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  1. #26
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    Quote Originally Posted by smooth operator View Post
    so, can i see a pdf somewhere online if i don't have a smartphone?
    Hey, you can buy the digital edition on this link: http://bit.ly/buyersguide2016_
    Ciao!

  2. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    How do I order the English version? The e-commerce page is all in Italian.
    At the moment the ecommerce page is in italian... But it's a standard e-commerce so you have just to register your datas and checkout.
    Here also an external service selling the digital edition: http://bit.ly/buyersguide2016_

  3. #28
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    Quote Originally Posted by timmaio View Post
    I tried to order but it says "No shipping method available. Please review tup address, or contact us if you need help"

    It also requires me to input a Tax ID which I don't understand.

    Cheers
    This, we don't use a tax ID in the UK.
    I Came, I Saw, I .... Made A Slight Effort & Then Went Home For Lunch.

  4. #29
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    we'll check and verify. Now finally it seems to work...
    Last edited by skialper; 11-10-2015 at 07:33 AM.

  5. #30
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    Wow... 34 euros to ship it. Guess I'll buy the online version?

  6. #31
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    WARNING: Cold, hard honest opinion coming..

    Have a hard time trusting a guide that rates something like the fully rockered G3 Synapse 109 as good as a 90mm underfoot fully cambered ski (some Hagan ski) in powder. Just don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion. I guess it's possible, but color me EXTREMELY skeptical. In a guide that does that, I'd like to see at least SOME kind of reasonable explanation as to how that's even possible.

    Otherwise, it seems like just another (useless) ski mag test to me, EXCEPT at least they give us precise measurements of everything they tested, which is actually pretty nice. The subjective side of the review seems pretty useless though.

    The above was just one example, fwiw. Here's another: you'll see their flex measurement come out as stiffer than most everything else being compared, and then the subjective description talks about how easy the ski was to bend into smaller arcs. Again.. it seems like little actual comparison was done. They just hopped on a ski for a little while, threw some numbers on the board, wrote a paragraph, called it a day, and moved onto the next ski.

    Up to you guys if you wanna spend money on it, but I feel like I'd learn just as much by taking a tape measure and a kitchen scale to my local shop. I hate to be so critical, as they obviously put a lot of time and thought into the magazine, and I commend them for that, and it looks great, but the execution appears to be rather flawed (I read most of it).

    I guess a good way to put it, like most ski reviews, is that it's missing continuity. Everything appears to be judged in isolation.

    One last thing... they should do torque release tests on the tech bindings. Would be really useful information to have, especially for the non-adjustable race versions. For all the effort they put into measuring things, that's probably one of the most important, in my opinion, and it wasn't done.
    Last edited by Lindahl; 11-10-2015 at 12:46 PM.

  7. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    WARNING: Cold, hard honest opinion coming..
    Thanks.

  8. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    WARNING: Cold, hard honest opinion coming..

    Have a hard time trusting a guide that rates something like the fully rockered G3 Synapse 109 as good as a 90mm underfoot fully cambered ski (some Hagan ski) in powder. Just don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion. I guess it's possible, but color me EXTREMELY skeptical. In a guide that does that, I'd like to see at least SOME kind of reasonable explanation as to how that's even possible.

    Otherwise, it seems like just another (useless) ski mag test to me, EXCEPT at least they give us precise measurements of everything they tested, which is actually pretty nice. The subjective side of the review seems pretty useless though.

    The above was just one example, fwiw. Here's another: you'll see their flex measurement come out as stiffer than most everything else being compared, and then the subjective description talks about how easy the ski was to bend into smaller arcs. Again.. it seems like little actual comparison was done. They just hopped on a ski for a little while, threw some numbers on the board, wrote a paragraph, called it a day, and moved onto the next ski.

    Up to you guys if you wanna spend money on it, but I feel like I'd learn just as much by taking a tape measure and a kitchen scale to my local shop. I hate to be so critical, as they obviously put a lot of time and thought into the magazine, and I commend them for that, and it looks great, but the execution appears to be rather flawed (I read most of it).

    I guess a good way to put it, like most ski reviews, is that it's missing continuity. Everything appears to be judged in isolation.

