 Poster: A snowHead
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Ps: need to add this : how many times have you heard people brag about coming down a notorious black run on there once a year trip ...... Did they survive it sordid they ski it ? .... A french guide once said to me : when you are learning why make life hard on bigger skis use a smaller one to become boss of the hill and move up from there.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Just out of curiosity - what is considered "too fat" these days in terms of intermediates biting off more than they can chew?
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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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| Alexandra wrote: |
| Just out of curiosity - what is considered "too fat" these days in terms of intermediates biting off more than they can chew? |
Don't know if there is any agreement on what is "too fat", not least because it will vary hugely with the terrain and snow you are skiing. I find it almost impossible to do reasonably precise short radius turns and any arc-arc transitions on skis wider than 85-90mm underfoot unless I'm on very gentle pistes and skiing at high speeds.
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See I still wouldn't classify 85mm as enormously fat. The second poster on page one talks about 74mm and I ski on 82mm - to me, "fat" is 100mm plus. So I'm just trying to understand what it is the "outraged" are getting upset about.
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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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You'll need to Register first of course.
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What's too fat also depends on how fat the asker is.
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My two pence:
- People should learn how to ski off piste safely before they do so.
- Sales people should be properly trained to asses a customer's ability and understand intended use, then make a recommendation based on that, however they can ski with tea trays stuck to their feet for all I care. It's about their enjoyment in a way that doesn't endanger others. Seems a bit like snobbery to dictate what someone skis (I'd draw the line at snowblades though  ).
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when i watch intermediates who rave about fat skis on the hill i recon they like em for off piste skiing cause they ski on one leg at a time and the extra float helps them from falling over.
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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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There was an old Canadian in Breck' yesterday riding the skinniest old Dynastars you've ever seen (think fat x-country) ripping through the trees like ferret through a hedge. It may not have been knee deep powder but the kids on fats behind him stayed behind him 
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| chrisedwardsski wrote: |
| Ripping big GS lines down 45 - 50 degree slopes at 40 -50 mph through crud jumping off rocks, bouncing through tree peppered powder fields knee and waist deep is really what they are for and then it pays to know how to use a ski too. I ski a 90 underfoot Scott Cruisair and can honestly say it doesn't lack ANYWHERE, its controlled speed and technique that enables me ( 90 kg / 6' ) to ski powder ..... |
As someone with wide rockered skis (Volkl Kuro) and Crusairs I don't agree with these statements.
The Crusairs are an excellent stiff, light touring ski with surprisingly good float in powder but the Kuro's are miles better in mixed off piste conditions, obviously in powder but particularly in wind affected snow - either crust or heavy.
For an example look at the Verbier/4 Valleys TR's from this week. Having skied the Kuro's all week I took out the Crusairs for the first time yesterday. They were obviously a joy for a 2hr hike up but I hankered for the Kuro's all the way down....
My wife also has a pair of Kuro's and accepts the additional weight for hiking and challenge in rubble/ice because she has so much more fun riding off piste on them. She no longer wants to ski her old favourite Dynastar Legend Powder (85mm), which were also a step improvement on the K2 Lotta Loves that preceeded them.
Skiing has moved on, the equipment gets better - especially off piste. Suggest the doubters try what's out there before knocking things based on preconceptions. You might be surprised. I was.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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skimottaret, and intermediates on skinny shaped skis like them because you can roll them on to edge and hold on to "carve" a turn - not sure if that was your point or not but still! I ski powder pretty one-footed on any ski fwiw...
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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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BobinCH, but you and yours are decent skiers not an intermediate/one week a year skier progressing to fat skis before they have mastered the basics. No?
Sure the extra width helps in the type of terrain you regularly ski.
The mistake some people make is thinking a 100mm+waisted ski will transform them into some sort of backcountry ski god when in fact they probably if truth be told only ski 10/20% of the time off piste.
Accepted we all have to hopefully progress as indeed the equipment has BUT many people get sold the wrong set up when in fact they should be seeking to improve with instruction.
