 Poster: A snowHead
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I am a one week a year, for ten years skier, had lots of instruction, and would describe myself as an ambitious intermediate. However I am now mindful that a UK intermediate may be rather less experienced than a French or Austrian intermediate.
Following reading ski reviews and forum posts, I took up the chance to rent some X-Wing Tornado's to cruise the Three Valleys last week, fuelled by the knowledge of a big dump the day before.
I skied them for three days, before concluding that these were too powerful for my abilities. At no stage on piste did I feel comfortable or entirely in control, and got thrown of several times when being lazy (tired) and catching an edge.
On the fourth day I swapped them for "lesser" Head Xenon 6.0's, suddenly I was in control, enjoying myself, able to relax, tackle steep blacks and not get knackered ... what joy.
The point of this post is two fold ... firstly, it seems to me that there is not a lot of point paying for top of the range skis if you don't have the skills to go with, which begs the question, what is the point of top of the range skis if they make skiing harder.
Secondly, whilst the concepts of turn radius and length of skis are well documented and understood, there does not seem to be a standard for stiffness, which to my engineering brain must be the next most important variable since it defines comfort and contact with the snow, or is there such a scale ...
I note that Dynastar, Head, Atomic and Rossignol all produce skis such as Contact 10, Xenon 10, Drive 9, Multix 11 and so on, do these numbers represent the stiffness of the ski on a common scale, or is it a marketing ploy to get people to upgrade?
My experience highlights the benefits of demoing skis, but to a one week a year Englander there is little opportunity without losing valuable ski time, so if I could say I need a 170cm long, 15m turn radius, stiffness 8 piste ski to the shop I would not waste time.
Sorry to ramble but I would appreciate the views of the experts.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Hired boots?
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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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DavidYacht, the tricky thing is that stiffness isn't a single quantity. You have longitudinal, transverse and torsional stiffness to consider, as well as variations in stiffness in each direction. Also in play is the sidecut and camber. All of which can (and do) make a great deal of difference to how the ski feels.
Away from the ski itself you wuold be surprised at how much of a difference that where your bindings are mounted and what angle there is between boot sole and ski makes.
Sadly, it's not as simple as being able to quote one number.
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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, if he's in hire boots then all bets are off and all demos are suspect.
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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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Good point - it's pointless to get skis who ride you rather than you riding them.
The point of "top of the range skis" is that once one has the level to use them properly, they will be much better in faster turns, more difficult snow etc.
(If I want a comfortable day on good snow, I take my Scott Missions out. If the snow turns choppy or I want to go hard, my Kneissl Tankers are the better bet - and will end up being more comfortable overall. But the second I'm not paying attention on them, I'm in the back seat).
As far as I know, the numbers on piste skis are just marketing - an ordinal rather than a cardinal scale, if you prefer (not like a BMW 330 vs a 320). (The fun starts with freeride ski names...K2 Work Sux anyone?)
I don't think a single stiffness number is very helpful - stiffness varies longitudinally and torsionally, so at best you'd get an average which won't translate well across manufacturers and ranges. I don't think that manufacturers use common measuring conventions for stiffness (from SZK's posts it seems that there is something like a common measuring convention for boot stiffness)
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| DavidYacht wrote: |
The point of this post is two fold ... firstly, it seems to me that there is not a lot of point paying for top of the range skis if you don't have the skills to go with, which begs the question, what is the point of top of the range skis if they make skiing harder.
Secondly, whilst the concepts of turn radius and length of skis are well documented and understood, there does not seem to be a standard for stiffness, which to my engineering brain must be the next most important variable since it defines comfort and contact with the snow, or is there such a scale ...
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The point of top of the range skis is to provide top performance for those who can make use of it. They're unlikely to be of much benefit to the average 1 week a year Brit. Some top range skis are more forgiving than others, just depends what they are designed to achieve. Many of the top range all mountain skis are pretty easy for just about anyone to use, but some top range skis (especially race skis) can be bloody hard work. You just have to be realistic about your ability level and choose a ski you're comfortable with for the type of skiing you enjoy.
It would be very hard to come up with an accurate standard for stiffness, as it's quite a complicated variable with several dimensions and you would have to get all the manufacturers to agree on a standard measurement. So you just have to read the manufacturers descriptions (I find most are quite honest), read the reviews and, if you can, try them out for yourself. After a while you get to know what characteristics you like in a ski.
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Thanks Comprex,
Yes I do have my own boots, so we can eliminate that variable. I would like to own my own skis since I seem to do a couple of trips a year now and would like have a familiar ski.
I almost thought we had it cracked with the pdf links, but it looks like the tested skis are all mountain ski's. However I will delve to see if these links provide more data.
I accept that torsional stiffness is an issue, but I suspect that deflection with a known weight at the centre of the ski would be a pretty good broad brush indicator of the user friendliness of the ski.
Being a good (dare I say expert) dinghy sailor and I know that minor variations in flex of a mast have significant effects on the power and ease of use of a rig ... masts also have torsional effects, but you can still get a broad brush idea of what is stiff and what is soft.
What I was trying to get to was being able to say that the X-Wing Tornado's were too stiff, the Xenon 6 maybe slightly soft, and the Zenith 9's were a little stiff ... so what options do I have bounded by these skis? I am sorry if this all sounds a bit anal.
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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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| under a new name wrote: |
| the tricky thing is that stiffness isn't a single quantity. |
i tend to just use "stiff as f*ck"
stiffness doent necessarily mean high performance or beyond your ability, if you're a fatty then stiffness and subsequent "beyond your ability" is reduced. I'm ~110kg living proof of that
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DavidYacht, a very insightful post. You make some valid points and like you I'd've thought it would be poss to get a rough indicator from a simple standardised test - at the least it could be a good starting point from which to make more discerning choices. Be even better if ski manufacturers published curves like in the links for each ski they sold (also be good if car manufacturers published torque response curves for all their engines/gearboxes but that doesn't happen either). Not having to test skis which could easily be excluded from a stiffness curve would certainly save me time and effort.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| DavidYacht wrote: |
I accept that torsional stiffness is an issue, but I suspect that deflection with a known weight at the centre of the ski would be a pretty good broad brush indicator of the user friendliness of the ski.
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Not sure about that, some skis have soft tips and/or tails, some are stiffer in the middle (relatively). A single deflection test is unlikely to be of much value, you really need to see the full deflection curve along the ski length (like in those pdf files). You would also have to compare skis of equivalent length, as different length skis of the same model have different stiffness to account for different skier weights.
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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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| slikedges wrote: |
| also be good if car manufacturers published torque response curves for all their engines/gearboxes |
torque response curve? What is it and why would it be good to know? I'm intrigued.
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