    One last thing... they should do torque release tests on the tech bindings. Would be really useful information to have, especially for the non-adjustable race versions. For all the effort they put into measuring things, that's probably one of the most important, in my opinion, and it wasn't done.
    first of all, as I wrote, I have no committments at all with those guys. I simply like their work, and believe none has done nothing similar in terms of in-depth measurements.
    Said that, there is always room for improvement and suggestions, in the italian ski forums these guys are collecting a lot of useful comments for the next release of the guide....overall, though, your aggressive comments sound a bit excessive to me. This job was done in the alps between late spring and summer, where would you ski deep powder in the alps between may and september? After testing several hundreds of skis in the last 30 years or so, I personally am a strong believer that (if the ski is well tuned, as it was here) the first 5-10 minutes of use tell you almost everything about a ski. Said that, long-term, in-depth reviews in the blister style are another (very interesting, but separate) issue. I like also the Blister approach, but a buyers' guide like this has a different target.
    Finally, about the torque test for tech bindings, I am very happy to know that you have this terrific device that can measure torque in tech bindings in a standardized, reproducible, robust way. I know a maggot has studied this problem for years and has been working on a device for long time, has now a patent-pending prototype and has presented it in international engineering meetings..... well he has wasted a lot of his time, because you already know how to measure it.....
    just my cold hard honest 2cts

  9. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by verbier61 View Post
    just my cold hard honest 2cts
    The elusive review of a review of a review.

  10. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by verbier61 View Post
    first of all, as I wrote, I have no committments at all with those guys. I simply like their work, and believe none has done nothing similar in terms of in-depth measurements.
    Said that, there is always room for improvement and suggestions, in the italian ski forums these guys are collecting a lot of useful comments for the next release of the guide....overall, though, your aggressive comments sound a bit excessive to me. This job was done in the alps between late spring and summer, where would you ski deep powder in the alps between may and september? After testing several hundreds of skis in the last 30 years or so, I personally am a strong believer that (if the ski is well tuned, as it was here) the first 5-10 minutes of use tell you almost everything about a ski. Said that, long-term, in-depth reviews in the blister style are another (very interesting, but separate) issue. I like also the Blister approach, but a buyers' guide like this has a different target.
    Finally, about the torque test for tech bindings, I am very happy to know that you have this terrific device that can measure torque in tech bindings in a standardized, reproducible, robust way. I know a maggot has studied this problem for years and has been working on a device for long time, has now a patent-pending prototype and has presented it in international engineering meetings..... well he has wasted a lot of his time, because you already know how to measure it.....
    just my cold hard honest 2cts
    Maybe they shouldn't have a powder category if they can't test a ski in powder? Or choose a better time to test? That's really shocking they even bothered to produce 'powder' scores!

    You don't need to know the exact torque values. You just need to produce a comparison of torque values using the measurement tool. For example "using our test device, Plum Guide 145 released laterally at the same force as a Speed Radical at RV10". You don't need anything standardized to do this. You just need something that will give you an idea of how easily a binding releases compared to another to give people some useful information. This is exactly how FriFryt does their ski flex comparisons. They have a baseline score and compare skis to that baseline, they don't need an international patent-pending standardized system. Their score of '5' is completely meaningless without a comparison. You just need to be able to control the environment, which, if one can't do that for pulling a boot out of a binding, I could hardly call them an engineer. If I had motivation (like a magazine I was producing) and access to all the bindings, I could set something up in the matter of a week (probably more like a day or two).

    This is the same reason why you don't need scores for "powder", "hard snow", etc. I don't care if a ski is 8 or 9 in 'powder'. I want to know if it's better than 'this' ski, or 'that' ski, in 'powder'. Because now I know that if I didn't like 'this' ski in powder, perhaps 'that' ski would be a better option. But when these point scores are assigned arbitrarily, without controlled comparisons between skis, the point scores are completely useless (as they are in all ski mags).

    Actual comparisons are way more useful. You don't need long term tests to know this either. Like you say, you can usually get a good idea if one ski is better than another in certain conditions, with about 5-10 minutes of testing. It's not that hard. I've personally done this every year on demo days, and been able to compare and contrast around 10 different skis on the same day (see a couple reviews I've posted here).
    Last edited by Lindahl; 11-10-2015 at 02:50 PM.

  11. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    Maybe they shouldn't have a powder category if they can't test a ski in powder? Or choose a better time to test? That's really shocking they even bothered to produce 'powder' scores!

