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how to choose all-mountain skis?



 
 
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  #11  
Old December 20th 04, 07:12 PM
Monique Y. Mudama
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On 2004-12-20, MattB penned:

Not to say it's can't be done, but I'd say that a GS race ski wouldn't be
all that great in the bumps. Now I know some people like them in all
conditions, but I really prefer a slightly softer ski in the bumps.


This is key for me. I'm working on bumps, and my husband adores bumps (at
least as compared to groomers, which he hates), so I probably spend most of my
ski day in the bumps.

In the end it's primarily personal preference. You like a race GS ski
the best, I like a more recreational (used to be a bad word to me BTW)
high performance all mountain, tradeoffs and all.


Hey, Matt, could you enumerate some of those tradeoffs?

I think tradeoffs are a good thing, because a typical ski day (or even
run) for me isn't just one kind of skiing. I like to carve it up on
the groomers, hit some bumps, and also find some powder stashes in the
trees (if it's not a day when the stashes are everywhere). I like a
ski that can do all relatively well and not make me want to go and
swap skis for different runs.


This is very much why I'm asking the question I'm asking. I don't want to
have a quiver full of skis, or even more than one pair. I just want to step
into my bindings in the morning and be able to do whichever runs look
tastiest, which could be anything from a nice steep groomer to (widely spaced
right now) trees to a nice long mogul run .... or even powder, although it
still confounds me and I've yet to get into a lesson on a powder day before
all the runs were already tracked out.

Lately, some of the "most fun" runs to me have been the type with a bit of
fluff not quite covering the tops of baby trees and other vegetation. The
visible plants keep a lot of skiers away, so the snow's pretty nice.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

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  #12  
Old December 20th 04, 07:18 PM
lal_truckee
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2004-12-20, lal_truckee penned:

(This assumes you can carve crud and slop on race skis - it's not
hard, it just takes patience.)



Well, powder and crud/slop are my two biggest problem areas, so ... getting a
ski that's more work in those conditions might not be my best move. I see
that once again, I haven't been detailed enough in describing my question =)


Like I said - it's not difficult. If you run gates, you know how to
carve - slop and crud are easier than hardback because edge-set is
trivial. Just hold the arc and don't try to skid. Slop and crud will not
forgive a skidder. Wide skis try to help a skier by keeping them on top
of the crud and slop so they can skid a bit - IMO it doesn't work - you
sacrifice being able to power-care through the crud for bouncing around
on top of the crud.

Powder is a completely different medium because it's three dimensional -
for powder you want a soft even flexing ski so you can be centered and
not feel as if you must be back to force the tips up. Soft even flex ski
tips come up on their own. Plus suitable powder skis, as I said, are
dirt cheap if you look around.

So: A GS ski works fine and IMO better and easier than a wide waist ski
in crud and slop. A wide waist ski is crap on the hardpack and
ridiculous in the gates. You want one ski for most conditions that will
still be usable in gates and groomers - go GS. You want to pretend to
solve your crud and slop difficulties and sacrifice groomers and gates
altogether, maybe a wide ski will be OK. Maybe.

  #13  
Old December 20th 04, 07:24 PM
lal_truckee
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VtSkier wrote:
MattB wrote:


Matt (now fully recovered from my belief that the Rossignol 4M would
never be topped)

4M? The greatest was actually the 4S.


4S were nice. I think there's a pair of them still in the basement.
Mounted with 727 Equipes.

  #14  
Old December 20th 04, 07:29 PM
VtSkier
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lal_truckee wrote:
VtSkier wrote:

MattB wrote:


Matt (now fully recovered from my belief that the Rossignol 4M would
never be topped)

4M? The greatest was actually the 4S.



4S were nice. I think there's a pair of them still in the basement.
Mounted with 727 Equipes.

Kewl, but I'll never go back.

  #15  
Old December 20th 04, 07:52 PM
Monique Y. Mudama
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On 2004-12-20, Mary Malmros penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

I was really looking more for general characteristics, though specific
products are good, too.


