 Poster: A snowHead
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| under a new name wrote: |
| 2. "Europe" doesn't typically get the volume and type of powder that the US continental areas get. The photos above awesome though they are (I don't think so anyway, I wasn't there, but was skiing snow not sooo far away and it was lovely), don't appear to be showing the kind of bottomless, champagne powder you often see in UT, CO, MA, WY. So a different ski, is, IMV, appropriate. (If they are showing it, lusky bvggers, we didn't have it that bottomless in Cham). |
The strange thing is that you don't appear to have ever skied proper fat skis which means you have no first hand experience of what you're talking about. We, on the other hand post TR's every week showing the limitless untracked stuff that has been available this season around Verbier and Chamonix, with the 2 exceptions of Christmas and one week in March when it rained.
Last week was a mixture of waist deep epic bottomless snow - you ever seen deeper than this? http://www.flickr.com/photos/68009943@N00/4482451412/ and then knee deep, shin deep and starting to get tracked snow that you see in the pictures above and previous posts.
As Brian quite rightly pointed out above, the fat/rockered skis that I and many others are now skiing actually give you a bigger advantage in heavier or wind affected snow than they do in powder. But the key thing that you keep on missing is that they are much more fun to ski in all of these conditions. You know fun, what it's all about. Not struggling to drag your skis out of the snow doing jump turns all the way down. We have all skied straight skis (I started on Rossignol 4S), gone through the carving generation and are now enjyoing the rockered revolution. Each one got better. The last one markedly so. You seem to have got stuck somewhere along the line.
The sad things is that you live in one of the best places in the world for off piste skiing, you are clearly a very good skier and yet you are missing out on all of this!
Perhaps you should change your user name to "Ostrich" as you seem to have your head buried in the sand/snow!
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Fri 9-04-10 9:46; 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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| Barratschamonix wrote: |
Wow! Really hoping for snow as good as this when we get to the Alps this weekend. You make it look so easy, if only...  |
It is easy if you've got the right skis on.
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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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bobinch,
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you ever seen deeper than this?
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Yes.
I'm not missing your point. I get your point. I think you're missing the subtle meaning of mine.
There's only one way to resolve this (or a compound of two ways).
Skiing. And I'm quite prepared to rent a pair of Kuro's. Clearly I curmudgeonly reserve the right to not buy a pair even if I do really like them.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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bobinch, or over beer.
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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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| under a new name wrote: |
bobinch,
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you ever seen deeper than this?
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Yes.
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Even taking into account that if I'd been on your skis I'd have been totally buried?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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bobinch, yep. Anyway I was on mid fat skis at the time anyway (it was 2001, Canada).
I do actually possess a pair of 93mm skis, which while not fat by 120 standards, don't tend to sink in too far...
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Fri 9-04-10 10:37; edited 2 times in total
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bobinch, p.s. by skiing, I don't mean any sort of competitive "ski off". Just that it's much easier to debate this sort of thing in person.
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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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In the interest of full disclosure: in the second pic on this thread I'm on 93mm skis. The widest I currently own are 104s, I was on them the previous day. (And the widest I've ever skied were 112s, three years ago when they actually qualified as really wide).
93mm skis are perfectly adequate for skiing a lot of powder and terrain, as bobinch can probably confirm, since I was keeping up with him. And you can have a lot of fun on them! However, I AM keen to try out / purchase a pair of wider, rockered skis. Far too many good skiers swear by them.
Of course powder can also be skied on 205 cm 66-mm-waisted traditional skis, or on blades even. I'd guess though that you can have a lot more fun on midfats/ fats, and I hope you can have even MORE fun on rockered skis. Looking forward to discovering that.
On the other hand, I understand under a new name is a relatively light fellow. Perhaps his 93mm skis are the equivalent of a 120mm ski for me...
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horizon, could be...(62kgs) - should really work out the relative pressures involved.
bobinch, I must confess that when I say I've seen deeper, it was only once in 39 years...it was epic though.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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horizon, you are very impressive on the Tankers although I did have to put in a few extra turns for your Headcam to keep up  and I ski pretty slowly! Ski with Tom if you want to see someone who can really ski fatties to their potential!
In his season days Arctickev used to set himself up in the backseat and ski a pair of Stockli Asteroids at hyperspeed jumping over anything in sight. Now that was impressive!
under a new name, at your weight you can try my wifes 175cm Kuro's. Cski (PocketRockets), Arctickev (Yaka Jam), Joel (Missions) and Nathalie (Volkl something pretty?) all tried them and didn't look so happy back on their skinnies....
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brian
brian
Guest
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| horizon wrote: |
| However, I AM keen to try out / purchase a pair of wider, rockered skis. |
Me too. I've never skied anything over 100mm and my own wider skis are only 89mm.
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You know it makes sense.
