 Poster: A snowHead
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| Kramer wrote: |
Carving is much easier than skidding. It's both fast and almost effortless when you're doing it at tourist speeds. You can tell when you're carving, because you can do it just as fast off piste as on. |
Only on easy slopes where speed control is not an issue. Carving on steeper slopes takes a fair bit of physical effort to say the least. For a start if carving cleanly on a steep slope you'd be going seriously quick and generating considerable Gs. Carving at slow speeds is a bit of a contradiction in terms unless the slope is very tame. Racers are shot to pieces aggressively carving at high speed for barely over a minute.
As for carving as fast on piste as off depends entirely on the type of snow. If you were carving cleanly on icy hardpack you'd be going a damn site faster than carving knee deep powder on the same gradient. No?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| fatbob wrote: |
| Back to the regular programme, I'd still say carving even on a gentle slope requires some basic muscular form and input while you can basically skid standing up, fiddling with gloves, doing crossword etc. |
Stack your skeleton, weight forward, pressure the front of your ski, roll it from side to side, effortless on green, blue, and most reds. Yes you can end up very fast, but you're in complete control.
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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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| uktrailmonster wrote: |
| Kramer wrote: |
Carving is much easier than skidding. It's both fast and almost effortless when you're doing it at tourist speeds. You can tell when you're carving, because you can do it just as fast off piste as on. |
Only on easy slopes where speed control is not an issue. Carving on steeper slopes takes a fair bit of physical effort to say the least. For a start if carving cleanly on a steep slope you'd be going seriously quick and generating considerable Gs. |
Not that I notice. If conditions are good, and I'm on form, I'll always find it quicker and easier to carve down say a red run than if I start skidding, because I'm working with my skis not against them.
| Quote: |
| Carving at slow speeds is a bit of a contradiction in terms unless the slope is very tame. Racers are shot to pieces aggressively carving at high speed for barely over a minute. |
But they're not just carving, they're also pressurising the ski to steer it and store more energy in it during the turns, to get the fractional advantage over their competitors. I'm fairly sure they could ski at 8-9/10ths speed almost effortlessly.
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| As for carving as fast on piste as off depends entirely on the type of snow. If you were carving cleanly on icy hardpack you'd be going a damn site faster than carving knee deep powder on the same gradient. No? |
I don't know, I don't think I can carve icy hardpack off piste. I'm not sure I know many people who can. It's rare that I can carve deep powder to be honest, but I can generally carve in crud, and that's when you don't notice much difference when you go off piste.
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To me the bit which uses energy is braking. By carving I can stay in control at higher speeds. The higher the speed, the less you need to brake since drag does the work instead. I also suspect that a less turny ski is less tiring as you can do more speed with less Gs. That's not to say that it isn't fun to do short carved turns - it's just more tiring.
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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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| Dr John wrote: |
| nessy, what carvers did you get? I'm considering getting carvers to go with my missions. |
I picked up some tatty 7 year old AK-Pro skis on a local internet auction. I just wanted something cheap to see how I would like it. My conclusion is that if I could only take one pair I would take the Missions as they are still fun to carve (really hard pistes are quite rare) and very versatile. For cruising around all day the Missions are a lot less work.
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It would be reasonably interesting to know if everyone referring to 'carving' was referring to the same thing...
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| scotia wrote: |
| It would be reasonably interesting to know if everyone referring to 'carving' was referring to the same thing... |
Yes. Two parallel tramlines down the slope.
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Once again we get the "carving is king" fallacy. So I say yet again: there is one purpose and one purpose only for carving...to go as quickly as possible. The question as to how much effort is required depends on what you're skiing and what you're trying to do. BTW If the slope is sufficiently shallow that you don't need to turn your skis out of the fall-line to control speed then the point is pretty academic as you're not turning at all and so gliding, and should be neither carving nor skidding. On any slope worth calling such you need to control that speed, so the question is what is the most efficient way of scrubbing off speed.
Once you are on a slope where you need to be controlling speed then one possibility is to do it by making lots of carved turns to lengthen the path the skis travel enough for the additional friction (from snow or air resistance) due to greatly extended path length to slow you down. Despite what has been said above, carving is NOT effortless - unless you are completely braced (which is a bad, very inflexible way way of skiing) your muscles are used as well as your skeleton to maintain body position as you pull substantial varying Gs during the turns which takes effort. The only way you have of controlling speed when carving is to vary the edge angle to direct the turns further up the hill - one degree of freedom. The narrower the piste the more turns you have to make and the more of them you have to make, the more G peaks and the more effort.