The ski marketing mans dream the BRITS
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| Quote: |
Accepted we all have to hopefully progress as indeed the equipment has BUT many people get sold the wrong set up when in fact they should be seeking to improve with instruction
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Thats kind of what this thread is about an the exact point i was trying to make ....... yes technology has made the task of off piste easier for more and more people to enjoy and improve and enhance the experience for the seasoned mountain goats , however , understanding technique has to be respected ? nice one Hedley
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You know it makes sense.
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Travelling back from Salzburg to Innsbruck today, and there'd been a wee bit of snow so me and my gf stopped off at a tiny ski hill on the way (Zwolferhorn or something). We were a bit late for the pow, and although there were a fair few stashes of around knee-deep fresh left over, most slopes were pretty tracked and almost at the stage of soft bumps. There was a very very good skier, techically a lot better than me, out on skinny skis. Towards the end of our session I noticed him really struggling, having to work hard for his short turns. On my fatties I was still ripping big gs turns through/over everything with a grin on my face. Such a game changer in variables and mixed conditions.
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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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here in inssbruck we had -20 C overnight after warm days. could not imagine powder - knee deep somwhere, or soft bumps. only ice today.
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Poster: A snowHead
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clarky999, Nail on the head, fats & rocker help you in cr@p snow when you need it most, I've skied hero light fluffy powder in very skinny 203cm force9s but wouldn't want them in the conditions you describe.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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cbr7, Yeah, was very lucky, really localised snow around the Salzkammergut area - I wanted to head over to Krippenstein as I still haven't been there, but was too far out the way as my gf had to get back to study (medicine exams in a few weeks).
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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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Yep, it's my impression that a vociferous cohort on here are always too quick to recommend fat skis to whoever asks for ski recommendations, paying no heed to the asker's level of competence, the reality of the terrain they ski, the fact that the one or two weeks a year they're in the mountains the variables they encounter might even be more difficult on fat skis, or even the asker's weight. 
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as to me, i have the three pairs of tools - 72 mm rossi WC oversizes (they are good everywhere).
80 mm dynastar legends and 110 mm icelantics.
Most comfortable ones for the offpiste skiing i find 80mm ones, cozz offpiste is not only the powder:)
110mm are left for canada and usa where i have bought them. They could be dangerous on narrow blue traverses with extensive traffic in europe, when you have to wait for a while to roll your anckles over 
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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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I'd have absolutely no qualms about giving a never-ever skier that I'm teaching a 90mm ski for what it's worth - I really think the impact they have on technique and learning is over-exagerrated. It's more likely that people have had flaws in their skill set exposed by a fat ski, imo, than been impeded by them.
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DaveC, you're happy that a new skier can develop good edging skills and good transition skills on a ski that wide?
I struggle to execute clean carved turns on my 88mm wide skis unless I'm travelling very quickly, probably more quickly that the people I teach would be happy to ski at when developing new skills. I have a client who was actively being held back by skis that wide, but when he skied on 67mm skis he was able to make a big step forward in his skills development.
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rob@rar, I think you need to ski your 88mm skis more... I'd rather teach general stance and balance, and balancing on the edges, on a wider platform. Once it's on edge it's still essentially the same concept, and transition skills are significantly easier because there's so much more time between edge change. Until edge to edge speed and sidecut becomes relevant (which is late in a skiers development compared to the other fundamentals), I struggle to see the problem 
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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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| DaveC wrote: |
| ... transition skills are significantly easier because there's so much more time between edge change. |
Too often that time is filled with a pivot. Because the time from edge to edge is so much greater before the ski starts to turn I find that too many skiers add a rotary movement at this point, killing the clean transition. The wider the ski, the worse this problem is.
| Quote: |
| which is late in a skiers development compared to the other fundamentals) |
But hopefully not so late that the pivoted entry to the turn it is an instinctive, and hard to eradicate, movement.
I would like to ski my 88mm skis more often, and my 110mm skis for that matter. But I won't bother with them if I'm mainly going to be skiing on piste as they are dull and lifeless compared to a ski designed for the piste.