Hrm, well, I guess this kind of points out that "all-mountain" isn't a
super-useful label, because it raises the questions, "What mountain are you
talking about?" -- which you already described -- and, "What kind of skier
are you?" My sense of it is that, in practice, "all-mountain" tends to be
the label that ski manufacturers are applying to their higher-performance
products that aren't more usage-specific (not twin-tips, for example, or
race skis or powder skis).


You're right, of course.

Actually, I hadn't been thinking of the term "all-mountain" as a buzzword; I
meant "a ski that will perform acceptably in all snow and terrain situations
typically found at a resort." To me, that's everything from greens to
double-blacks, maybe even the terrain park on a powder day when there's enough
white stuff to cushion my falls. Everything from groomers to crud to moguls
to whatever else you can find. I want to go all day on a single pair of skis
without having to worry that I have the wrong equipment for the terrain. Of
course, that same description might point to a very different ski if I were at
Killington, rather than in Colorado. I would expect most of my skiing for the
forseeable future to be in Colorado, with occasional forays into Utah. I've
always wanted to go to Jackson Hole, but I'm not sure I'm good enough to get
the most out of such a trip ...

The mountain I'm talking about is pretty much any Colorado resort; two of my
favorites are A-Basin and Beaver Creek, but that may only be because the
Colorado Pass is such a good deal that I haven't done a good job of exploring
other areas. I can't remember the last time I've seen real ice like I saw out
East, so that's not something I feel I need in a ski.

Me as a skier: I skied maybe 18 days last year, many being half or
three-quarter days. When I take lessons, they're level 8 on a 9-point scale.
I can get down most anything, but it may not be pretty. I skied my first
double blacks, Pali at A-Basin and Bald Eagle (I think?) at Beaver Creek, last
year. On groomers, I tend to build up a decent amount of speed. I'm working
on moguls; last year, they scared me to death; this year, I can always get
down them, but it takes a while and I stop every 3-5 turns. Powder is still
my arch-nemesis; I'd love to learn to ski it well, but right now I tend to
freak out and use harsh, sudden movements to control my speed, which usually
controls me right into the snow, face-first. Fun in its own way, but not
really my goal.

All that being said, I progressed last year from being scared to even approach
blue moguls to going down some pretty serious stuff, and I hope to keep
improving at a similar rate. I'm big on learning proper technique and have no
qualms about taking lessons to get there. I also need to work on my leg
strength and/or cleaner technique, because my thighs are already tired after
the first few runs, probably from trying to skid through moguls to scrub off
speed. (My lesson this past weekend gave me some great tips on how to stay in
control in the moguls without fighting the slope; I think those will make my
thighs a lot happier.)

But I also get the feeling that the term has acquired a little marketing
cachet and has a sort of hard-charger, "I ski it all" aura to it. Whenever
that happens, with any kind of product, inevitably you get some people who
buy the gear because they think that by doing so, they'll magically be
transformed into someone who has that kind of ability (or, in a milder form,
they think that the gear will create a big breakthrough for them without any
real effort involved).


I don't expect the ski to take the place of good technique. I would like a
ski that rewards attempts at good technique. My current skis seem very
"blah"; I don't know that they're holding me back, but they don't seem to be
helping me out, either. They're 168 Elan somethingorother 6.0s. The intent
was to buy a cheap (last season) ski that wouldn't intimidate me as I got
reaquainted with skiing; they are pretty flexy, with a fairly narrow waist,
and I think they've served their purpose, but they were intended for solid
intermediate skiers, and I want something designed for what I'm doing now.

And once that starts to happen, you end up with product manufacturers
attaching the sexy tag -- "all-mountain", in this case -- to products
that are a little more toned down, so that people can buy a product
with the attractive label, and still end up with something that's a
bit more suited to their ability level, because customers who have
just had their asses kicked are not happy customers.


This reminds me of the lady who signed up for our "black diamond" lesson group
on Saturday, but didn't want to ski too many moguls ... can't we just work on
groomers? *sigh*

I am well aware that I have a lot to learn about skiing, but I am working hard
toward that goal. Eventually, I'd like to be able to say that if you dropped
me anywhere on the mountain, I could get down it on my skis. I'm a lot closer
to that goal than I ever would have expected, so I guess I need to revise it
to, "and feel pretty good while getting down it."