Alternatively you can increase the friction by skidding the turns. If you are making good skidded turns you can keep a much more consistent regime with much lower peak G, which takes substantially less effort. You can control the resistance by adjusting both the steering angle and the edge angle - you have two degrees of freedom and so much more flexibility. So you can vary between a shallow steering angle for wide turns, or a large steering angle which is essentially a sideslip.
As an illustration of this, last year I was getting one last run on the Grands Montets in Argetiere when I realised I was very tight to catch the bus back to Chamonix and the airport. I skied from a hundred meters or so above the top of Herse to the bus stop, a drop of about 1600m and a length of something like 5-6km in 7 minutes (the as-a-crow-flies distance, i.e. the length of the lifts spanning that route, is 3300m). So averaging something like 50km/hr. I was probably carving the flatter sections, but small-angle skidding the vast majority of the turns. By the time I got to Lognan (about half way down) my legs were burning and there was very little change of making any carved turns on Pierre-a-Ric, which was covered in a combination of gliding and varying ang skidded turns. I probably made a total of about 3 carved turns in that second half - each of which then required an increased G turn to keep the speed under control which reminded me to stop being silly and keep skidding. Sure I could have gone faster, had I been stronger, but that wasn't a sensible option. Ski racers are superbly strong, but even they can't carve everything they ski, and they're knackered after a couple of minutes.
Carving has it's place and can be huge fun - but I'm in no doubt whatsoever what is the lesser effort way of getting down a slope, and it ain't by carving.
In case anyone is in any doubt, I do know how to carve. I do a lot of racing so I do know when I'm carving and when I'm not. I also do a lot of off-piste so also know what's involved in carving off-piste as well as on.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Shouldn't this be on BZK?
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If you are skiing properly and carving it is not tiring. Hubby and I are both pensioners and we ski 60km + most days with normal max speeds of 70-80km/hour (fastest ever is 99km/hour). I wear a GPS so know our speed and distance covered. Our sons are both instructors so ski all day every day and don't get tired - why? because they carve. You don't hear instructors saying they are tired. We only ever feel the thighs if we have been doing lots of moguls but we do ski 7 weeks each winter. Many people skidding are not in control, travelling far too fast for their ability and would benefit from a few more lessons. Its much more fun to be in control, carving and going fast. I'll be sexist and say that many men ski on a mixture of testosterone and brute force. That should open up the discussion!
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Kramer wrote: |
| fatbob wrote: |
| Back to the regular programme, I'd still say carving even on a gentle slope requires some basic muscular form and input while you can basically skid standing up, fiddling with gloves, doing crossword etc. |
Stack your skeleton, weight forward, pressure the front of your ski, roll it from side to side, effortless on green, blue, and most reds. Yes you can end up very fast, but you're in complete control. |
so what does stack your skeleton mean..
i have a back pack but dont think i could carry a spare
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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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GrahamN, well put, and spot on I'd say.
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Kramer, which skis have you used to edge roll reds without additionally pressurising your skis?
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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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GrahamN,
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So I say yet again: there is one purpose and one purpose only for carving...to go as quickly as possible.
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Pleasure doesn't come into it then?
Not that I intend to enter the debate in general, I only carve very easy angled terrain and I suspect even then only for part of a turn and not the fabled arc to arc.
One thing I would say though is that it is possible people are talking about two different things when they are saying 'tiring'.
There is the energy spent per unit distance and per unit time. Strikes me that going fast I generally spend a lot more energy per unit time than going slowly but probably only a bit more per unit distance. Realistically though I am skidding in bothmodes though.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| T Bar wrote: |
GrahamN,
| Quote: |
So I say yet again: there is one purpose and one purpose only for carving...to go as quickly as possible.
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Pleasure doesn't come into it then?
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Certainly it does - the pleasure of the high acceleration and high G turns you get through minimising the friction from the skis.....which is all about going as quickly as possible along the path the skis are describing. But it's not about low muscle load.
I've just realised where some of this disagreement originates - confusion about what constitutes skidded turns. The skidding done by many intermediates will be essentially a series of hockey stops: run straight then put the skis across the direction of travel, ram on the edges and stop as quickly as possible...repeat until legs dead. So this results in substantial periods of little force in the legs followed by huge peak forces during the hockey stop. This is extremely tiring and ineffiicient.
