DPS Spoon 150

[zeroforhire]

Just saw some pics of it. Looks very interesting. After reading the description I am still confused as to why the "spoon" is necessary.

Khyber? Marshall?

Some pics and discussion.
[ame="http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php?p=3159665"]2011/12 gear rumor mill.... yup - Page 16 - Teton Gravity Research Forums[/ame]

I thought I would give it it's own dedicated thread.

[schwerty]

Just saw it too. At first I was thinking, WTF is that and how the hell will that work??? Then I came to my senses and remembered that it is a DPS creation....it will be incredible. My wallet will be taking it's routine beating again for the pre order, if there is one.

[XtrPickels]

I believe you are referring to the "cleats", which I bet work on a magna-traction like principle.

The "spoon" looks like a convex base.

It looks like the cleats would contact hard snow evenly when the ski is flat. Therefore, when you put the ski on edge on hardsnow you have 3 contact points... the front and rear cleats and underfoot at the widest point.

If that is the case, it would probably behave *normally* on hard snow and you wouldn't get "the splits" from the reverse sidecut or funky feelings from the convex base.

However, on softsnow, the cleats are shaped to influence the ride very little. The feeling you'll get on soft snow is off a reverse-reverse ski with a convex base... probably a very "loose" feeling.

[El Chupacabra]

Pic from DPS facebook page:



There was a prototype wavy-base Praxis that someone (Sinecure?) had posted some photos of, which look similar in concept, but the DPS kink is a much sharper bend than those.

[lobstahmeatwad]

WTF?

[DudeLebowSKI]

Cool! Finally something that might possibly knock the RP112 threads off of the first page ; )

[Bird Blaster]

^^^ No that won't happen for some time still.

[DasBlunt]

Fucking trippy. Saw it today.

[Eluder]

So is the core thicker in the middle or is the top sheet shaped as well? just wondering about binding/brake issues.

[hoarhey]

It looked like there was a flat section in the middle of the topsheet to mount the binding.
Then the topsheet rises up as you move to the edge of the topsheet (sidewall).

[iski123]

Anyone know the rest of the dims... tip/tail available length(s)

[Boomer28]

Far fucking out man....not quite sure what to make of that...

As others said, it's DPS so my faith remains strong but WOW......

[marshalolson]

i literally have more than 200 unopened emails in my inbox, so this needs to be quick, but just a few things:

this design has been in the works for a year and a half, and its really cool to see a skiable example of it. stoked to test it in the next bit, once the tradeshow circuit slows down.

the ski is designed to really promote super high edge angle powder skiing with out seeing drag and reduced speeds from snow contact on your leg from loosing the plane. when a flat-base ski gets higher and higher edge angle , the amouint of float gets lower and lower. this spoon shape starts to engage at the point that a normal flat ski starts to dive. and then keeps going... so like really from dragging your hip in pow super powerful GS type deal.

aside from that, the goal was to open up a totally news style of drifting into and railing/carving super cleanly out of turns and terrain features.

the cleats were added to enabe the ski to be somewhat controlable on runouts. it is pretty different from magnetraction where you are trying to gain edge grip by undulating in and out. the cleats go down to add a small level of stability and edge so a fully convex base will change direction and slow down etc on 2dimensional snow. as it is now, you will not be carving turns. if there were no cleats, the ski would be in essance a death trap. ~20deg base effective bevel otherwise.

this ski shape is based around a lotus 138 + 12mm. full rocker (reverse camber). 192cm. his particular ski was built in eden utah in the engineers garage. it is not ready for retail production, but the tech will see trickle down in the future, is the goal. once the amount of base convexity and positioning and amount of cleats and height of cleats etc is finalized.

base prep out of the mold is a pain, but once that is done, tuning is straight forward actually. far easier to wax etc than i thought they might be. hand prep the base. really no biggie. flat enough to mount bindings without issue upderfoot.

stephan sees this as being the future of powder skiing, based on his testing of it the past 2 days, and well... going by how it looks in my hand, i am inclined to agree... but i have not skied them yet. these skis literally came out of the mold 4-5 days ago.

hope some of that clears a few things up. back to outlook and week old emails. yikes!

[marshalolson]

of and the praxxis concept ski was small camber spots in between the magnetraction edge waves. sorta unsure what the goal of that was, but all about trying it!

[spindrift]

Intriguing ski. And interesting patent related statements in the press release. It'll be interesting to see what they can make stick in terms of priority date and non-obviousness given that Keith has been playing for several months in public with prototypes of the skis pictured in the 2012 thread & its own thread. Even without convex bases, his prototypes definitely play with a combination of varying edge camber (rocker) and matched sidecut to change/focus edge engagement pressure. And arguably influence sort of "virtual" running lengths...

Definitely interested in playing with one of these. Also curious about the impact of the cleats on handling in really watery slush, shallow cream cheese and super wet (and maybe layered) deep snow - places where the pivoty non-edge characteristics of true reverse and short flat spot no-camber rockered skis shine IMO.

Overall, props to DPS for getting the hull thing out there. Stoked to try them when I get a chance.


edit: I guess Marshall addressed at least some of these points while I was writing this post...

[Crampedon]

Cool! Finally something that might possibly knock the RP112 threads off of the first page ; )

Sure! I am going to Vail pass tomorrow, I will leave the 112's home if I can swing by and borrow a pair

[concretejungle]

Marshal, just give my wife a pair tomorrow and there won't be any issues or if need be a demo pair for the company with bindings for a 317 bsl.

[AlpenDude]

As if I wasn't getting enough questions in the lift line when riding the 138s. . . .

These better come with a stack of informational cards for handing out to the confused on lookers.

[marshalolson]

ha ha. 5x7 info cards. exactly.

and spindrift, the praxis ski is totally different. also outside the box, but i am not sure what exactly the goal of his design is, but totally dig that keith is striving to improve on the design. all about that. i think its sick really that he is pushing the product forward.

the dps patent applies specifically to a convex base and with supporting cleats. the praxis ski have mini-camber shapes that pair to the magnetraction undulations.

both outside the box, but way different and designed certainly to do way different things (in my opinion... again, unclear on the praxis ski - guessing more edge grip and pop while carving on edge?)

[khyber.pass]

^ The new DPS poles look awesome.

[wren]

Wow. The "cleats" are an interesting way to solve all the hardpack/runout issues a convex base causes. I'd love to try these puppies out. Better start saving now.

[Knipping12]

Still a little awe-struck, but I wanna ski 'em for sure.

[Arno]

stephan & co are the leading mad scientists of the skiing world (keith praxis is up there too) - love to try these in the right conditions

[TheDon]

Are you going to have anyone at the on snow at snowbasin UT this year?

I would like to ski it.

[Hugh Jass]

Wow. Every year I get more confused by skiing.

So these are prototypy trade show skis, and won't be available for retail distribution in 11/12?