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| horizon wrote: |
Seriously now, no argument, given equal technique, strength and weight of the skier, the skier on fatter skis will outrun the one on thinner ones in deep snow. |
So for a fairly good piste skier who's hoping to make learning off-piste the focus of next season (with lessons), and who's only ever going to be skiing for personal fun (and not even dreaming of trying to replicate the amazing photos you guys post here!), there's no merit in learning to do it the hard way (i.e. with skinnier skis) first?
ps: technique, strength and weight of said skier are all pretty low...
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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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miranda, while I'm not an instructor, in my view a ski that's at the very least 85-90mm under foot would help a lot (float, lateral stability, fewer faceplants, etc). I'm not sure that transitioning from a piste ski straight to a 120-mm+ ski would help with the technique but then again I originally learnt my pow technique the hard way on skinny skis so what do I know - perhaps it would be like a snowboard, near-instant access to the whole mountain.
I can quite imagine that a ski with a rocker would help a lot - makes the skis easier to turn and faceplants almost impossible, I guess. Unfortunately, neither bobinch nor RPF wanted to swap their Kuros, respectively Redeemers, with my Tankers for a run, so I couldn't try out the rockered skis!
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Poster: A snowHead
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horizon, Thanks - very helpful!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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[3 weeks a year hero]
miranda, sounds like we have a similar skiing profile so here's my 2p worth; I upgraded (for want of a better word) from K2 Recons (78mm) to Scott Missions (89mm) this year, adding 10cm in length for good measure. In powder (side-piste and under chair stuff, not the loonie-bin back-country these chaps get up to) they were significantly better than the K2's and I progressed significantly, and with much less effort, in my powder technique. On piste they were very fast and extremely stable, perhaps due to the extra length.
So don't be shy in getting a little extra width underfoot if you think you'll be focusing on off-piste, and if you don't go over 100mm your on-piste probably won't suffer either.
[/3 weeks a year hero]
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Fri 9-04-10 16:03; edited 2 times in total
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I'm not sure about rocker being a universal panacea. I think its very useful if you can ski to a reasonable standard and enjoy mucking about with different turns etc. I don't know if it works or should work for an "improving" skier e.g. will the temptation be to rely on ski characteristics and therefore not end up with a flexible technique. I've seen a number of instructors this season trying to unpick deficiencies caused by overrealiance on "park and ride" carving skis for instance and wonder if universal rocker might be the off piste equivalent. Would be interesting to know how major instructor orgs are tackling this - other than their more curious members going out and buying and trying the things for themselves.
I can see the industry jumping on it more as a means of selling new skis to the public.
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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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| Quote: |
I can see the industry jumping on it more as a means of selling new skis to the public.
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sounds like the makings of a fashion statement...
fatbob, seriously though you make a good point with people on carving skis ending up park and riding and i could see the same with rockered skis promoting early stage off piste skiers to heel push and slash turn. But i could be full of $h!T and qualify these statements as i have never been on a rockered ski... would love to have a go though!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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errrr... slash turns are all part of the fun
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fatbob, I don't think many ski school clients are off-piste skiers. I agree, it'll probably breed a new generation of people relying on crutches, but it's probably a good thing perfect technique isn't a requirement to ski. Off piste being entirely uncontrolled in Europe is a whole different kettle of fish though..
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So......What is a rockered ski???
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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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Arno, yeah, but you'd probably be missing out if that's all you could do, slowly and out of balance/in the back seat
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skimottaret, Its in breakout mode at the moment - the core constituency have already adopted it or rejected it, although most of this has been through more boutique brands. Next season or 2 will IMV see the big boys marketing bods trying to push it on everyone hampered only by a lack of time shop staff and instructors have spent on the equipment in order to be able to offer an informed opinion - expect plenty of ill informed guff from the Saturday boy at S+R/EB etc -
"Do you ski off piste? You want a rockered ski, they are brilliant"
"Have you skied them?"
"No".
Nowt wrong with a good slash turn in decent snow!
What BSL are you - I'll bring my Redeemers to HH sometime for you if they'll fit.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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DaveC, have you seen me ski?
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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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| Frosty the Snowman wrote: |
| So......What is a rockered ski??? |
Its what you & I do to a regular ski simply by standing on it
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You know it makes sense.
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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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bobinch, Thanks, I genuinely would love to try your wife's Kuros. I would also like (and am going to try tomorrow, even though the conditions probably aren't optimal) to get my wife to try at least a pair of Gotamas. She loves Volkls (not unreasonably) but really needs something to make off piste easy due to a congenital knee defect.
Stockli Asteroids? OMG  how awesome were they?
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Poster: A snowHead
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There's a difference between inverse camber and rocker.
Inverse camber = the whole ski, tip to tail, seen sideways, is shaped inversely to the main body of a traditional ski - ie like a boat. If you place it on the ground it will make contact only in the middle.
Rocker = maybe 60-70% of the body of the ski has traditional camber, with the front (and possibly the tail) starting to slightly curve up far closer to the front (respectively rear) binding than in a traditional ski. So you ski the middle of the ski like a traditional ski of, say 150 cm in length (though fat), but you have another 30 cm in front and 10 at the back that help the float in pow.