    You don't need to know the exact torque values. You just need to produce a comparison of torque values using the measurement tool. For example "using our test device, Plum Guide 145 released laterally at the same force as a Speed Radical at RV10". You don't need anything standardized to do this. You just need something that will give you an idea of how easily a binding releases compared to another to give people some useful information. This is exactly how FriFryt does their ski flex comparisons. They have a baseline score and compare skis to that baseline, they don't need an international patent-pending standardized system. You just need to be able to control the environment, which, if you can't do that for pulling a boot out of a binding, I could hardly call you an engineer. If I had access to all the bindings, I could set something up in the matter of a week (probably more like a day or two).

    This is the same reason why you don't need scores for "powder", "hard snow", etc. I don't care if a ski is 8 or 9 in 'powder'. I want to know if it's better than 'this' ski, or 'that' ski, in 'powder'. Because now I know that if I didn't like 'this' ski in powder, perhaps 'that' ski would be a better option.

    Actual comparisons are way more useful. You don't need long term tests to know this either. You can usually get a good idea if one ski is better than another with about 5-10 minutes of testing it in the same conditions. It's not that hard. I've personally done this several times on demo days (and posted reviews here), and been able to compare and contrast at least 6 different skis on the same day.
    I respect your opinions but totally disagree.
    What you write about the torque values and Endre Hals' FriFlyt measures indicate that you have no idea of what a reproducible test is. Endre (have spoken a lot with him about his approaches and devices) summarizes very detailed data using the baseline reference, but the fundamental bases of his work are reproducible, standardized, robust, detailed measures. Happy to know that you might, in a couple of days, do what designers and engineeres have unsucessfully tried to do over years.
    Finally, you say that 5 minutes are enough to compare skis, but have previously written that this approach flawed the buyers' guide.
    anyway, enough is enough. I quit. Again, and for the last time, I respect your opinion but cannot disagree more.

  12. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by verbier61 View Post
    What you write about the torque values and Endre Hals' FriFlyt measures indicate that you have no idea of what a reproducible test is. Endre (have spoken a lot with him about his approaches and devices) summarizes very detailed data using the baseline reference, but the fundamental bases of his work are reproducible, standardized, robust, detailed measures.
    You don't need to do all that for a several-day comparison. All you need is to control the environment for several days, which is relatively easy to do for pulling a boot out of a binding. It doesn't need to be reproducible, standardized, robust, or detailed. The numbers next year could be completely different, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that you assign relative values for the small period in time you control the environment. You don't need to compare last year's results to this year's results. You just need to give people an idea about how one binding releases in comparison to a binding they know and understand - same with skis. It's the relativity that's important, not the numbers. It's not being published in a scientific journal.

    Finally, you say that 5 minutes are enough to compare skis, but have previously written that this approach flawed the buyers' guide.
    Comparing skis over 5-10 minutes (each) for a specific condition is not flawed. The approach that is flawed is assigning arbitrary numbers, based on a tester's feeling on how good a ski is in certain conditions: "Our professional testers go up and down, tell us their thoughts and compile evaluation sheets." This is what most ski mags do, and the approach is terribly flawed. There is no comparative or relative work done. Skis are tested in isolation. I'm sure the people at ski mags know this, but if they did it, they'd be pitting one ski against another, and advertisers would hate that and run away. Maybe Skialper has to play the same stupid game - either way, I'm disappointed by the subjective side of their guide.

    I get that assigning a pretty little neat numbering system looks good on paper. However, it sucks in real life (for multiple reasons - reproducibility is likely the biggest). What's important is the relative ability of one thing against another. The reader can then use his or her own experience to get MUCH more objective answers to his questions. Humans work well with relativity, not numbering systems. Don't force humans to adapt to a system that is nice and tidy in the world of math, form a system that works to a human's strength.

    I'm sorry, but Blister gets it, even if a few people disagree where one particular ski lies on the relative scale, or think a skier is off his rocker with his opinions. That's why they're the best at what they do (yes, there could be improvements). Example: http://blistergearreview.com/gear-re...invictus-108ti -- the list at the end is EXTREMELY useful.

    This is useful:
    List of skis from demanding to more playful:
    Ski 1
    Ski 2
    * large gap here *
    Ski 3
    Ski 4

    This is NOT useful:
    Playfulness scores:
    Ski 1: 3
    Ski 2: 6
    Ski 3: 2
    Ski 4: 7

    Scores CAN be useful, but ONLY when derived DIRECTLY from comparisons. I don't care if you thought a ski slarved well, but I do care if a ski slarved better than another ski. However, if you use scores, you run into the problem of changing scores when you try a new ski that slots in between two other skis. I feel like relative lists are more effective and less tedious.

