Skis too stiff/too soft

A snowHead

I've read on various threads about skis being either too stiff or too soft. I get the concept of ski stiffness but I don't know how I'd recognise a ski being too soft or too stiff. Anyone care to describe to symptoms/sensations?

A snowHead

@Valkyrie, it's rather subjective but mostly down to ease of turning, or the lack of it.

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For a ski to work as designed, it needs to be put on edge and pressurized....which bends it into an arc and allows you to turn.

If a ski is too stiff for you to bend, either due to your weight, or your ability, you will have difficulty turning and the ski will feel scary as it "runs away" with you. You will have little turn flexibility, find it almost impossible in moguls and find the tips sink in the off-piste unless going at mach 5.

If the ski is too soft for you, it will feel like a noodle under your feet. It will be unstable and squirrelly at speed, may wash out of turns as it loses edge, will have little life in it and may over-steer for a given pressure/edge as you crush it.

Also, a ski can be torsionally stiff, but have a benign flex.

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@Valkyrie, some touchy, feely sensations:

Travelling quickly on a soft ski makes me feel like the ski is going to "give up", perhaps losing grip in the turn, breaking away, bending too much. Basically I have no confidence in its ability to translate my inputs in to outcomes.

Being on a ski which is too stiff feels like it is hard work because the ski is a bit "headstrong", so you can't get it to make the turn shape that you want, it can feel like it is running away with you so not much speed control, maybe it pings you out of the turn. Basically, the ski is dominating me rather than being controlled by me.

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Thanks all. I think the stiffness of my skis must be fine for me now as I don't suffer from the issues described.

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@Valkyrie, thanks for asking this abs to those that answered. Found it really useful.

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

@Valkyrie, it's only at the extremes of too soft or too hard that I don't feel happy on the ski. There is a very large operating window of stiffness where it's a case of "yeah, whatever" and just ski it. That's not to say I don't notice the difference in how the ski performs, but generally the inputs I make (both skilled and unskilled) are far more important that the characteristics of the ski.

After all it is free

Yea, as @rob@rar, says, it's hard these days to find a bad ski, or one that doesn't really suit, but sometimes you find one that really works.

@Valkyrie, if you'r a confident skier then too stiff is better than too soft. Soft skis will give up in fast turns, washing off speed and turning a carve into a skid, similar sensation to understeer in cars. Stiff skis you can always apply more pressure to make the edges grip (within reason obv, good luck if you're on GS racers...)

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@Dr John, owner of FIS SLs, GSs and SGs...

Disagree totally. Too stiff and they won't work when you need them to. Too soft and you just dial things down a bit.

Softer better than stiffer if you have to have an error.

That said, I'm only 60kgs and have encountered a couple ofn

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@under a new name, fair enough, just my experience (not my natural inclination to dial down). Was a facetious comment about GS, if you know how to use them not so much of an issue, made an assumption the OP doesn't.

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Skis too stiff/too soft

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