Tony Crocker":3hlbgr27 said:
I thought (and still do) that a lot of sidecut would tend to make the ski hook into new snow that was less than ideal (wind affected or high water content). I will admit to relying on hockey stop turns to control speed in the steeps.
With regard to the powder argument, I have the late Shane McConkey on my side there:
http://unofficialsquaw.com/words/2009/0 ... mber-skis/
I can remember a few years back when I first started hearing about skis coming out with reverse camber and reverse side cut, and in an effort to describe the new skis, someone said to think of a shape more like a water ski. That made since, since the dynamics of skiing on/in powder seemed somewhat akin to skiing on water. The surface of the water gets pretty hard as you increase your speed, but it still seems like more of a malleable powder snow-style surface than hard pack or ice. Even beyond the comparison to water skis though, the whole concept of reverse camber and side cut just seemed to make sense to me based on years and years of skiing in powder.
With the onslaught of so many new ski models featuring varying amounts of reverse camber or side cut, and the way these models are talked about with regard to revolutionizing skiing in the new gear issues of the ski magazines, I began to wonder if I should even buy the RT 86s with their standard camber and side cut. Was it worth spending money on new skis and not getting in on the latest effective designs? Sure, a lot of the discussion about the new skis may be advertising hype, but it’s pretty clear from skier’s comments that these shapes work. Ultimately I decided that if the RT 86s are going to be my all around Telemark skis, and would probably see some time on groomed slopes, then a standard design was probably the way to go. Also, since I do love that fabulous snap of a nice pair of Atomics on groomers, and the RT 86 seems like such a good match for my purposes, I stuck with my initial thoughts. The decision was made easier by the fact that I knew I’d be able to really focus on incorporating the new designs into whatever fatter pairs of skis I got down the road that would be biased for more specifically for powder use. I’m still not sure which and to what extent these new aspects of ski design are going to be practical for an everyday ski, even for those of us that are focused on powder, but I suspect some of the reverse camber/early rise aspects are going to work their way into the less powder-centric skis. It seems that some of the new tweaks like early rise aren’t necessarily as detrimental to skiing on groomed slopes as some of the other modifications. I now laugh to think about all my pairs of skis that were “dead” because they’d had the camber beaten out them and featured tips that splayed apart if you put the bases together. When the shop guys were telling me to get new skis, they hadn’t realized that my skis were simply well ahead of the times.
With regard to powder skiing, it was interesting to see this section of the McConkey Spatula guide that Tony referenced:
“…take most everything you have ever learned about skiing and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Or at least in the garage next to your shaped skis. Why? Because: Sidecut is not good in powder. Camber is not good in powder. Carving is not necessary in powder. Simply put, if you want to maximize your abilities in soft snow you do not want to use the same tool as you would on any kind of hard, groomed, or compacted snow.”
Changing our approach to skiing when it came to powder was never a problem for me and many of the guys I grew up with, since back when we were kids, for the most part we just wanted to ski moguls. With that mindset, we generally slipped our turns more than formally carving them, our knees and skis were pinned together, and our weight was toward the back instead of being centered or forward. Whenever we encountered powder, there wasn’t much to think about in terms of technique because we just skied like we always did in the bumps and the whole process was pretty effortless. Even though we were on skinny, 200 cm skis, having fun in the deep snow never took much work (in fact I’d say it took less effort than skiing in the bumps). People can ski powder differently now with the newer designs, but many of the old techniques for powder can still help. I can remember that we used to have to sneak our way into the trees to ski powder because many ski areas weren’t really on board with letting you ski in there. Gradually I guess they figured out that we weren’t going to kill ourselves in the woods, although there are (amazingly in this day and age) still ski areas that don’t let you venture off the trails. Nowadays we don’t have to sneak around like criminals anymore at most ski areas just to do some tree skiing, so that’s nice and a lot more people can get into skiing powder. Coming from our bump skiing lineage, I always found it interesting that people had to “learn” to ski powder, because from our perspective it seemed as natural as falling off a log. I remember when we were first teaching E to ski powder; it was a little difficult because we’d never experienced
not knowing how to ski powder. We didn’t think too much about what we were doing. Eventually we were able to articulate some techniques like “keep your feet together”, “have your skis work as one”, “don’t rush things”, etc. but for us, it was carving skis on groomed slopes that we actually had to learn. We ultimately taught ourselves how to really “carve” when we got older, but for people coming directly from skiing through carving, I guess they might have to throw out some of what they learned when it comes to powder. From my perspective, it was interesting to read some of the stuff that McConkey wrote because smearing and slipping turns, skiing sideways and all the sorts of things you can do more easily in powder on the new ski designs sound really fun. To some degree we’ve been doing these things on our straight and/or shaped skis, so I’m very curious about how things will feel on the new designs. Now I just have to demo or get my hands on some of these skis with the new design features.
-J
