What's the best ski length

ise wrote:[
I can see why that might appear to be so but it's not entirely true, the trend to high sidecut skis started with racers. In part they were exploiting some new technology and a loophole in the rules gave some guys a first mover advantage. We know how true that is in formula 1 motorsport, the technology is at the leading edge and continually pushing the rules leads to product development.

What's odd in skiing at this moment, and some other areas, is that a series of trends have come together to stimulate innovation, most notably cheap manufacturing, cheap computer aided design and modelling, slow reactions by some large manufacturers and just a whiff of zeitgeist where everyone wants something special. Nevertheless, most skis used by most people owe more to race skis whether it's slalom or skierX than they do to some dude in the Tetons )

& yes, that did sound a bit short to me as well :)

I would agree that materials and construction developement definately benifits from racing, but mainly because that's all they have to play with. Conceptual innovation is stimied. Easy carving sidecuts came from snowboard design, not skiing at all :wink: .

Trencher

Trencher wrote:Easy carving sidecuts came from snowboard design, not skiing at all :wink: .

Trencher

That's a good example of something everyone knows and is so often repeated it must be true ) At the least it's massively overstated, Fischer for example had a pair of high side-cut skis back in the early '80's which I think had a lot to do with their active effort to transfer knowledge from their aviation business and marked a different way of thinking about ski design that took a long time to catch on. By 1990 or so Elan and Kneissl were producing high sidecut skis as well.

If we looked yet further back in ski history we'd see skiers like Dick Durrance as long ago as 1939 with a 74-54-62mm ski. Even in the 60's side-cuts on race skis were around 7 or 8mm, that might not seem a lot but it's a side-cut and then it's just a question of degree. Olin also had a ski back in 1983 with an 8m turn radius but it looked so outlandish people wouldn't buy it.

We can go back even longer, in the 1800's as people began to make tele-mark skis for resale for the first time it was realised very quickly that pinching the waist would give an easier turning ski. If you go to a ski museum you'll see side-cut progressively increasing from the early 1800's right until the 1930's or so when it stalled for decades.

So the easier turning that a high side-cut gives has been known for a long, long time, and why not? It's an obvious piece of engineering after-all. At the least it's pretty clear that snowboard designers didn't originate this idea, they may have embraced it a little more enthusiastically but it wasn't even a little bit original.

Wouldn't the history prove the point about racing slowing down innovation ? Smaller sidecuts were not accepted in skiing until the race skis had them. Snowboard designers may not have invented the small radius sidecut, but they demonstrated how effective it could be in a way that no ski manufacturer had befor.

Trencher

I'm sort of agreeing with Dave Mac about his rental suggestion. It can be quite hard to get a rental of a ski that you actually want to buy. I tried taking a wish list into rather a lot of ski shops about 3 winters ago. Some of the shop responses to my list of around 5 models left a lot to be desired. Fortunately I found a dealership (just the one) that was suitably enlightened, able to interpret my list and widen my choices. Mostly it was a depressing experience watching olympic class chauvinism in action.

I now take my annual wish list to the Swiss Ski Test, and get 800 pairs to choose from, and hear no comments such as "these are a nice ladies ski light and very easy to turn" . I might even take out some Nomad Blackeye, even though they're a bit narrow :wink:

Trencher wrote:

Wouldn't the history prove the point about racing slowing down innovation ? Smaller sidecuts were not accepted in skiing until the race skis had them. Snowboard designers may not have invented the small radius sidecut, but they demonstrated how effective it could be in a way that no ski manufacturer had befor.

Trencher

I don't think it would as, Dick Durance I mentioned particularly as he was a racer. To an extent, it's a matter of interpretation though.

The reason skiers were slow to see the benefits was all down to skiers, those Olin skis were released to instructors to rave reviews but dealers couldn't shift them. Pretty much the same with Fischers as well I think. But that's just down to interpretation.

Another way of looking at it is to try and fix the start of commercial snowboarding, wouldn't that be around 1984 or thereabouts? Ski manufacturers were trying bigger side-cuts by then.

I know Burton were releasing snowboards in the late 70's but take a look at the pictures, you'll see no pronounced side-cut there. Indeed, here's one from 1987 (from snowboard-mag.com), not much side-cut )



I don't recall anyone at the time saying carving skis were based on snowboards, we'd all seen snowboards by then and no one particularly thought they had a high side-cut. This is an idea somehow that's come along much later as a reinterpretation of history, that needn't be inaccurate but it's odd at least.

Ise, Of course you are right on the facts. I do remember so many skiers mentioning that they wished they could carve like snowboarders did, that it's hard to see why skiing rejected easily carvable skis for so long.

Trencher

Trencher wrote:Ise, Of course you are right on the facts. I do remember so many skiers mentioning that they wished they could carve like snowboarders did, that it's hard to see why skiing rejected easily carvable skis for so long.

Trencher

That's true, and that must be the basis of this all. The Olin ski (I think) was in part produced to help an exec at the company who couldn't ski be able to learn. Mind you, even now, there's still skiers who don't and can't carve and still people who aren't much interested, although we could say the same about some boarders I guess as well )