    Feel free to disagree, but hopefully you understand what I'm talking about now. Sorry if I come off as harsh, but I'm sick and tired of seeing people put so much effort into something, only for it to not be as useful as it could have be. It's frustrating to be excited about something and then be completely let down.
    Last edited by Lindahl; 11-10-2015 at 04:31 PM.

  13. #38
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    Oh, another thing that would be awesome to see, is the shape of the ski when it's flex tested. This can give you an idea of where the stiffness (or softness) comes from, and how a ski will react on snow. Might be trickier to capture, however.

    (And if they can pull off a flex and torsion test, a torque test on binding release shouldn't be too difficult for them. They seem like smart guys - probably just didn't think about doing one.)

  14. #39
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    BLAH BLAH BLAH

    more BLAH BLAH BLAH

    even more BLAH BLAH BLAH

    I'm sorry, but Blister gets it, BLAH BLAH BLAH the list at the end is EXTREMELY useful.

    This is useful:BLAH BLAH BLAH
    Actually, what works FOR YOU and who "gets it" TO YOUR WAY OF SEEING THINGS is relevant only to you, Lindahl.

    God you are an insufferable prick whose self-impression I keep thinking cannot possibly get bigger/stronger/more grandiose -- but it does. At least monthly.

    Your enginerdery must really impress all the young women who work in your enginerdy line of work, otherwise I can't figure why it is you're so egomaniacal while being so intolerably wrong about what anyone but you wants, needs, or thinks.

  15. #40
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    Ehi, what's happening here? ;-)

    Ciao Lindhal, thanks a lot for your 'cold, hard, honest opinion'...
    We'll answer to your arguments 'cause we love to talk about skiing, even if we had a lot of lough reading some of your criticism... Consider also that english is not our language, so I hope to be clear in what I'm writing.

    At first: who can say that a G3 in powder etc etc...
    Easy: some excellent, top level pro skier. Our test team is made by former ski world cup racers, FWQ riders, ski-cross world championship racers, all mountain guides, all national instructors of italian school (three of them where in the team winning the Interski in Ushuaia few weeks ago). So, maybe in the 5% cream of skiers worldwide. Than, do you consider them dummies and your opinion more significant? Ok, in this case is not possible discuss no more (or Ted Ligety is hidden behind your nickname?).

    In the introduction we wrote: we only select pro skiers to test. The valuation of all the consumers only talk about their personal lack of technic and their adjustments to ride the different skis.

    Second: we are the only magazine in the world (or, at least we don't know anyone else, sorry for that) to have available 135 pair of skis in our ski-room for 6 months. All new products, exactly in the same conditions of the shops, naked (without bindings). We valutate them, prepare them, put bindings (the same ones for each category!) and then we go on the snow many many times.
    Each ski has not less than 15 days of testing in all conditions and 4 tester accurate evaluation. A lab evaluation and an instrumental evaluation. We can't imagine how you can write we tested them quickly, for 5 minutes. We test them in deep powder, then on hard snow, then on windy crust, then on wet snow in summer. We ski on easy terrains, in steep and deep mountain.
    So what?

    Stiff and easy: yes, that's the result of many year of test. Sometimes we are surprised that machine says: hard, snow says easy. And the opposite. It's the whole project of the ski to determinate easiness or not, not just the flex index.
    This situation often happens in ski world cup also: soft skis sometimes seems to be excellent on icy icy slopes.

    Of course we made test in powder. Obiuvsly the Alpin powder is not the same one of Rockies. It's more heavy and wet, even just felt down. We wrote it many times in the introductions of the test.

    Bindings: we just used a DIN certificate machine. Experiments and empirical prototypes are not useful, so we published what now is possible to certificate whith the current rules.

    So... we can't continue a lot, but we can't answer to all the words you wrote. And we don't want to steal time to al the others reading this thread.

    We stop here the discussion, the intention was just to explain better something absolutely distort.
    Maybe you consider useless trash our job. It's not a problem, that's democracy.

    Have a nice winter and be happy, it's a nice world out of there in the mountains...

    Greetings from the sunny Italian Alps...

    Davide

    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    WARNING: Cold, hard honest opinion coming..

    Have a hard time trusting a guide that rates something like the fully rockered G3 Synapse 109 as good as a 90mm underfoot fully cambered ski (some Hagan ski) in powder. Just don't understand how someone could come to that conclusion. I guess it's possible, but color me EXTREMELY skeptical. In a guide that does that, I'd like to see at least SOME kind of reasonable explanation as to how that's even possible.

