Ski:IQ Score Range in the real world

A snowHead

@swskier, hmmm thanks might stick with the SL skis then but need to sharpen em as only ever use at Hemel and havent tuned for years....
Defo got better scores than my teaching skis 182 76mm 17rad. which I actually thought I was making better long turns on..

A snowHead

I got a 150 today, carving (not quite PB but useful for the stats discussion), and not on SL skis. Some of the metrics:

10.2m turn radius
68 edge angle
23 slope pitch
53% turn closure
74% weight release

This was in slushy but smoothish snow on a pair of Line Blades (95mm waist and quite soft) rather than SL skis. My observation is that CARV heavily rewarded the weight release. I was airborne between many of the turns, so aggressive was my weight release.

This was all very fun, but not really how I'd normally ski smoothly and progressively?

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

@Harry Flashman, well done - the edge angle helps as well I think? What g force did it measure?

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I'm still working out what it likes. 68 edge angle on fat skis felt very aggressive, I have to say. Had to ski VERY dynamically to get all of this to work on these things - frankly the soft snow helped.

G-force, just checked - 2.0.

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@Harry Flashman, Dynamic skiing is the way to go. I got a PB for the season yesterday, with a 94% weight release. If you want to score highet IMO, then you need to lower the turn radius, which will increase the g-force. That’s my plan for today.

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@Harry Flashman, 68 edge angle ???

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68 degree, it means. Should have specified!

After all it is free

@Harry Flashman, and I guess you mean angle to slope, not edge angle to ski? (only just occurred to me on chairlift today)

@under a new name, yup, pretty sure that CARV measures the angle you get the edges to against the slope. Higher gets better grip and ability to arc shorter radii by bending the ski more.

So my Lines have a turn radius of 14m, and the 10.2m measured means I would have been bending the skis to arc a smaller radius than their unbent sidecut radius. Or something.

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Put it this way - pro skiers get edge angle degrees into the late 70s and 80s, which is a big leap from my 68 in that run.

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When you say 80s do you mean base near perpendicular to slope?

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@Dave of the Marmottes, yeah that is how they measure edge angle... getting much over 60deg consistently is doing pretty well.

By memory if you tip a ski to 60 deg and have perfect edge grip you can carve a turn half the turn radius of the ski.

Another data point for you @skimottaret - I passed L3 tech a couple of seasons ago (teach and second discipline to go), and ski iq is currently 156. I would guess that my L3 exam longs were in the 145-150 range (no Carv then) so think your estimate is probably about right.

You know it makes sense.

@turbosmurf, thanks useful to know.. It sounds like an L3 should be in range for 150 plus for best scores and 140s typical..

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

Yeah, it’s a bit tricky because Carv doesn’t line up exactly with BASI criteria, or what the trainers need to see. Carv seems to prioritise very dynamic skiing in general. There’s certainly a minimum performance level for L3, but I can easily imagine a low 140s run that would hit all the criteria (as well as many that wouldn’t).

A snowHead

@turbosmurf, The more I use it I completely agree. high edge angles, high tempo, unweighting at transition and impulsing the ski to get G forces seems what it is looking for.

Ive got maybe 4 or 5 morning sessions with it on decent snow and although shorts and parallel in the 150's cant get carved turns up to match which is opposite of what everyone else on here is saying... I guess I ski too in control and low tempo light touch on carving...

Im less and less interested in IQ score but the metrics are a useful feedback tool. For me hitting 60 deg edge angle cleanly carved on a red is fine... Even though I get told it is a Parallel turn Smile

A snowHead

@Harry Flashman, but, but, sidecut radius doesn't really translate into turn radius (3D, soft medium, etc.,)

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

Agree. I think Ski IQ is most useful relative to yourself at the same effort level in the same conditions; for that I think it’s very consistent and useful. I can tell within a couple of points where it’s going to rate a run now, and find it quite helpful in assessing whether a change is moving things in the right direction. Monitor mode is the only one I use.

I’m like others here; my carving scores are my highest. I think it’s least useful in moguls; I’ve found better scores come from high tempo runs with lots of absorption through easy moguls rather than a more technical flowing run through gnarly moguls (when I can manage either Eh oh!

)

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Couple of further reflections on level and carv overall.

1. Pinning 135-145 as advanced feels about right and the descriptions on the ios website are about right. I'm at 141, which is reasonable for someone skiing 10 days a year.

2. Looking at the videos of the 8s and 9s on the ios site, I'd be interested in how carv would rate the skiing. Just eyeballing the tempo and edge angles on the shorts, they look lower than the scores I'm getting on the app. Similar with the edge angles on the carving. I'm scoring in the 8/9 range and am getting high 50s on the edge angle.

3. The amount of data is amazing. You can really see inconsistencies in your technique in the app. I'm scoring lower on my left turn than my right and am attributing this to an IT band problem affecting whst my inside knee is doing. The foam roller beckons.

