help me figure out a problem with my skis

[mickymikey]

Hi all, so I have a pair of 174 Kastle fx104 skis that I've used for a couple of seasons as my main touring ski but have never been fully comfortable on them. In nice smooth conditions like corn snow and powder they are fine but when things get a bit firmer or variable I find the tips tend to get a bit grabby. I have recently bought a pair of carbon lhasa pows to become my main touring ski because of this and taken the bindings off the kastles and have been thinking of getting a narrower touring ski for spring and steeper objectives but cant help thinking the kastles should be a perfect ski for steeper more serious lines so am wondering whether there is something i can do to make them work better for me.

It seems on firmer snow on the kastles when I try to just slarve or skid a turn around rather than carve it, as my downhill ski comes around underneath me the tip tends to sort of grab and release repeatedly which makes my downhill ski kind of pivot a small amount under my foot as the tip grabs then releases repeatedly. it can do a similar thing when im just side slipping. It can be quite disconcerting and makes going fast doing larger radius turns on them not that fun and feels like it takes a lot of concentration to keep the skis under control if im skidding them to keep my speed in check.

I've been thinking about it for a while and have a few ideas that might be causing it. I'm a strong skier and have been skiing all my life but I'm not too technically minded when it comes to specific things like this. The skis have been used with plum guides and dynafit mercurys. I have custom foot beds in the boots as well.

Are the skis just too short? I'm about 180cm, 70kg and my daily driver is a 185 cochise. They are a bit shorter than what i'm used to but they are full camber and a solid ski so thought they would ski a bit longer than most skis these days. the skis weigh around 2kg a ski, so not a light noodle by any means. It sometimes does feel like I struggle to find the sweet spot on them in more challenging conditions. Is it that I have gotten lazy skiing a rockered ski and getting on a more traditional full camber ski again is wooping my ass when things get a tad challenging. Is it the tech bindings that im struggling with? maybe the lack of connection to the tails. the plums do have a very high ramp angle as well, is it possible this is contributing? would the mounting position affect this? they have been mounted on the recommended line. Do i just need to give the tips a good detune to make them less grabby? One thing that I've noticed is the lhasa pows sometimes slightly do a similar thing in challenging slabby conditions but to a much lesser extent. This makes me wonder whether its the bindings and big ramp angle on them thats throwing me. Although the lhasas do have extremely sharp edges at the moment so am planning on detuning the tips a bit to see if that helps.

Any thoughts people might have would be appreciated. Would be stoked if I could make the kastles work for me.

[whatsupdoc]

I imagine it's a combination of things as opposed to 1 single factor.

Fully cambered ski versus a fully rockered Cochise is a huge difference. It doesn't surprise me the kastles are harder to slide and get around in variable snow. Detuning the tips & tails a bit will probably help. It certainly will help with the rockered Lhasas if you ask me. Do it w a gummi stone and you can always re-sharpen if you don't like the feel.

Also the ramp angle of tech bindings definitely makes a difference imo. Plums have an extreme amount. Try shimming the toes.

Lighter boots and bindings are likely in play as well, but probably not something you're going to change with a touring setup. Your touring gear will never ski like alpine gear in variable snow.

[skimaxpower]

Detune tips!

[ski_da_pow]

Detune tips!

i agree with detuning the tips and contact points. i forgot to detune one timed and i felt the same way as you just described.

[timmaio]

i agree with detuning the tips and contact points. i forgot to detune one timed and i felt the same way as you just described.

that's the first thing that popped into my head reading the OP

[Skidog]

detune is where i'd start and work from there is the problem persists.

[smooth operator]

And if that doesn't work look at shimming the plum toe. High ramp delta makes it hard to pressure the tips (you have to bend your knees way more).

[hoarhey]

I agree, detune...

and... One thing I have found with mercuries and dynafit verticals, is that on my shorter skis, I am more sensitive to the ramp angle issue.
Shimmed my first dynafit toes with a 6 mm shim from B&D on my 175 cm GPO, and it made a huge difference.

[Adrider83]

I ski the FX104 for my touring setup (dynafit bindings, dynafit titan boots). I agree 100% with what you're saying, and with what everyone else is saying. I actually just skied it yesterday in some funky spring snow on a 3000 foot, fairly committed line. A few spots, the tip definitely got grabbed by some refrozen weird stuff, and came around really quickly.

(1) Start with detuning a bit (that's actually what I did at the top of the line yesterday). These skis are pretty new for me. It helped.
(2) They're way more traditional than most skis in this category. I think they're a very compliant when you ski the with good old fashioned turns initiated from the tip of the ski. They can be super maneuverable at slow speeds too. That said, I think they're more prone to grabbing weird snow, if you're not on top of it, than a ski with a more progressive rocker profile. Even my daily skis (Influence 105 and Supernatural 108) are way easier in that sense. What you get in return (I feel), is a lot of precision and control, with a great tail and edgehold.
(3) Though I'm not one of these dudes out in the backcountry constantly, I also don't feel like I can skis this like my alpine setup. I've told myself that to get over it. Touring boots + dynafits + a big pack....it's not going to feel the same as charging around at a resort on race plug boots with good alpine bindings. Maybe some other skiers, better than me, can crazy fast in firm variable snow on dynafits, but for me...I don't really care to or enjoy it. I'll save that for the resort.

Regarding the length...you probably could go up to the 184, but I bet as a touring ski...the 174 works fine. I'm 160 pounds, and I ski the 184 for the FX104 and the 186 for my alpine setups. It's a fine length, but I don't think it's a huge issue, since it has a lot of effective edge.

[lordf]

I had the fx94s in 186 and they suffered the same issues out the box, tip and tail de tune works wonders on them.

[mickymikey]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I think I will give them another go and do a bit of detuning. Will probably go for a tech binding with less ramp angle on them as well, figure it can't hurt. My boot bsl is pretty short as well, 297mm or something, size 26 so I'm sure thats making any ramp angle issues with the plums worse as well.

Question with detuning them, seeing they are a full camber ski how far would you detune them to? just past the contact point? also the tails are basically flat so where would you detuning the tails to?

[Doremite]

Just tips around initial contact points. That said I don't know shit about detuning but at times struggle with freshly sharpened edges (at the forward contact point). Thankfully I ski in the east and conditions often detune for me =)

[Adrider83]

I did just the tips, but may experiment with the tail too. I think I just did to the contact point. The edge was very sharp all the way around the tip when I got them.

[lordf]

I put them up on their side to work out how much I wanted to take off the tails, its not much, you really just want to de-tune a few cm fore and after of the widest part. Well thats what I did as that was the only part of the tail I could feel wanting to hook.