    Otherwise, it seems like just another (useless) ski mag test to me, EXCEPT at least they give us precise measurements of everything they tested, which is actually pretty nice. The subjective side of the review seems pretty useless though.

    The above was just one example, fwiw. Here's another: you'll see their flex measurement come out as stiffer than most everything else being compared, and then the subjective description talks about how easy the ski was to bend into smaller arcs. Again.. it seems like little actual comparison was done. They just hopped on a ski for a little while, threw some numbers on the board, wrote a paragraph, called it a day, and moved onto the next ski.

    Up to you guys if you wanna spend money on it, but I feel like I'd learn just as much by taking a tape measure and a kitchen scale to my local shop. I hate to be so critical, as they obviously put a lot of time and thought into the magazine, and I commend them for that, and it looks great, but the execution appears to be rather flawed (I read most of it).

    I guess a good way to put it, like most ski reviews, is that it's missing continuity. Everything appears to be judged in isolation.

    One last thing... they should do torque release tests on the tech bindings. Would be really useful information to have, especially for the non-adjustable race versions. For all the effort they put into measuring things, that's probably one of the most important, in my opinion, and it wasn't done.

  16. #41
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    I am grateful for all the data and reviews provided to us by Skialper, FriFlyt, Blister, Freeskier, etc. We are very fortunate that they do a lot of work, access many ski models, and publish for us. Thanks!

    Quote Originally Posted by creaky fossil View Post
    Actually, what works FOR YOU and who "gets it" TO YOUR WAY OF SEEING THINGS is relevant only to you, Lindahl...
    I don't know Lindahl's history or reputation on TGR, but he is entitled to his opinion. Different people prefer different review methods, content, and formats. For me, none of the published methods are closely aligned with how I want to understand skis. That's why, for the past 13 years, I have always collected my own data (1st-hand data and meticulously filtered 2nd-hand data) and written my own reviews and notes in my own preferred formats, for an audience of just myself.

    - It just so happens that my own personal ski testing methods for the past 13 years are very closely aligned with what Lindahl has been writing in this thread, and also in the "Blister lost its sheen" thread. A lot of what Lindahl has written lately---it's like he has read my mind about what I've been thinking for 13 years, but I never had the free time to do my own ski test website project.

    - It just so happens that I quit my job and intend to ski full-time this winter, test ~45 ski models, and publish my results, while striving for objective comparisons to popular benchmark ski models and using quantitative A/B testing methods that happen to be closely aligned with what Lindahl advocates.

    - It just so happens that my website will be a bare-bones one-man-show as a hobby just for fun, won't be a "Buyer's Guide" at all, won't overlap much with the big magazine/blog gear review websites out there, and might be visited by tens of tens...or maybe by only Lindahl and me.

    - It just so happens that my goal is not to please everyone. Different people have different tastes. If anyone gets interested in what I'm doing, they can influence my testing methods and website features. If anyone hates my website, they can bitch about it here on TGR.
    - TRADE your heavy PROTESTS for my lightweight version at this thread

    "My biggest goal in life has always been to pursue passion and to make dreams a reality. I love my daughter, but if I had to quit my passions for her, then I would be setting the wrong example for her, and I would not be myself anymore. " -Shane

    "I'm gonna go SO OFF that NO ONE's ever gonna see what I'm gonna do!" -Saucerboy

  17. #42
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  18. #43
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    Skialper 2016 buyers' guide. The new gold standard

    Quote Originally Posted by skialper View Post
    Ehi, what's happening here? ;-)At first: who can say that a G3 in powder etc etc...
    Easy: some excellent, top level pro skier. Our test team is made by former ski world cup racers, FWQ riders, ski-cross world championship racers, all mountain guides, all national instructors of italian school (three of them where in the team winning the Interski in Ushuaia few weeks ago). So, maybe in the 5% cream of skiers worldwide. Than, do you consider them dummies and your opinion more significant? Ok, in this case is not possible discuss no more (or Ted Ligety is hidden behind your nickname?).