4. Unusually, my highest rating is for shorts. This is probably because I'm using a 90mm underfoot 184 cm ski with an 18m radius. The issues with carving are probably a combination of skill and equipment. Let's just say that it gets overly fast quite quickly on anything steep.

5. It weights some things very heavily and pings you if they aren't part of your skiing. Weight release is the big one for me to work on. That said, I'm on an 8 year old a/m ski that I've thrashed most of the camber out of.

6. Its unclear to me how this will rate off piste skiing. Like many on the site I mainly ski off piste (or used to pre kids). I've also developed a technique that is effective in a wide range of conditions but is not pretty.

Overall this is one of the most useful things I've bought. It's also woken me up to the need for a specific piste ski and will be going shopping for something narrower and a bunch torsionally stiffer, with a shorter radius.

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@gorilla, have you worn them off piste? I’ve played around a little, it likes float, speed and rhythm from what I saw. Gave me a low float on my 75mm piste skis Eh oh!

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@kitenski, serious off piste is a next year thing now. Will definitely be giving it a go. Generally pretty cautious about electronics near the beacon so that may hamper things.

After all it is free

I think it’s *extremely* unlikely to interfere on grounds of both high frequency and low power. There’s a reason AirTags aren’t a good solution to find buried skis. Of the many things to worry about off piste I would put that very far down the list.

@turbosmurf, I guess the same reasons that Air Tags don't work very well could apply to the Carv, if your boots are below the surface of the snow then Bluetooth LE to your phone could have a problem.

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Can’t tell if you’re joking Eh oh!

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@turbosmurf, Not a joke. Water absorbs 2.4GHz, that is how microwave ovens work and why Air Tags don't.

You know it makes sense.

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

A snowHead

A snowHead

I managed to get a Powder score on piste in the slush today, coupled with my single mogul run that randomly appeared I now have all five IQ's Toofy Grin

Am still scratching my head on Carved vs Parallel but saw two guys I know in the top 20 global leaderboard. both instructors and they too have their top score in Parallel.

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

I have the opposite problem, I can never seem to get Parallel score, it always comes out Carving.

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I think shorts vs parallel may be largely down to corridor. I usually ski BASI style shorts (ie grippy, rounded, grip before fall line) on the last little pitch home. I have two runs where tempo, speed, metrics, and IQ were all very similar, but the 2.9m corridor run was classed as shorts and the 3.2m corridor run as parallel.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

X post from EoSB thread. Think I'm not gunna use mine

Anyone on the EoSB interested in a Carv2 setup of sensors and annual subscription. Only used 1 day for a trial and subscription not yet activated? Prepared to deal below the 20% discount sometime available.

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Why @Dave of the Marmottes, ? Did it not recognise the value of your jazz hands?

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@adithorp, I've decided I'm very much a vibe skier and having KPIs is a bad way of making skiing feel like a job.

Also doesn't reward jazz hands or powerslides or measure giggles. Maybe Carv3 will improve by having glove sensors to measure jazz hands.

After all it is free

Last day of the season here and first time using Carv. Conditions were somewhat challenging very little vis, rain turning to snow making the pistes very sticky/chopped. I was using all mountain skis that were probably last edged and waxed 25 ski days ago.

My skiing was mediocre at best. 129 on shorts and 124 carving even though I didn’t really feel that I was particularly carving much today! Nothing else registered although parallel pathway level 30 was reached somehow. I was surprised to even get into 120s because of it all feeling a bit meh. I assume there’s a law of diminishing returns and it becomes quite challenging to push scores high without a load more effort.

There’s an area about an hour away that looks like it might have extended their season to next weekend so I might go along if it looks worthwhile condition wise to get an extra day in.

Back on the planks for the bootleg pre eosb in Les Arcs and the eosb

Gentle, relaxed skiing, 100 -125
Putting a bit of effort in 125 -135
Trying my hardest 135-147

The conditions haven't been ideal, but I think I will have to actually think about my technique to break the 150.

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Had 6 days in L2A in fantastic sunny conditions, and instantly bettered my scores from last year which were in the 110s mostly (though I think the one day when I maxed out at 121 was when I let one of my sons borrow them without giving him a buddy pass). This year after a steady start of 114 on day 1, I progressed to 124 and 129 by later in the week. I even think I would have bettered my 129 had I not gifted away a buddy pass to a son on the third day. I am a groomed piste kind of guy though so didn't at all try to get close to that on short turns or moguls, where I was 113 and 116 respectively. Happy enough though for someone on 12 year old boots (Atomic B90), rental skis (Deacon 7.6 161cm) and only skiing 6 days 2 out of every 3 years roughly and in his mid 50s.

I did sometimes find skiing with them on distracting and reduced the joy a little as I could sometimes have an enjoyable bit of skiing only to be told in my ears it wasn't very good!! That said, some of the coaching tips really did get me thinking about position in a way which I wouldn't have intuited naturally, and without any coaching from a "person" I definitely felt I progressed during the week.

Help!!

Ski:IQ Score Range in the real world

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