Fortunately, my husband and I were the only ones to return after lunch, and
almost everything that I learned came from those last few hours. I now have
two great, concrete techniques to use in the moguls; one will keep me from
lifting my inner ski; the other will help me keep the speed I want in the
moguls without going too fast or exhausting my thighs as much as I have been.

All that is by way of saying that I'd take the "all-mountain" label
with a big grain of salt. I can easily see it becoming the next
euphemism for, "really, really forgiving", and in some product lines,
it's possible that it may already be used in that way. What you might
want to do instead is describe your ideal ski in terms of performance:
demanding vs. forgiving, quickness/agility, speed, quietness, etc.
There are obvious tradeoffs, and some of those will point to details
of construction that can help get beyond the more subjective
descriptions.


See, this is where I'm not sure *how* to describe what I want. I was hoping
that, if I described the type of skiing I wanted to do, you guys could give me
some things to look for, like "wide/narrow waist" or "sidecut of about Xmm" or
"turning radius of Ym." And the tradeoffs may be obvious to you, but I don't
know if they are to me.

To go through your paragraph, "forgiving" kinda sounds nice, but then, will a
"forgiving" ski give me the control to handle tough terrain? Does "demanding"
mean I need very powerful thighs, or extremely good technique, or ..?

Quickness/agility: My problem right now seems to be a hamfisted (hamfooted?)
approach to turning on non-groomers. I turn my whole body, rather than just
my lower body, and I wrench myself to the side. (This description probably
makes it crystal-clear why I have trouble in powder.) So would a less agile
ski mask that tendency, and is that a good or bad thing? Ideally I want to
develop good technique, not have a ski that masks my faults.

Speed: I don't need a ski that's particularly fast. That is to say, after I
got past rental skis, the ski has never been the limiting factor in how fast
I'm going; it's been my comfort level. I go quite a bit faster than my
husband on groomed terrain, but I don't think I've ever felt that my ski
wasn't letting me go as fast as I'd like. That may change as I race more, but
then again, even in racing, the limiting factor was my ability to keep the
turns under control and get around the flags, not the ski's speed.

Quietness: I don't know what this means? Are you talking about chatter on
uneven terrain?


--
monique
Longmont, CO

  #16  
Old December 20th 04, 07:58 PM
Mary Malmros
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
This is very much why I'm asking the question I'm asking. I don't want to
have a quiver full of skis, or even more than one pair. I just want to step
into my bindings in the morning and be able to do whichever runs look
tastiest, which could be anything from a nice steep groomer to (widely spaced
right now) trees to a nice long mogul run .... or even powder, although it
still confounds me and I've yet to get into a lesson on a powder day before
all the runs were already tracked out.


Me, I'd like world peace, and a car that won't lose traction on ice at
50 MPH. Think I'm gonna get it? ;-)

You probably know the tradeoffs already, or most of them. If you get a
softer ski for moguls, it'll feel squishy at high speeds on hardpack.
If you get shorties, you'll lose some float in powder. Et cetera. I'm
not gonna get world peace, and you're not gonna get a ski that will
perform optimally in all conditions. If you're in love with moguls,
then optimize for that, and accept the tradeoffs when you're skiing
somewhere else.

--
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield, other days you're the bug.

  #17  
Old December 20th 04, 08:12 PM
Monique Y. Mudama
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On 2004-12-20, Mary Malmros penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
This is very much why I'm asking the question I'm asking. I don't want to
have a quiver full of skis, or even more than one pair. I just want to
step into my bindings in the morning and be able to do whichever runs look
tastiest, which could be anything from a nice steep groomer to (widely
spaced right now) trees to a nice long mogul run .... or even powder,
although it still confounds me and I've yet to get into a lesson on a
powder day before all the runs were already tracked out.


Me, I'd like world peace, and a car that won't lose traction on ice at 50
MPH. Think I'm gonna get it? ;-)


World peace! Shiny!

You probably know the tradeoffs already, or most of them. If you get a
softer ski for moguls, it'll feel squishy at high speeds on hardpack. If
you get shorties, you'll lose some float in powder. Et cetera. I'm not
gonna get world peace, and you're not gonna get a ski that will perform
optimally in all conditions. If you're in love with moguls, then optimize
for that, and accept the tradeoffs when you're skiing somewhere else.