The diagram above is not 100% clear - the "rocker" design is neither cambered nor inverse-cambered, looks flat.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Dr John, a good friend of mine has done exactly the same upgrade as you, after resisting the wide(-ish) ski revolution for the last 2-3 years. He now describes the Missions with the immortal words of Michael Douglas in Basic Instinct: "the f*** of the century"!
(The man has a gift with words. He saw the pic of me in this thread -first page, second pic- and said "You're laughing like a frog during a flood"  )
Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Fri 9-04-10 17:32; edited 1 time in total
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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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double post, sorry
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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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| under a new name wrote: |
bobinch,
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you ever seen deeper than this?
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Yes.
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me too - at Mt Bachelor last weekend. 24 inches fresh everywhere, and where the wind had been blowing, absolutely bottomless. Snorkel stuff ... and I know we get deep conditions more often in the USA than in Europe, but I've skied waist deep several times in the Arlberg. And there were a lot less people skiing the deep stuff than happens in the USA, where powder days at well known resorts like in CO, WY and UT are like commuting on the tube in London peak hour.
All my skis are between 80-95mm, and I can happily ski very deep pow and windy crusty chopped up crud in these. I'm also light-ish (80kg full geared up), so struggle on big stiff fat boards. I demo-ed one pair of serious fat rockers, enjoyed them off piste, but they were useless elsewhere (and unfortunately I don't ski pow every day, but fortunately do rather enjoy ripping fine groomers and bumps). Hence an all mountain mid fat suits me fine - true ski anywhere/anything skis. Skied most of season on my Salomon Lords, very slightly rockered, very fine all round skis. Looking for a pair of Fischer Watea 84s on eBay for next season.
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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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horizon, I'm not sure I agree with that. What you are describing as rocker is, AIUI, what rocker is becoming, a hybrid - i.e. a combination to allow skiing a wider range of conditions. The full-rocker Hellbents that our guide was skiing in La Grave last weekend are of the earlier generation with pretty much the profile as in RPF's diagram, and there was little noticeable camber on the Salomon Rocker's that our guide was skiing the previous weekend. I did have a day on skis with tip rocker only and conventional camber for the rest of the ski, but in very hardpack/Scottish conditions - and they were horribly unbalanced, with way too much grip in the tail not offseting the rockered tip, which made side-slipping over steep slopes very difficult indeed.
I've not skied any rocker skis myself, but can definitely see the advantages in softish snow. The main problem I see though is that the majority of us have to take one pair of skis on a trip to cope with all the conditions the mountains will throw at us: that trip to Andermatt gave us knee deep powder, hard-pack windblown, deep soft slush, moguls, a bit of touring - pretty much all in the same day. If driving to the mountains I could see myself having two (or three) different types of ski, but that doesn't really help if you get all of those in the one day. Taking just one pair of skis on a plane though means you need to compromise, and the ski that gives me a decent compromise on all that at present are the Mantras - although I agree a bit of tip/tail rocker would probably make the deep fluffy stuff even more fun to play in.
I do agree that going wider makes the biggest difference in cruddy stuff - it was quite a revelation when I first skied some 95ish skis - to the extent that they made breakable crust huge fun to ski, and really allowed upping the speed in powder. I certainly wouldn't want to go back to sub-90mm skis for anything except performance skiing on piste (and maybe serious touring). I'm positive this is all very weight-dependent though (I'm about 90kg).
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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GrahamN,I did some more googling after I posted and you're right. Rocker = reverse camber. Damn, I found it easy to refer to hybrid skis as rocker skis, to tell them apart from reverse camber.
So back to the topic, maybe for someone with limited offpiste experience it may be better to start on a hybrid than a rocker ski?
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horizon, I was pretty sure "rocker" meant a definite change in profile along the skis camber, so an obvious point where it rocks upwards (Surface Live Life 2 being the most blatent, DPS skis tend to have rocker like this, basically an abrupt seperation against camber), and can be applied to tip and/or tail. Hellbents are rockered, just heavily - flat underfoot then abruptly go up on both sides. Then there's continuous rocker, like Praxis Powders, that're fully reverse camber in the sense they have no obvious flat spot, they're just cambered the wrong way. Recurve/Hybrid skis tend to combine one aspect of those with regular camber throughout the body of the ski - recurve has a rockered tip and tail, hybrid usually just a rockered tip, but that depends on the marketing dept. Otherwise it's early rise (see Bro Lhasa, Line EP Pro), which often have regular camber or flat camber, and could be considered hybrids too.
Might of just repeated someone, but that's my understanding...
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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: |
| There's no powder in Europe... |
Quite possibly true now but there's loads of slush about so I'd recommend something big to blast it out the way, like a snowboard
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Swirly, definitely lots of slush this afternoon...lots of fun.
Anyone got any recommendations for material to shim under bindings?
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FAQ
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