    In the introduction we wrote: we only select pro skiers to test. The valuation of all the consumers only talk about their personal lack of technic and their adjustments to ride the different skis.
    It's not that the reviewers are flawed. It's the approach (and human nature) that is flawed. It's similar to testing speakers in the audio world. You can say you liked THIS or THAT with CD A or CD B, but most people want to know how does THIS compare to THAT. In order to do this, you need to do A-B testing with the same CD (and sometimes even hide the speakers to remove subconscious bias). This is because aural memory is notoriously bad and room construction and layout greatly affect sound (i.e. snow conditions). Speaker reviews RARELY assign point values because that encourages comparison of the point values of one speaker to another - which is a flawed comparison because of aural memory being so bad. The point value range one day is not comparable to the point value range on another day (or even a different hour).

    I contend that performance memory when testing skis is similarly bad. Not only because snow conditions change drastically (i.e. the room a speaker is played in changes drastically), but also because human memory is poor when it comes to remembering how good a ski was yesterday compared to how a different ski, today, is performing. You can't ski powder one day on one ski, and then ski a different ski on another powder day, a week later, and have any deep meaningful understanding of how one ski does compared to another ski in powder. This is why the approach taken by your magazine (and other magazines) is flawed. You assign point values, which encourages users to use those point values to understand HOW the skis compare to each other. This is wrong, because the review approach doesn't allow for accurate comparisons. You need to go out and rigorously compare skis to each other to be able to provide this information to the reader. Furthermore, your magazine even sorts skis by point values in each category, specifically encouraging users to compare skis tested on DIFFERENT DAYS by DIFFERENT USERS who may or may not accurately remember if the '7' they gave to ski A is the same '7' they gave to ski B. Again, this is a very flawed approach.

    The only way to do this is to go out and compare skis in the same conditions and around the same point in time. This removes the 'snow conditions' variable from the experiment, as well as the 'poor human memory' variable from the experience. You need to control these two aspects (variables) of a ski comparison (experiment) in order to have meaningful data. Otherwise you have an uncontrolled experiment, which has very little meaningful data.

    Second: we are the only magazine in the world (or, at least we don't know anyone else, sorry for that) to have available 135 pair of skis in our ski-room for 6 months. All new products, exactly in the same conditions of the shops, naked (without bindings). We valutate them, prepare them, put bindings (the same ones for each category!) and then we go on the snow many many times.
    Each ski has not less than 15 days of testing in all conditions and 4 tester accurate evaluation. A lab evaluation and an instrumental evaluation. We can't imagine how you can write we tested them quickly, for 5 minutes. We test them in deep powder, then on hard snow, then on windy crust, then on wet snow in summer. We ski on easy terrains, in steep and deep mountain.
    So what?

    Of course we made test in powder. Obiuvsly the Alpin powder is not the same one of Rockies. It's more heavy and wet, even just felt down. We wrote it many times in the introductions of the test.
    Ok great. I had assumed you guys tested the skis over longer periods of time in all different conditions. Ignoring the point ratings you guys used in the ski reviews (which is a horrible idea), the approach is still flawed because you can't meaningfully understand how one ski compares to another - and that is usually what customers want to know. There's LOTS of skis that are hard chargers, LOTS of skis that are good in powder, and LOTS of skis that are playful and forgiving. You can usually figure which skis fall into which category by reading around and looking at flex and rocker profiles, reading ski descriptions, and knowing a little about a brand. Therefore... it's not really that useful to regurgitate that information (even if its gleaned by testing a ski). What I and many other people REALLY want to know, is how does one 'playful and forgiving' ski compare to another 'playful and forgiving ski'? And the only way to answer that question is to review skis with a VERY different approach. You can't review a ski in isolation. You have to do a direct ski comparison (ala Blister Gear Review Deep Dive).

    Bindings: we just used a DIN certificate machine. Experiments and empirical prototypes are not useful, so we published what now is possible to certificate whith the current rules.
    I would disagree and say the data gleaned from simple one-off experiments in the manner that I described is useful, but I'm ok with the disagreement - it is what It is.
    Last edited by Lindahl; 11-17-2015 at 06:11 PM.

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    TL;DR

  20. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    you can't meaningfully understand how one ski compares to another - and that is usually what customers want to know.
    That's what the topsheet photos are for. And if I finally learn how to ski properly, I can just get the red ones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lindahl View Post
    You have to do a direct ski comparison (ala Blister Gear Review Deep Dive).
    But seriously, it's a pre season Buyer's Guide and qualitative ski reviews are subjective. For the detail level you desire, you yourself have to demo the skis you want to compare. What someone else writes, skiing at a different level, on a different mountain, in different conditions is pretty much useless for that. And syncing the tune, like Skialper did btw, is an absolute necessity then, too.