But I don't want a ski that will perform optimally in all conditions ... I
want a ski that will perform decently in most. I don't know if that's enough
of a concession to be realistic, though.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

  #18  
Old December 20th 04, 08:21 PM
MattB
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VtSkier wrote:
MattB wrote:

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

As the subject of "good skis" came up ...

What would you look for in a pair of all-mountain skis?


A very subjective thing, like selecting a "good" bike. I haven't
bought a new pair of Alpine skis in a few years, but in the past I've
liked my K2s and Salomons the best. I had some Dynastars back when the
4x4 was the next big thing. I think I got about 30 days out of them
and one of them broke in half on a rock. Now, there was some serious
pilot error involved, but I think my Salomons may have survived the
same hit.



Doubt it, foam core you know.


Yeah, I know. It just feels sturdier than other foam core skis I've
skied. Could be an illusion, and I'm not ready to test my Super
Mountain's ability to withstand abuse. That being said, they've taken
some hard hits and have stood up well for several years now.

snip


Matt (now fully recovered from my belief that the Rossignol 4M would
never be topped)

4M? The greatest was actually the 4S.


Well, I was a dedicated bump skier in college, so I went for the 4M. I
started on a pair of 4S's and then had three consecutive pairs of 4Ms
after that. The stiffer tail was nice if things started to get away from
me a little in the big n' nasty stuff (like USSA bump courses).

The 80's style paint splatter graphics were just the icing on the cake!
Although white is the stupidest color a ski can come in - I've wasted
some time I could have been skiing powder looking for my stupid white
ski before. Marketing strikes again!

Matt

  #19  
Old December 20th 04, 08:38 PM
MattB
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2004-12-20, MattB penned:

Not to say it's can't be done, but I'd say that a GS race ski wouldn't be
all that great in the bumps. Now I know some people like them in all
conditions, but I really prefer a slightly softer ski in the bumps.



This is key for me. I'm working on bumps, and my husband adores bumps (at
least as compared to groomers, which he hates), so I probably spend most of my
ski day in the bumps.


In the end it's primarily personal preference. You like a race GS ski
the best, I like a more recreational (used to be a bad word to me BTW)
high performance all mountain, tradeoffs and all.



Hey, Matt, could you enumerate some of those tradeoffs?


Well, it's like your bike. You could have a faster race bike if you went
with a hardtail, but instead you have a nice FS that does other things
pretty well too, including being comfortable and easy to handle in a
variety of conditions. The all mountain ski is the ski equivalent of the
"trail bike".

So your all mountain skis won't be the best race skis. It sounds like
your racing career is pretty low key, so that may not matter all that
much. It is good to know.

A ski with a wider waist won't rail those arcs as easily as a ski with
a smaller waist. It can still be done, and I wouldn't call it difficult
(IMO), but that not their specialty. They will also be slower on the
lead change (switching from one edge to another).

They will often be more stable than a race ski, which also equals
"doesn't turn as quickly". I've found as I've grown a little older I've
become less of a bump/steep hound and more of an all mountain skier
myself. I don't turn as quickly as I once did either. I'm ok with that.

The pair I love are not huge and fat like some trendier skis. I see them
as a more sensible evolution of the ski rather than a revolution. Snow
and mountains haven't changed (as long as you ignore terrain parks,
which I usually do), but skiing styles have. I remember once seeing
someone not making the maximum possible number of turns and thinking
"they're wasting that run - I could do twice as many turns". But that's
the wiggly bump skier mentality. Now I'm more into fewer quality turns
and enjoying the run that making it "the best" by some arbitrary measure.

Matt

  #20  
Old December 20th 04, 10:45 PM
lal_truckee
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Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

But I don't want a ski that will perform optimally in all conditions ... I
want a ski that will perform decently in most. I don't know if that's enough
of a concession to be realistic, though.


Here's a video that shows why you don't need edges, or even bases, on a
powder ski - look at the about half way point in the video (first half
is somebody tobogganing.)

http://jacksonhole.com/movies/012702.html

Gawd I love his expression when he pauses for air...

 




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