Surface area and speed on skis

I'm not a scientific type, but I seem to recall the common
wisdom being, that the more surface area you have on
the snow for a given weight, amount of mass, whatever,
the faster you'll go.

How does this relate to people's idea that shorter skis
seem to be faster? Yes, they turn shorter, but, is there
anything else? Is the old common wisdom wrong?

foot2foot wrote:

I'm not a scientific type, but I seem to recall the common
wisdom being, that the more surface area you have on
the snow for a given weight, amount of mass, whatever,
the faster you'll go.

How does this relate to people's idea that shorter skis
seem to be faster? Yes, they turn shorter, but, is there
anything else? Is the old common wisdom wrong?

I don't know who has that idea, but as you imply, there's "faster" and
then there's "quicker", which are not the same thing.

I've had shorter skis that seemed faster to me than some longer skis; if
my impression was correct, I'm gussing it was due to different base
construction.

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

Sven Golly wrote in
:

"foot2foot" wrote in news:10qa0qt1rtuqgf7
@corp.supernews.com:

How does this relate to people's idea that shorter skis
seem to be faster? Yes, they turn shorter, but, is there
anything else? Is the old common wisdom wrong?

In general, longer skis are more stable and can be skiied under
control at higher speeds than short skis. That doesn't make them
faster. For a given running surface area, the answer is, it depends.
There's too much going on with a ski to make a simplistic statement
like the above. For example, a given ski might be designed to deflex
to nominal flat with a 180 lb guy on board while a shorter one to flat
with 150lbs.

I think I detect this years first interminable "physics of skiing" thread
starting to roll. However, I can't resist nitpicking here. If I put any of
my skis on a bench and press down on them, it takes a small fraction of my
weight to press them flat to the bench. I agree longer skis are generally
stiffer and for heavier people (leaving aside all the variation introduced
by paraboliques) but that is, I think, more to do with flexing them for
carving than just pushing them flat.

Jeremy

foot2foot wrote:
I'm not a scientific type, but I seem to recall the common
wisdom being, that the more surface area you have on
the snow for a given weight, amount of mass, whatever,
the faster you'll go.

How does this relate to people's idea that shorter skis
seem to be faster? Yes, they turn shorter, but, is there
anything else? Is the old common wisdom wrong?


In the cross country ski world, the skinnier skis (ie; racing, 40mm wide
or less) are faster than the wider 55mm skis. And heavy touring skis
65-75 mm are slower yet. I think the frontal area has something to do
with it, not just total area.
gr

Assuming that skis are designed for generic weights, what should women go for?
My girlfriend is learning to ski at the moment but is struggling to carve. This
could be due to a number of factors (eg not leaning far enough forward!) but I
have wondered whether the skis are too stiff. Any thoughts?

I've noticed that a few ski-hire brochures now include womens skis - are they
just 'softer' (more flexible). Any reviews?

My girlfriend must be around 5,2" and uses 160s. This seems quite large
considering that she's 9 stone but is consistent with the standard height rule.
Would she be better with shorter skis - as they would be designed for lighter
people?

I hope this makes sense!! Let me know if it doesn't. Thanks for any comments

Niall

"NIALLBRUCE" wrote in message


Assuming that skis are designed for generic weights, what should women go
for?
My girlfriend is learning to ski at the moment but is struggling to carve.
This
could be due to a number of factors (eg not leaning far enough forward!)
but I
have wondered whether the skis are too stiff. Any thoughts?

If they're too soft they won't carve either, they'll just wash out.
If you really want to carve you need a fairly stiff ski at least.

I've noticed that a few ski-hire brochures now include womens skis - are
they
just 'softer' (more flexible). Any reviews?

My girlfriend must be around 5,2" and uses 160s. This seems quite large
considering that she's 9 stone but is consistent with the standard height
rule.
Would she be better with shorter skis - as they would be designed for
lighter
people?

They might help her to learn a bit faster, but you wouldn't want
to go all that much shorter. That will just postpone her learning
what she needs to in order to ski on long skis.

I hope this makes sense!! Let me know if it doesn't. Thanks for any
comments

Niall

This question will seem counter intuitive to what you're asking
about, but, can your girlfriend sideslip? Can she hold her own
with you in a sideslip race?

This question will seem counter intuitive to what you're asking
about, but, can your girlfriend sideslip? Can she hold her own
with you in a sideslip race?

She's learning to ski very quickly - been on snow for 3 days last season and
has just completed a block of 6 lessons at the local dry slope. I encouraged
her to ski parallel almost from the beginning so techniques such as
side-slipping might need some more work.

Would some time practicing side-slipping help her ski-technique. If so, how? If
it is beneficial, I'd like to try it myself!!

In particular, she has a bad habit of 'twisting' her body in order to turn. I'm
going to go to the dry slope with her in order to help stop this. She also
looks quite tense while skiing but I can't pinpoint why. Apart from leaning
further forward (so the boots are flexed through turns), I don't know how to
help. I thought that the 'womens' skis might help

We're going on a skiing holiday this year so any piece of advice would be
great!