But that's not what I mean by skidded turns. Proper skidded turns have much less edge and the friction period is much longer - so there is a much lower force applied over a longer period, resulting in the same speed reduction (change in speed = force times time). Speed doesn't change very much at all throughout the turn - and changes much less than in a series of carved turns. One exercise often used to check this is to straight run down the fall-line on a moderate slope for say 15-20 metres then pivot the skis across the direction of travel, and (this is the important bit) continue the side-slip for as long as possible - at least 20-30m. The basic exercise is to make the skid directly down the fall-line with no change of direction of travel (and minimum speed reduction) from the glide; variations are to control the edge angle in the slide to stop in a given distance, or slow down then release edges to speed up again while still in the sideslip, or combine with progressively increasing amounts of turn (to get the blend of edge control and turning). This was also the kind of thing we did on that course referred to by Arno. The level of edge control you get from executing this exercise allows you to make the low effort controlled skidded turns I'm talking about.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| slikedges wrote: |
| Kramer, which skis have you used to edge roll reds without additionally pressurising your skis? |
Scott Missions. If you roll them onto their edges quick enough, they pressure automatically.
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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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| mugen wrote: |
| Kramer wrote: |
| fatbob wrote: |
| Back to the regular programme, I'd still say carving even on a gentle slope requires some basic muscular form and input while you can basically skid standing up, fiddling with gloves, doing crossword etc. |
Stack your skeleton, weight forward, pressure the front of your ski, roll it from side to side, effortless on green, blue, and most reds. Yes you can end up very fast, but you're in complete control. |
so what does stack your skeleton mean..
i have a back pack but dont think i could carry a spare |
Stand up straight so that it's your skeleton supporting you and not your quads.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that skidding is a more efficient (less tiring) way of getting down a slope probably doesn't know how to carve properly. All of the lessons that I've had in the past five years at various bashes have been centred around increasing the amount of time spent carving, and decreasing the amount of time spent skidding, there must be a reason for that. 
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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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| GrahamN wrote: |
| I've just realised where some of this disagreement originates - confusion about what constitutes skidded turns. The skidding done by many intermediates will be essentially a series of hockey stops: run straight then put the skis across the direction of travel, ram on the edges and stop as quickly as possible...repeat until legs dead. So this results in substantial periods of little force in the legs followed by huge peak forces during the hockey stop. This is extremely tiring and ineffiicient |
This is a very good point, many intermediates are only using skidding to control their speed rather than their line and have some idea they are turning when really they are just going hockey stops it alternate directions.
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| GrahamN wrote: |
I've just realised where some of this disagreement originates - confusion about what constitutes skidded turns. The skidding done by many intermediates will be essentially a series of hockey stops: run straight then put the skis across the direction of travel, ram on the edges and stop as quickly as possible...repeat until legs dead. So this results in substantial periods of little force in the legs followed by huge peak forces during the hockey stop. This is extremely tiring and ineffiicient.
But that's not what I mean by skidded turns. Proper skidded turns have much less edge and the friction period is much longer - so there is a much lower force applied over a longer period, resulting in the same speed reduction (change in speed = force times time). Speed doesn't change very much at all throughout the turn - and changes much less than in a series of carved turns. One exercise often used to check this is to straight run down the fall-line on a moderate slope for say 15-20 metres then pivot the skis across the direction of travel, and (this is the important bit) continue the side-slip for as long as possible - at least 20-30m. The basic exercise is to make the skid directly down the fall-line with no change of direction of travel (and minimum speed reduction) from the glide; variations are to control the edge angle in the slide to stop in a given distance, or slow down then release edges to speed up again while still in the sideslip, or combine with progressively increasing amounts of turn (to get the blend of edge control and turning). This was also the kind of thing we did on that course referred to by Arno. The level of edge control you get from executing this exercise allows you to make the low effort controlled skidded turns I'm talking about. |
These turns you're talking about are windscreen wiper turns, ie not really turns at all. If your edge doesn't bite then your not actually turning, just changing the direction that you're facing in whilst continuing to travel in the same direction.
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I see some people on here ski Misson's like me.
I get on fine with them carving on piste, but last week I was in Flaine and it was bullet proof ice on some Reds.
Am I asking too much of my Missons to carve on that? I haven't sharpened the edges since I got em and done 6 weeks on them so far.
I am still holding the stance / making the moves, but there was a lot of slide slip in places. Is it to be expected?
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| Kramer wrote: |
These turns you're talking about are windscreen wiper turns, ie not really turns at all. If your edge doesn't bite then your not actually turning, just changing the direction that you're facing in whilst continuing to travel in the same direction. |
This thread is getting up its own fundament with semantic interpretations - what is a turn if its not a change in direction that enables you to go somewhere else when you do engage edge/step on gas etc? By your definition a handbrake turn isn't a turn either. Whether you're on edge or not has no bearing on whether its a turn or not - think of a jump turn.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Split1950, Missions are quite wide underfoot, so aren't the easiest to get on edge. Getting a ski on edge (to me) is all about commitment, things that stop you committing are usually things that increase your fear - sub optimal conditions, being tired etc.
