, did have the pleasure of riding a chair and skiing a lap with Tom your Dominator wax guy though, small world.
After all it is free
After all it is free
fatbob, Bad news. Hope it doesn't keep you off the planks for too long.
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.
fatbob, Get better soon.
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Ski the Net with snowHeads
fatbob wrote:
Arno, nope stuffed a tip into an icy bump below the pow, full in line over the front release and my "good knee" hyperextended. My fault for skiing a 97mm ski when 84 mm would have been perfect
Surely you'd have been ever deeper with skinnier skis? You needed some of those 140mm beasts, you do. Either way, hope it's sorted soon.
I'm a crap skiier (and will never be godd enough to instruct), but i find fat(tish - 92mm) skis more fun than thin(ner - 78mm) skis. Hope that helps.
I'm off to ride a bike in the rain now. Should I stick with my 2.25 tyres, or should I swap? and If I swap, do I go up to 2.5s, or foro something thinner like 1.8s?
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
If it's going to be muddy - 1.8's.
I was going to go out, but then it started hailing
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.
Arno,
Not sure about that...... might depend on a few things, of course..but it is a possibility
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Just got back from Tignes. Skied the 98mm (19m rad) planks all week. For the first 3 days the pistes were pretty hard, off piste was boiler plate... but they coped admirably and spent a lot of time in the bumps. Even first thing in the morning they didn't seem fazed by the icy corduroy. Then the snow started. .. ended up in knee deep powder. Dropping into couloirs they held an edge on the scraped icy tops, then allowed someone as inexperienced as myself to take massive turns down the mountain with loose snow blasting over my boots. It felt like flying
In the trees they turned sharp, were stiff enough to land drops without being overwhelmed (unlike their rider) and bombed though the piles of loose snow.
I love them.
Saying that... I still remember who much fun a pair of race skis were on piste... it's just that nowadays I spend more time off the sides of groomed runs than I do actually on them - even when I'm skiing with others who don't like the soft stuff.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
well this really has brightened my busy afternoon up
last week i was in Bormio and skied mostly on skis from 65mm-115 underfoot...horses for courses.... but must say i like something around 85-90mm ish for european powder days
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
I've always had an open-mind about fat or skinny skis, but have to say that this reminds me of the days when you could tell the "best" skiers by how much higher their tips were above their heads on the cable car. That was the zeitgeist at the time, now it is "fatter the better", and you should aspire to being able to ski everywhere on waterskis....
Without getting all rose-tinted, my favourite skis were Dynastar Verticals, some (many..) years ago. I saw a pair at Carirngorm a couple of weeks ago, and they looked like cross country skis they were so narrow. Maybe they'd feel cr@p now, yet, those were sold as the ones for moguls, off-piste etc at the time. And they worked fine!
Thanks to BA mislaying my Punishers en route to Jackson Hole a couple of weeks ago, I took the chance to hire "proper" fat skis, 110mm and then swapped to 98mm. On anything other than fresh deep powder, the fats are just not as good as skinnier skis if you're planning to do any turns. Even off-piste, I'm now convinced that personally I have no need for anything wider than Punishers, though admittedly that may be because I still prefer short radius tunrs over big wide arcs.
At the end of last year, when there wsa lots of new snow in the alps, the punishers were great in soft stuff, but when snow melted, off-piste got heavy and bumps got bigger/harder, I had exactly the same feeling as rob@rar described earlier - they weren't enough fun - just weren't lively enough and took too long to get from edge to edge. To say that edge hold doesn't matter is like saying it's not worth runners wearing spikes.
When carvers first arrived they had advantage of making skiing easier for the average recreational bod, but also easier to get straight back into on day 1 for people like myself who had done it for years, but now reduced to the odd holiday. I remember they felt like they were turning themselves in comparison to straight skis. To my mind, the move towards fat everywhere is robbing (most) people of that ease/fun of skiing as they battle to turn planks which are too big for them in the wrong context - ie mostly on piste.
I'm not one for being conscioulsy aware of what I'm doing when skiing ( I find "thinking" is a bad thing!) , but instead will subconsciously adjust technique to skis. I'd not realised how compromised even the Punishers are on-piste until doing quick runs down NASTAR course in JH - skidding when they should have been turning. I'm not saying everyone needs to be on SLs, but we are all in danger of giving up the fun factor of agility and ease of turn in order to out-fat each other IMO.
Fair enough for heli-skiing (but still not for me), but they should be a niche, not mainstream, especially in Europe. To me, the test for piste skis (which is where most will use them) is still whether or not they grip on the Tiger at Glenshee after the wind has only left icy moguls. Those are extreme conditions, but like skiers, if they work there, they'll work anywhere. That's why I've just ordered Stockli SLs for non-backcountry days -66mm, which will do me almost all of Easter with family I'm sure, with Punishers in the bag in case of new snow. In Colorado it would be the other way around, but IMO 90% of people will be better off and have more fun on "proper" carvers than they will on fatties.
