Ski trends for 2006-7: more superfats ... in longer lengths

A snowHead

International trade magazine SkiPressWorld is reporting huge sales growth (442%) for superfat skis - those generally defined as measuring 100mm+ at the waist ...

... hence there will be many new models next season, stretching both the width and length. 190cm+ lengths are being resurrected for freeride skis. Nordica, for instance, will have a 193cm Blower model, which has been pre-released this winter.

All in all, six manufacturers will offer skis 110mm to 130mm wide. As SkiPressWorld's equipment writer Graham Gephart points out, these super-wide skis are "arguably the hardest of genres to maintain torsional stiffness and lighter weight".

Any comments on this trend?

A snowHead

Conrearns over binding engineering with skis wider than the boots attatched to them, otherwise i'd agree, people seem happy to ski fatter skis. Off-piste awareness needs some publicity.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Is lightness necessarily always a desireable quality in an off-piste ski?

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Maybe such skis will tend away from wood cores towards foam. Although wood has very high specific properties (considering it's density), carbon laminates are higher still. In other words, higher torsional rigidity for same mass. Also, wood is most effective as a cylindrical or hollow tubular section. It loses some of it's advantages when sliced into rectangular strips...waffling again, sorry

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Natural evolution - these skis will definitely sell in Western North America as a quiver sk & to certain Euro seasonnaires. Modification in technique is defintely required to ski them well in hard pack but didn't 1st generation carvers need a certain amount of adaption.

If superfats are the new fats though it looks like 85-90 mm ends up being the utility ski benchmark.

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Oh well, who needs to ski anyway. Why not buy two snowboards and just mount bindings?

Did anyone mention skill, or ability? Probably not...

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

And, yes, I am awaiting comments about the 50s, &c, &c, ...

After all it is free

I think that misses the point. The ski biz flogs skis to sell the myth that the performance of the ski transmits to the performance of the punter.

It's a subtle combination of selling the message that the fat ski makes powder and crud easier (which it does, until the gradient gets hairy) while maintaining a high technical profile. It's all pretty valid, commercially.

Yes, fat skis do remove the traditional skill of unweighting the ski to make it float. But they have the huge drawback of sluggish edge-to-edge control on packed snow. In those conditions, fat skis make the user look like a dork.

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Fat skis arent meant for packed snow, simple as that. So regardless of how the person skis they look like a numpty if all they are doing is cruising blues on some big pow skis. Marketing mans dream. But how is that different to buying race skis and not racing on them?

I can see the extra float catching people out though the extra accelration that you just dont get on skinnier stuff

Yes you shouldnt be off piste if you dont know what your doing but that doesnt mean if you are on fat skis that you shouldnt be allowed there

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DG,

I beg to differ, certain fat skis do carve on the piste but they require more skill to do so. Spent a week with a guide and he was carving 98mm wide skis on the piste (Seth Vicious) inbetween powder runs. OK for hard icy pistes a skinny ski is the better tool but some of those fat skis carve a lot better than most people think. IMHO fat skis make powder and crud easier especially when the gradient gets hairy. Fat skis also allow the user to enjoy shallow snow where a skinny skin would sink deeper and hit the hard piste underneath. Fat skis do make skiing powder easier for learner powder skiers too, my first time in any real powder was on one of those "ca 75mm allrounders" and I struggled. The following day I rented 90mm wide powder skis and it was a lot easier and much more fun. Skiing is about fun not tradition and in soft snow fat skis make it much more fun for most skiers (of all abilities) I have met.

Each to his own though whatever floats your ski coat. I'm not gonna fight you for it, not even over the internet.

snow reports

I love it when you beg, DB.

I think the point is to differentiate between fats and superfats. A ski over 100mm (i.e. 4 inches) wide is going to behave like a floorboard on piste, even if plenty of radius is built into the sidecut.

But I agree totally - fat skis are fantastically bouncy and fun in deep snow. As kruked says, the acceleration on steeper gradients is a real concern and any ski - fat or skinny - has to be aggressively turned out of the fall-line to avoid potentially dangerous speed.

Sharkymark, not sure whether you're aware of DrakeBoinay who went into the carbon ski sector in a big way, but folded last year due to production difficulties. They made carbon skis with foam core. Reading the blurb, the core on those skis had very little to do with how they skied - it was really just something to fill the void inside the ski. I think a common gripe about foam core skis is that they are a bit dead compared with wood core skis (I can't really comment on this from experience - the skis I have skied extensively in recent years have had wood cores). The carbon in DB skis dictated how they felt.

One company which has sprung from the embers of DB is DP (Drake Powderworks) which makes carbon skis with wood cores - apparently they are working towards doing away with this, but aren't confident that the ski will be strong enough without for now.

The benefit of carbon is said to be high torsional stiffness, light weight and the fact that it doesn't lose its spring as quickly as wood.

I think that carbon may be the future, once people get the manufacturing straightened out... we'll see

In the meantime, I've got an eye on the Dynastar Pro Plus Toofy Grin

You know it makes sense.

David Goldsmith, for what it's worth I rode my fat skis in powder and on hardpack last week. At 97mm underfoot they're not the fattest but still significantly wider than many.

Surprisingly they ran extraordinarily well on the hardpack, and even in the bumps. I'm a competent but far from expert skier and, if anything, they just made me think about my technique more on hardpack. I would argue that I did not look like a dork.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

I have Atomic Sugar Daddies for the deeps (99mm under foot I think).
They ski OK on piste and in the bumps. Not as easy and responsive as my Volkl 724 EXP (was there ever a ski made with a worse colour scheme?) which I just love for non-deeps. The 724's really are not much to write home about in the deep stuff.
To be honest I think the Atomics are better at what they are worst at than the Volkls.

A snowHead

I've got Maden AK's, 108mm underfoot. They ski like a drain on the piste. My friend is a 10 year seasonnaire with Maden's as well, he skis them better than me but also like a drain.

They aren't just fat, they are super soft, not helping on hardpack.

edit - following the posts about bumps. My Madens ski very well in the bumps for their length and width, but again this is linked to the softness. A pair of fat, stiff skis would be much harder.

A snowHead

Y'see that's the difference between boarders and skiiers. It's not intelligence, it's been able to to ride two boards at once. Blessed folk you are indeed.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Arno, I didn't know about that. The only function of the foam is to act as a spacer during manufacture as it has very little shear stiffness. Seeing how difficult carbon aerospace bits are to manufacture I'm not surprised they flopped. The major problem with carbon is damage tolerance...

Do Dynastar Pro Plus keep you awake as well Laughing

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Sharkymark, yes - i believe carbon tends to break rather than bend...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Arno, spectacularly at that. Not brilliant when half-way through a turn on a steep icy piste. It's back to wood then

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More 2006-7 hardware seen at the SIA trade show in Las Vegas:

Tom Winter, ace scribe for Freeskier magazine, spots the Atomic Thug (120mm underfoot) and Dynastar/Naxo ski-binding combos for backcountry fun.

This article has to be read, if you're in the mood for some amusement!

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Ski trends for 2006-7: more superfats ... in longer lengths

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