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| fatbob wrote: |
| Kramer wrote: |
These turns you're talking about are windscreen wiper turns, ie not really turns at all. If your edge doesn't bite then your not actually turning, just changing the direction that you're facing in whilst continuing to travel in the same direction. |
This thread is getting up its own fundament with semantic interpretations - what is a turn if its not a change in direction that enables you to go somewhere else when you do engage edge/step on gas etc? By your definition a handbrake turn isn't a turn either. Whether you're on edge or not has no bearing on whether its a turn or not - think of a jump turn. |
Engaging your edges has everything to do with whether it's a turn or not. If you don't engage your edges then you don't change your direction of travel - end of.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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If you purely skid without engaging your edges at some point, then essentially you're like a hockey puck, spinning round, without actually changing your direction of travel.
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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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Kramer, the exercise may have been windscreen wiper turns but the intent was to be able to control the amount of skid through the turn. frankly, you would have to have been suicidal to carve some of the stuff we were skiing. also the whole concept of "carving" in 3D snow is a little meaningless because it is not your edges which are making you turn
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| Arno wrote: |
| frankly, you would have to have been suicidal to carve some of the stuff we were skiing. |
Or perhaps needing more skill? Certainly more skill than I possess. Most of the porn shows the pros carving 'suicidal' stuff though, so it can be done if you're good enough.
| Quote: |
| also the whole concept of "carving" in 3D snow is a little meaningless because it is not your edges which are making you turn |
It's your bases, but I think that the basic carving concept holds true.
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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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Poster: A snowHead
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GrahamN, being blunt, you didn't know how to carve last time I saw you ski.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Another useful exercise: on a moderate, pisted slope, ski within a 5m corridor making smooth S-shaped turns. Try to keep the skis at a fixed angle, say 10 degrees, inside the direction of travel. Repeat with a slightly increased angle. Repeat....
A skidded turn, but a constant one all the way round the curve.
This is perhaps not as easy to do well as it sounds and requires good edge and rotation skills - but is not tiring!
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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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Kramer, ah, is carving for when you get to 4k posts?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Kramer wrote: |
| GrahamN, being blunt, you didn't know how to carve last time I saw you ski. |
ah well done you win the clown of the day award.
why not turn a debate into a slagging match.
no wonder this place has a rep of unpleasantness
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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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mugen, c'mon - lighten up - we haven't had a good bend ze knees-style slanging match in ages 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Kramer wrote: |
| GrahamN, being blunt, you didn't know how to carve last time I saw you ski. |
He certainly does now. Saw him doing it at Hemel a week or so back. This thread risks becoming a willy-waving one. Let's play nice unless people are willing to post recent videos which confirm how good they are. I won't be doing that btw as I only keep videos of me skiing powder.
Carving is indeed just one skill/type of turn, and for those of us who try to spend most of our time off piste, thinking about edges, except when doing steeps, may not be as important as thinking about bases.
I can carve my normal skis on pistes up to/including red, but cannot yet get slalom race skis over enough, and really don't bother thinking about carving off piste. If I am doing GS radius turns in powder or crud or on crust it is the relative ski positions and equalisation of weight I am thinking about, and may be cranking a bit of counter on at the end to complete the turn. Not edges.
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fatbob,
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This thread is getting up its own fundament with semantic interpretations
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That's why it should be in BZK. 
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GrahamN,
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controlling the blend of edge, pressure and rotation according to terrain
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This is what I have been addressing with Rob and Scott (and also on Inspired to Ski courses) for nearly two years now, and it's an approach with which I am more than satisfied. 
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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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| Kramer wrote: |
| GrahamN, being blunt, you didn't know how to carve last time I saw you ski. |
Either you saw him ski quite some time ago or your idea of carving is a bit different from everyone else. GrahamN can certainly carve turns and in my view has made the best explanations of anyone on this thread.
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| Kramer wrote: |
| Split1950, Missions are quite wide underfoot, so aren't the easiest to get on edge. Getting a ski on edge (to me) is all about commitment, things that stop you committing are usually things that increase your fear - sub optimal conditions, being tired etc. |
Since I have used these Missons quite a lot now I feel I can carve them well, it is just on ice I wondered what edge grip to reasonably expect.
If I were riding my motorbike on a wet road I certainly would not expect to do fast tight turns, I assume you can apply the same logic to skiing - wider (=longer)turns which in turn means much more speed on a Red? Or do my edges need sharpening? Or should I be able to turn tightly without the edges skidding on ice (meaning my technique is not as good as I thought?).
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FAQ
