Trends in Rocker

[Kied]

Do none of you understand that most skiers only own one or two pairs of skis and care more about soft snow performance than hard snow performance?

Sucks for them. This is TGR though... we hoard skis like they're titties.

[XavierD]

Sucks for them. This is TGR though... we hoard skis like they're titties.

Nothing like hearing someone tell you that a certain 112mm ski 'carves really well' only to discover he owns six pairs and they are over 110mm wide.

[Lindahl]

My volkl katanas have full rocker, both the metal and the carbon ones.

They ski well, both on ice and powder.

Still a little sketch running bases flat. Gonna try the Liberty Variant 113 as a replacement next season. The Katana is oh-so-close to being a resort one-ski quiver. Won't replace a few skis for special days (narrow carvers and Head m103s), but I'd be ok if it was my only ski. Add a PM Gear Kusala Pure and a Down Countdown 102 and quiver is done.

[Kied]

Nothing like hearing someone tell you that a certain 112mm ski 'carves really well' only to discover he owns six pairs and they are over 110mm wide.

Yep, see it all the time. Some dude who insist he can rip boiler plate on Pontoons or Spats. Thanks, but I'll take out a pair of GS boards and have way more fun.

[pfluffenmeister]

pure nonsense. Completely different style of skiing on those planks. Those days are gone, thanks god, and will never return.

hmmm ...

Is that what you call the hackfuck skiing that you see these days, a "completely different style"? Yeah, ski technique has changed slightly with increases in sidecut but generally newer skis enable the average skier to suck better. The principals of good skiing ain't changed. If you can rip on a pair of Explosives, you can rip on a Soul 7. The inverse ain't always true.

"hackfuck skiing" hahaha!!
ala skid turns between features to hit?

[Lindahl]

"hackfuck skiing" hahaha!!
ala skid turns between features to hit?

Huh? Skidding turns is an essential part of skiing. Yes, even good skiing. If you look like a hack while doing it, that's a different story.

[pfluffenmeister]

^^^ I'm not saying I have never skid turned.

My attitude is essentially: Find the fall line and make turns around it (preferably smooth, pretty turns at speed).



edit: Or put more eloquently: Find the Fucking Fall-line and make Fast Fluid Fucking turns around it.
... and make good use terrain features along the way.

[tuco]

This thread=

[Brianskis]

You're missing the point. It's that they care way more about that one powder day than the 4 or 5 non powder days in between.

For example, if you told me I could ski 50 hard pack days or 10 powder days, I'd choose the latter without hesitating.

That mindset is the reason skier visits have plateaued. As I'm sure our friend, and resident self proclaimed celebrity, DigiDeath would agree a "real skier" doesn't need soft snow to have fun and shred. Given the choice of 50 days or 10 days of skiing I would surely choose 50. Hopefully not all of those would be hard pack, but even they were... having the proper ski width for your average local conditions, you could still go out and have a lot of fun.

If you can't have fun skiing hard pack snow what's the point of skiing? Unless your some big time sponsored athlete, or the GSA, constantly skiing pow on the backs of others...

I would like to think someone from Cali would be embracing low tide tools. Then again, you do root for the 49ers! ;-)

[shroom]

[XavierD]

shroom nails it.

I try and avoid skidding my turns, but I'm not as good as gregL so I skid them on occasion.

Huh? Skidding turns is an essential part of skiing. Yes, even good skiing

Maybe if you refuse to ski anything with a sub 29m turn radius, that is too stiff for you to bend into the desired turn shape...

[TahoeJ]

That mindset is the reason skier visits have plateaued. As I'm sure our friend, and resident self proclaimed celebrity, DigiDeath would agree a "real skier" doesn't need soft snow to have fun and shred. Given the choice of 50 days or 10 days of skiing I would surely choose 50. Hopefully not all of those would be hard pack, but even they were... having the proper ski width for your average local conditions, you could still go out and have a lot of fun.

If you can't have fun skiing hard pack snow what's the point of skiing? Unless your some big time sponsored athlete, or the GSA, constantly skiing pow on the backs of others...

I would like to think someone from Cali would be embracing low tide tools. Then again, you do root for the 49ers! ;-)

Actually, if it really came down to it I'd probably take the 50 days. I'm just sick of skiing firm snow since we've had enough of it the past four years. And no, I'm not one of those guys out there with my 110mm+ skis on boiler plate. But if I did only have one pair, I'd definitely favor soft conditions over firm and probably get something around 105-ish.

[BushwackerinPA]

Huh? Skidding turns is an essential part of skiing. Yes, even good skiing. If you look like a hack while doing it, that's a different story.

skidding nice round turns balance on your outside ski letting your legs turn underneath of you are vastly different from heel pushing turns while you rotate your upper body with your arm swinging around the front of you.

[Bandit Man]

My 190 Q Labs are tons of fun on groomers. Not what I bought them for, but rather a pleasant benefit of camber and sidecut in the right doses.

I know Q Labs aren't EpicSki approved, so perhaps one of the moderators can erase this post. ;-)

[Shu Shu]

TRENDS IN ROCKER:

Wouldn't it be cool if someone made a ski that had multiple sections of camber but was more or less flat underfoot, and also had simulated sidecut across the length of the whole ski but actually had reverse sidecut underfoot. That way you could actually easily carve, pivot, and slarve on hardpack and pow...wait.