Well if I had to have a single pair of skis for everything, I wouldn't go wider than 85 mm. My Head Monster 82s will go anywhere. My wider skis are fun, but more of a 1 trick pony.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Without wanting to get myself back into an argument, I'd suggest that if you're finding that much difficulty in a 13/15mish radius ski then it could well be a technique issue.
On another fun note, I'm making myself ski my RX9s for the next two weeks whatever the weather. Obviously they opened the headwall today so I got to ski knee to waist deep light pow on them. Fine-ish doing short bouncy turns but I tried to throw them sideways off a wind lip and ended up sat down on the other side of it
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?
DaveC, without wanting to get you back into an argument , or talk myself up too much I don't have many technique issues. I've been skiing constantly for 35 years. If I really had too, I'd get down pretty much anything, on pretty much anything, in whatever style you want, but that's got nothing to do with what is best, or what suits most people most of the time.
footsoldier, fair enough - I imagine if I'd been skiing for 35 years constanty (I'm assuming that means more than holidays, but even so), then a width increase would be a bit offputting considering how well set 35 years of muscle memory must be. Out of interest only though, what was the radius on the fat skis that didn't want to turn? In fact, what ski/binding set up was it? Did you feel like it was just too much effort to steer or that it just wanted to straightline? Not asking to try and "gotcha" you on technique or anything - I just like to know what people feel in their sking...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
footsoldier wrote:
I'm not one for being conscioulsy aware of what I'm doing when skiing ( I find "thinking" is a bad thing!) , but instead will subconsciously adjust technique to skis. I'd not realised how compromised even the Punishers are on-piste until doing quick runs down NASTAR course in JH - skidding when they should have been turning. I'm not saying everyone needs to be on SLs, but we are all in danger of giving up the fun factor of agility and ease of turn in order to out-fat each other IMO.
I have NASTAR proof that a brand rep's quite well-skied-in Elan Pogo Holmes with demo bindings can beat a pair of Rossi 9X. Even when those 9X are skied by the team captain.
(He -was- having back problems that day, but not 2 full seconds worth of back problems).
After all it is free
After all it is free
Well my mid fats have a 19m radius and they seem to turn just as quick as my old skis which were 22mm narrower underfoot. It very much depends on the ski as a pure off piste ski will generally have a much longer arc. Myself, even quick turns on piste now bore me a bit; plus there are just too many people around to be able to crank skis over and thrash them around the curves.
So... for me the choice I made works. As for the rest of you... try skis out and buy what suits you. It's simple really The only time for dogma is when a puppy is lonely
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.
I believe my posts are biased towards those living in resort and could therefore benefit from the right tool for the job given a moments notice. Been talking with a guy today, that maybe like many of you, books his ski holiday a good few months in advance, he needs a ski that permits him to cope as best possible with the conditions presented to him when he arrives in resort. I still believe that if you can carve a ski properly on piste then width is not such a great issue, if as i say you can do it, but that said, i do take my GS skis out for a reason from time to time.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Scarpa, You are the perfect 'Case study' for what i preach. Thank you and good luck in skiing against the tide.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Scarpa wrote:
plus there are just too many people around to be able to crank skis over and thrash them around the curves.
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.
FlyingStantoni, Carving isn't exactly hard is it?
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
DaveC wrote:
footsoldier, fair enough - I imagine if I'd been skiing for 35 years constanty (I'm assuming that means more than holidays, but even so), then a width increase would be a bit offputting considering how well set 35 years of muscle memory must be. Out of interest only though, what was the radius on the fat skis that didn't want to turn? In fact, what ski/binding set up was it? Did you feel like it was just too much effort to steer or that it just wanted to straightline? Not asking to try and "gotcha" you on technique or anything - I just like to know what people feel in their sking...
Dave - tbh, I don't know what turn radius was. It wasn't "too much" effort, it was just more effort than it would have been in those conditions on skinnier skis.
My Punishers are about 13m I think. Having said that, turn radius is not something I get hung up on - mogul skis have turn radii of about 24m, and they seem to work all right in tight corners!
Punsihers are great all-round skis for me - not "too much" effort in any conditions, but are effortless in the right conditions, and more effort than others would be in the wrong ones. As soon as you have to work hard and edge, you feel the weight and the width from edge to edge (the way I ski anyway). I doubt you'd get the best out of them if you weren't ski-fit for example, as they do have another level when pushed. Even fatter skis than that have a yet narrower window of "right" conditions and usability IMO.
