PSA: Don't Store Your Touring Skis Voile Strapped Together

**swissiphic** · 02-26-2020, 09:00 AM

Originally Posted by tgapp

Similar to this; don't store your skis suspended by their tips in a ski rack where they aren't weighting their tails on the ground. I had a friend store his skis that way and it permanently changed the rocker profile of the ski just from the weight of the ski hanging off of the tips. Good PSA though.

On this note, an interesting anecdote...I worked at an operation that had a bunch of old school regular camber, Fischer Porohete skis in the quiver. Skis were stored hanging from the tips, and due to the specific forces working on the ski tips/shovels over time the skis tip/shovel transition area camber was subtly rebent. Doing a/b comparisons to skis used out of the wrapper, they floated better at the tip, were notably smoother with turn initiation and just gave better tip to tail skiing feelz.

**swissiphic** · 02-26-2020, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by XXX-er

i think if you want to bend skis you also need heat also

Prolly different with every ski model but ime, at least some don't need any heat. For example: Rossignol B3 Bandits (foam core, alu layer), Volant Chubbs/Ti Chubbs, K2 Darksides, Fischer Porohetes. The Volants and Rossi's were the best for no heat custom rocker making. In fact, one outing on the B3's in blower thigh deep snow challenged their float. Halfway down my first run, I stopped at a fallen tree that cracked in half down the middle, jammed tips/shovels into the crack and bent a healthy amount of rocker into the tip. Voila, tip dive and lack of float issue mitigated mid run. Feeling a bit of tip to tail unbalance wih the new profile, I stopped at the same tree on lap two and bent a wee bit of tail rocker...skis felt just fine after that for the rest of their working life. They're now my dedicated sand/gravel/scree skis, and I had to rebend the rocker/camber/rocker profile to optimize the shape for the non snow context of skiing. They still work great for snow skiing too; just clean the base, hot wax with hard green to fill in all the scratches and gouges, add a layer of universal and we're back in bizzness; don't need edges where and when I ski at the hill, so the rounded off metal makes no difference.

Skis that didn't respond to "bend more rocker by jamming tips/shovels under a door and reef up on the tail" with no heat: Armada JJ's, Atomic Helistars, Atomic Heli Daddy's, Volkl 2's, Volkl Kuros.