    All the detailed quantitative measurements that Skialper took are a great reference. FriFlyt started it with the SFI but Skialper takes it one step further. I'm extremely grateful for the huge effort they put in here. Their test on tech binding release consistency is a first in a print publication and will have a huge impact in a 99% tech binding country like Italy.

  21. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Vitamin I View Post



    I don't know Lindahl's history or reputation on TGR.
    Both his parents were pro mogul skiers.
    Life is not lift served.

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    Skialper 2016 buyers' guide. The new gold standard

    Quote Originally Posted by rasi View Post
    But seriously, it's a pre season Buyer's Guide and qualitative ski reviews are subjective. For the detail level you desire, you yourself have to demo the skis you want to compare. What someone else writes, skiing at a different level, on a different mountain, in different conditions is pretty much useless for that. And syncing the tune, like Skialper did btw, is an absolute necessity then, too.
    I disagree. Some of the subjective ski comparison data can be very helpful. Also, you don't necessarily have to sync tunes. Unless you're talking about ice skates, they just have to be in the same ballpark. (ie 1/2ish or 1/3ish, pretty much flat, detuned similarly)

    Quote Originally Posted by rasi View Post
    All the detailed quantitative measurements that Skialper took are a great reference. FriFlyt started it with the SFI but Skialper takes it one step further.
    Agreed. As I said in my first response, the objective measurements are great to have. But that has nothing to do with the quality of the subjective content.

  23. #48
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    Subjective measurements are going to vary to the greatest extent across reviewers. More than/less than might be useful for a direct comparison of ski A to ski B, is fatally flawed once you get beyond to ski C, D, E.... AFAIK, there is no universal ski standard, so when testing ski C do you now use A or B as a reference? No, you have to use ski A and THEN ski B. Now put it to all reviewed skis in a class, or up to 145 skis as claimed by skialper, do the factorial as to how many head to head comparisons are needed.

    As a ski review, I could care FUCK ALL how the one ski compares to another UNLESS I've whittled my choice down to buying either ski A or B in the comparison. And the objective criteria among skis is, for me, the critical point to paring down to just A or B.

    A shitty factory tune 1 isn't equivalent to ski factory tune 2, even if both come stated as being at 1 and 2. If one of those is base high or edge high it'll ski like shit until a proper flattening and new tune is given, and why having a proper tune on all the skis is important as a baseline for the reviews. None of that is news.
    Move upside and let the man go through...

  24. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mofro261 View Post
    Subjective measurements are going to vary to the greatest extent across reviewers. More than/less than might be useful for a direct comparison of ski A to ski B, is fatally flawed once you get beyond to ski C, D, E.... AFAIK, there is no universal ski standard, so when testing ski C do you now use A or B as a reference? No, you have to use ski A and THEN ski B. Now put it to all reviewed skis in a class, or up to 145 skis as claimed by skialper, do the factorial as to how many head to head comparisons are needed.
    I don't see it being as difficult to sort out as you do, just because of the whole A > B and C > A so then C > B thing... especially when you have skis in widely varying classes (La Sportiva Nano vs Cochise)... but eh... different strokes

    Yeah, shit tunes are shit tunes, but its not that difficult to figure out that's whats wrong, after you've been on enough test skis and shit tunes - at least in my experience. And that really only is most noticeable in pretty firm conditions. Tunes matter a whole lot less in chop and powder. Always get a kick outta it when someone says a ski performs in chop so much better after they took a file to tapered sections (back to that whole 'poor human memory' argument).

  25. #50
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    Lindhal, this is totally ridicolous.
    They tested the skis as you suggested. A given category of 15-20 skis was tested by a given bunch of expert skiers in a few weeks, not over months, so every skier had a good memory of one ski vs the other.. and had plenty of opportunities of re-testing if any specific memory was blurred. Your whole issue now is that A>B, B>C etc is better than numbers. OK, I'm pretty bored of reading it for the 089765976th time.
    To add to your overwhelming ego, you repeat that an (undefined) device easily prepared by yourself in a couple of days will offer better data/insight on the bindings, ignoring decades of dedicated work from fellows in the field (including maggotts here).
    Finally, you state there is no need for a similar tuning of all the skis (we're not talking only of edge tuning, we're talking of planarity, etc... issues that can completely change the way a ski is felt), and here I realize that you're just interested in yourself and not in skiing.

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