I was actually wondering if this concept* would work in a narrow waisted ski or whether you need a certain amount waist width to make the reverse sidecut work. As far as I know Down is the only other company to experiment with reverse sidecut/camber in a narrower ski.

[bl2000]

TRENDS IN ROCKER:

Wouldn't it be cool if someone made a ski that had multiple sections of camber but was more or less flat underfoot, and also had simulated sidecut across the length of the whole ski but actually had reverse sidecut underfoot. That way you could actually easily carve, pivot, and slarve on hardpack and pow...wait.

I was actually wondering if this concept* would work in a narrow waisted ski or whether you need a certain amount waist width to make the reverse sidecut work. As far as I know Down is the only other company to experiment with reverse sidecut/camber in a narrower ski.

WTF. I know the snow sucked this year, but seriously?

[Beyond]

You're missing the point. It's that they care way more about that one powder day than the 4 or 5 non powder days in between.

For example, if you told me I could ski 50 hard pack days or 10 powder days, I'd choose the latter without hesitating.

Can you point me to a place where one out of every five days is a "powder day?" Of course, if powder day = an inch over four day old settled crud, there ya go.

[hopelesslyadolescent]

WTF. I know the snow sucked this year, but seriously?

Seriously. Love my concepts. Same concept in something narrower would be very interesting. Not sure it would function as beautifully, but would be fun to check out.

[Shu Shu]

WTF. I know the snow sucked this year, but seriously?

seriously what? Not saying it was/is necessary to make a narrower concept but more wondering if it would work. The Protest-Wootest conversion seemed to work after some tweeking.

or did you think I was making that whole description up? http://www.praxisskis.com/products/2015-concept.html

[Vitamin I]

So many unexpected comments in this thread.

I agree with Doremite's view:

…there are a lot of different skis and a lot of different skier types and skiers should ski what works for them. Gear Swap is your friend….

The O.P. wrote:

Does anyone else feel like skis have been engineered in a way to be less confidence inspiring (at least in firmer conditions), than their predecessors?…

Specific ski designs are LESS confidence inspiring than others at some combinations of speed and surface conditions, while simultaneously being MORE confidence inspiring at other combinations of speed and surface conditions.

E.G. Arne (R.I.P.) at Blizzard designed with rocker to “water down” hardcore charger designs like Zeus, to better enable safely scrubbing speed while at very high speed, with intent to increase confidence for even higher speeds inbetween reliable scrubs. It takes a very powerful skier to consider the last "old" Zeus 194cm (not rockered) to be “more confidence inspiring” than the recent Bodacious or Cochise (rockered).

E.G. An old 193cm m103 with home-bent rocker will be more confidence inspiring at low speeds/tight billygoating terrain than a non-rockered pair, but less confidence inspiring at highest speeds in wide open terrain.

…Do you think too many people out there are on skis with too much rocker for the conditions they are skiing?

I don’t pay attention to and don’t care what the masses do, as long as they continue to pump money into the industry to enable production of niche market skis for the Maggots’ niche demands. Even better when the misguided demands of the masses influence ski manufacturers to flood the market with way too many sick burl raceroom-type skis that the masses cannot even handle—so I always have the option to buy a pair for $150 a few years later or whatever.

…...I got [the Supernatural 108] as a quiver-of-one type ski (just like the skis before it). However, I think the Influence 105, which was created 5 years earlier, is much better. …Maybe I'm losing my mind? Maybe I'm just adjusting to a new ski?

1. If you're on this forum, you're likely the type of skier who should NOT be skiing on skis you don't absolutely love. So, NEVER sell your old ski until AFTER your new ski beats your old ski hands-down in your multiple A-B head-to-head tests. With that method, sometimes you will end up keeping your old ski and selling your new ski after only a few days on it. (Note: This method requires you to turn down ski sponsorships, haha). If you always buy skis at reasonable low prices, then you can re-sell it used without a huge loss.

2. It is silly for one’s default mindset to be that one’s next ski purchase should be the latest year’s model. It is silly to think that old, used skis are not as good as new models. We want the masses to believe those silly things, so they will indirectly feed our niche market.

3. RE: “quiver-of-one”. I am surprised that some Maggots still like the one-ski approach. Especially after 4 consecutive not-so-great retail winters, when you can now buy pairs at $150-200 each. But, I understand why some people prefer to really master one ski, and always rely on pilot reflex habits formed ONLY using that one ski.

.

[1000-oaks]

Wouldn't it be cool if someone made a ski that had multiple sections of camber but was more or less flat underfoot, and also had simulated sidecut across the length of the whole ski but actually had reverse sidecut underfoot. I was actually wondering if this concept*...

Only took a couple runs on that ski to realize that trying to make clean carves on two sidecuts / three points of contact sucks...sold hem immediately. Fine in powder of course, but pretty much anything fat is good in pow.

[Shu Shu]

Only took a couple runs on that ski to realize that trying to make clean carves on two sidecuts / three points of contact sucks...sold hem immediately. Fine in powder of course, but pretty much anything fat is good in pow.

I actually don't really care so much about 'clean carves', but I know what you mean. IMO it's still more than capable when up on edge though. What it may lack in pure conventional carving capabilities it more than makes up for in terms of the variety of possible turn shapes/types in even the most minimal of 3d snow. It seems like a shame you didn't give them more than two runs, but i guess when you know, you know. Still I think its one of the most unique and fun to ski applications of rocker/shaping out there.