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I dunno, I'm really unconvinced that the (very small) edge to edge speed loss is going to force someone to pivot more than they normally would, and I'm fine with that anyway, since I'd rather teach rotary skills and develop seperation before early edging anyway - edging without pivoting makes pivoting far harder to teach, whereas introducing clean edging to develop steering is pretty easy. At the end of the day, you're just balancing on the skis - their width really can't inhibit learning until they get past the 100mm mark, and even then it's only going to really impact edging skills. A wide base of support is actually a positive for something easier to balance on (up to intermediates, I'd be suprised if an advanced skier couldn't figure out edging a fatter ski).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| DaveC wrote: |
| At the end of the day, you're just balancing on the skis - their width really can't inhibit learning until they get past the 100mm mark, |
Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree
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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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| clarky999 wrote: |
| I was still ripping big gs turns through/over everything with a grin on my face. |
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DaveC, and what happens at 100mm and why?
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You know it makes sense.
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I started skiing in 1971 so have seen everything from straights to compacts to mids, to long and soft SL to get the benefit of some sidecut & length/flotation
I'm 165 cm tall & before going (modern) my last skis were 195cm K2 MSL that were 63cm underfoot & could do anything
Point of previous thread, work on technique and don't rely on the hype
Similar thing happened in golf with graphite shafts and big headed drivers. Yes they made hitting the ball easier, but in themselves created their own problems in regard to lack of basic technique.
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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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There is good and bad in the new fat skis. And alot of mis-information.
First of all - if you stick to the groomed runs -why bother? Most fat ski just make you more clumsy.
But if you ski where there is some decent powder, there are some new skis out the past few years that are unbelievable. I tried quite a few before I settled on a set of Armada JJ's. They are just so much fun. They are 112mm underfoot and 136mm on the shoulder and narrower at the tips. They have a traditional camber underfoot but with a big rocker-camber tip and tail. Most skis this fat are almost unmanageable on anything inbounds, but these feel like a short sporty ski because only 2/3 of the ski is contacting the snow. In the powder they really come alive. I ski mostly steep deep powder in the trees, and they are the perfect ski for that. There are no other ski like them. (although I hear that Soloman is about to release a very similar design later this year)
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Quote: |
There are no other ski like them
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Yeah there are...
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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your right clarky - some copies have been made by Boomtown sports. They call it the ULLR. It's shaped identical but it has a bamboo core. I havent had a chance to try them out yet. Do you know of others?
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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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Atomic Bent Chetlers, Rossi S7, Moment Bibby Pro, DPS 112RP... There are loads of 5 point sidecut skis with rocker-camber-rocker out there!!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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slikedges, the edge gets further from your boot, meaning you have to compensate more and start to roll your ankle a lot more to edge - it just makes edge initiation more awkward the wider you go, I've just found that 110mm skis are less natural to ski edge to edge than 100mm skis - but yeah, it's pretty arbitary. Trying to edge 130mm actually puts torque on my ankles, so I dislike skis that fat for the way I ski.
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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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DaveC, totally agree with your principle on that, which is why I also think that each individual's boot/foot width is also a factor. I've never bothered to look at it very carefully but I think I'm right in thinking that for most people on piste skis, the mid-boot overhangs the ski on each side. Above mid-70s to mid-80s mm width skis fewer and fewer people's feet will overhang the ski, meaning that the fulcrum for the tilt of the ski will lie further outside of the base of the boot/foot the wider the ski. I think that there's a relationship between how far out this tilt fulcrum is and the width of ski each person can casually and effortlessly edge.
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DaveC, Yup... both my skis and boots are 98mm wide... feels very easy to get them on edge. A perfect relationship
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That's really interesting. I'm glad, in that case, that I didn't go any wider than 75 (on an all-mountain ski) given my pixie-ish feet. It's not difficult to get them on edge.
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FAQ
I over heard a member of staff trying to explain to a new member of staff about rocker, camber, reverse camber and the like 