My point is to go with the best for conditions, or if you're compromising as most do, go for ones which give you most fun in your normal habitat - which for most people (on piste and on holiday), would in my opinion be less fat than is becoming fashionable.
Last edited by So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much on Sat 14-03-09 21:26; edited 1 time in total
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
sps89 may be back under another username
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
FlyingStantoni wrote:
Scarpa wrote:
plus there are just too many people around to be able to crank skis over and thrash them around the curves.
Was just being a little tongue in cheek about constantly being on the lookout on the pistes to avoid sking close to other people. Accident avoidance and all that.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
footsoldier wrote:
My point is to go with the best for conditions, or if you're compromising as most do, go for ones which give you most fun in your normal habitat - which for most people (on piste and on holiday), would in my opinion be less fat than is becoming fashionable.
I think that sums it up pretty well. S&R tried to sell my other half a pair of Volkl Auras (94 mm waist) at the ski show last year. She's a good intermediate skier, weighing 55 kg and skis mainly on-piste (90%) with the odd easy excursion off-piste (10%) if there's fresh powder around. I told them they were taking the p*ss. She ended up with a pair of Movement Spicys (81 mm waist) which she really enjoys on and off piste. I don't see any point in her going wider than this for the type of skiing she aspires to.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Scarpa wrote:
FlyingStantoni wrote:
Scarpa wrote:
plus there are just too many people around to be able to crank skis over and thrash them around the curves.
Was just being a little tongue in cheek about constantly being on the lookout on the pistes to avoid sking close to other people. Accident avoidance and all that.
Scarpa, when are you going to learn that they're just moving slalom posts
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?
Fat skis = the new helmet.
Regarding the whether they are any good on piste kerfuffle what matters more than waist size is how rigid the thing is longitudinally and tortionally. What riocker brings to the party is the ability to build a stiff ski that will ski firm snow well and will not give you tip diving problems in powder. Hard snow performance on something like the Lhasa Pow is in a different league to hard snow performance on a consumer midfat or, for that matter most intermediate level carving skis. Obviously it won't be as good as a race ski but it can be made to carve without too much effort.
Quote:
Not that I'm recommending skinny skis in deep snow, but before fat skis were developed do you think nobody skied fast in powder?
Not like they do now they didn't. Compare footage of Scott Schmidt in his prime with Jeremy Nobis now.
FlyingStantoni, he gets confused as to which hand to block with.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
gorilla wrote:
.........what matters more than waist size is how rigid the thing is longitudinally and tortionally. What rocker brings to the party is the ability to build a stiff ski that will ski firm snow well and will not give you tip diving problems in powder. Hard snow performance on something like the Lhasa Pow is in a different league to hard snow performance on a consumer midfat or, for that matter most intermediate level carving skis. Obviously it won't be as good as a race ski but it can be made to carve without too much effort......
Great to hear from someone else other than DaveC that is bang up to date re ski construction etc. It's amazing how things have moved on even in the last year, the Llasa Pow's being a case in point. Just back from a week in Verbier on 196 Llasa's were the off-piste was shoite & the pistes firm & had a great time on 'em. Got the carbon version & you won't believe how stiff they are in the mid section. The last day the temp dropped & the pistes got very hard & they weren't good then - but no worse than anything other than a true race ski.
chris, if you were skiing 100cm+ skis you wouldn't be skiing deep powder or piste as you simply wouldn't be getting on the chairlift and you certainly wouldn't be skinning
Quote:
I like to ski fast in deep powder. I can with 100+cms skis, I can't with -70cms skis. I don't think it's my ability. I think it's more to do with the Laws of Physics.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Personally can't wait to fit my 128mm wide rockers with duke's and skins! Should be real fun! rambotion I might be being a tad thick (fair assumption I think!) but why wouldnt he be skinning on 100mm skis??
After all it is free
After all it is free
the_doc, he said cm not mm
I've been on my RX9s for a couple of weeks solid in preperation for my CSIA2. They definitely make short, high energy turns easier and generate a lot more response in that type of turn. Other than that, I really don't feel much benefit anywhere else groomed over my Prophet 90s. Off-piste has been way more challenging, and markedly slower/less aggressive, and my turn shapes in pow are so limited. Tried to slash a windlip in knee deep pow and ended up putting my skis straight through it and sitting down in a classy fashion instead
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.
Doh!!! Well, I guess 100cm wide skis would even be too wide for me!!!
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
arv wrote:
sps89 may be back under another username
I think you might be right. How about powderslut? Odds aren't quite as good as Saturday's Grand National winner, but worth a punt I reckon
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
Hope it doesn't keep you off the planks for too long.