Thanks
Niall

In message , gr
writes

I'm not a scientific type, but I seem to recall the common
wisdom being, that the more surface area you have on
the snow for a given weight, amount of mass, whatever,
the faster you'll go.
How does this relate to people's idea that shorter skis
seem to be faster? Yes, they turn shorter, but, is there
anything else? Is the old common wisdom wrong?

In the cross country ski world, the skinnier skis (ie; racing, 40mm
wide or less) are faster than the wider 55mm skis. And heavy touring
skis 65-75 mm are slower yet. I think the frontal area has something to
do with it, not just total area.

At the risk of being accused of Physics, yer both right, but.

When you slide, you're not sliding on snow, you're sliding on a thin
layer of liquid water that's been melted by you sliding over it. If
you're skiing lengthways on 80mm skis, you have to melt a strip twice as
wide as if you're on 40mm skis. Nordic skiers, pushing themselves
along, are far more affected by this than Alpine skiers who are powered
by gravity and turn frequently.

You can slow yourself down (OP please note) by melting a strip that's
wider than your skis: simply slide with your skis at an angle to the
direction you're moving in. It's the easy way to follow that slower
skier down a narrow track: there's no need to dig your edges in so you
aren't using any energy.
If the girlfriend can't do it she should learn: it's not difficult.
It's a basic survival-skiing technique because you can change direction
instantly by just putting an edge in.

Surface area makes only a small difference on packed snow, because if
your bases are in good condition the thin layer of water is well
slippery, but soft snow is a different matter: the "Blades" thread
suggests nobody has much information on this. A blader told me they're
rather slow in soft snow.

Your weight is an important factor: look at an adult skiing with a
little kid. Ski size is proportional to their height, but the adult's
in a snowplough and the kid's poling to keep up. That's because ski
width goes up linearly with your height, while weight goes up as the
cube of it. The petite girlfriend can take advantage of this: she'll
accelerate less fast on a given slope, so she won't need to turn as
much.

--
Sue ]

I have a couple of suggestions--I realize I risk being flamed. I have not
seen her ski---but give this a try. Tell her to pretend that she is holding
on to the handlebars of a bicycle--pointed down hill.The point is to get her
shoulders across the fall line, her weight forward (nose-knees-toes) and her
head up. Have you explained about upper and lower body separation? Turning
is mostly a lower body function and balance is in the upper body--especially
the shoulders. It also helps some beginners to pretend that they are
"punching" or at least "reaching" forward (downhill) with the arm on the
inside of the turn--to help keep her shoulders accross the fall line.

--
I ski, therefore I am
"NIALLBRUCE" wrote in message
...
This question will seem counter intuitive to what you're asking
about, but, can your girlfriend sideslip? Can she hold her own
with you in a sideslip race?

She's learning to ski very quickly - been on snow for 3 days last season
and
has just completed a block of 6 lessons at the local dry slope. I
encouraged
her to ski parallel almost from the beginning so techniques such as
side-slipping might need some more work.

Would some time practicing side-slipping help her ski-technique. If so,
how? If
it is beneficial, I'd like to try it myself!!

In particular, she has a bad habit of 'twisting' her body in order to
turn. I'm
going to go to the dry slope with her in order to help stop this. She also
looks quite tense while skiing but I can't pinpoint why. Apart from
leaning
further forward (so the boots are flexed through turns), I don't know how
to
help. I thought that the 'womens' skis might help

We're going on a skiing holiday this year so any piece of advice would be
great!

Thanks
Niall

NIALLBRUCE wrote:
Assuming that skis are designed for generic weights, what should women go for?
My girlfriend is learning to ski at the moment but is struggling to carve. This
could be due to a number of factors (eg not leaning far enough forward!) but I
have wondered whether the skis are too stiff. Any thoughts?

I've noticed that a few ski-hire brochures now include womens skis - are they
just 'softer' (more flexible). Any reviews?

Yes. Their primary difference is they are just 'softer' (more flexible).
Some companies have made modest movement toward design changes; but the
primary difference is softer. If you can get a soft men's ski cheaper
than the equivalent women's ski, IMO do so. (Often the difference will
just be topskin.)

My girlfriend must be around 5,2" and uses 160s. This seems quite large
considering that she's 9 stone but is consistent with the standard height rule.
Would she be better with shorter skis - as they would be designed for lighter
people?

There isn't any "height rule" - a ski only knows how heavy the skier is,
not how tall. 9 stome is what, 126lb? 160 might be too long, too short
or just right - it depends on the ski, and varies between models, so
more information would be required to advise.


I hope this makes sense!! Let me know if it doesn't. Thanks for any comments
Comments? Don't push her too hard - you want her to love to ski for a
lifetime. And don't worry aout carving so much. Most of the people I see
who think they are carving, aren't. It will come if she keeps skiing.

Niall