snowboarders

Baka Dasai wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 10:51:50 -0500, Walt said (and I quote):

It may be a regional thing. I'm in Japan - things can be different here.

My experience is limited to North America. If you spent any time here
you would see that the vast majority of snowboarders scrape and skid.

Oh, it's much the same here in Japan. What you're saying is not
inconsistent with my earlier claim about the relative proportions of
carving snowboarders and carving skiers.

Ok. How about this:

You've got carvers, skidders and scrapers.

Carvers leave a clean line and don't affect the snow very much.
Skidders push it around a bit, but otherwise leave it in OK shape.
Scrapers ruin it for everybody. My estimate of the breakdown is
something like:


Skiers Boarders
carvers 19% 1%
skidders 80% 80%
scrapers 1% 19%


Very few snowboarders carve. Very few skiers scrape. The vast majority
of riders skid to a greater or lesser degree. Is it this way in Japan?


--
//-Walt
//
// There is no Völkl Conspiracy

Walt wrote:
Baka Dasai wrote:

On Mon, 31 Jan 2005 10:51:50 -0500, Walt said (and I quote):


It may be a regional thing. I'm in Japan - things can be different
here.


My experience is limited to North America. If you spent any time
here you would see that the vast majority of snowboarders scrape and
skid.


Oh, it's much the same here in Japan. What you're saying is not
inconsistent with my earlier claim about the relative proportions of
carving snowboarders and carving skiers.


Ok. How about this:

You've got carvers, skidders and scrapers.

Carvers leave a clean line and don't affect the snow very much. Skidders
push it around a bit, but otherwise leave it in OK shape. Scrapers ruin
it for everybody. My estimate of the breakdown is something like:


Skiers Boarders
carvers 19% 1%
skidders 80% 80%
scrapers 1% 19%


Very few snowboarders carve. Very few skiers scrape. The vast majority
of riders skid to a greater or lesser degree. Is it this way in Japan?


Hmmm, I'm not sure the numbers can be proven,
but it appears to be within my observations
here in the east, with no actual verification.

My own skiing, especially on busy days, is a
high proportion of skidded turns. Reason?

I *can* carve my skis reasonably well on a more
or less groomed slope. Carving generally takes
up a lot of the hill to be satisfying. You need
to do big turns. 'course you can do a fairly
narrow line down the fall line doing carved
turns, but that doesn't control your speed as
much as taking the long way (big turns) down
the mountain. So I do this mostly: ski a line right
next to the woods, doing generally short skidded
turns to control my speed and maintain a
"skiing rhythm". This keeps me in an area where
most of the scraped snow goes when the scrapers
push it off the middle, generally away from bumps,
trees fairly close on one side tends to limit
being blind-sided.

When it's not crowded, I love to do great big,
banked turns down the mountain. I can't drag
an arm like the hard-boot snowboarders do, but
I can carve a nice line down the hill. Actually
I learned to do this from the Elan rep one day
in 1998 when he showed up at the shop where I
worked with some nifty, short, radically shaped
carving skis for us to try. It was Peter, the
Elan rep, the shop owner and me, ripping it up
on a mostly boiler plate day at Okemo, which is
otherwise generally boring because they groom
everything so well.

VtSkier

Cog in the _wheel_??? Since when do wheels have cogs?

Five points off for mixed metaphor, lal.

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

Well, there are the cog wheels on a cog railroad.

But the cogs are on the wheel, not in the wheel.

So what is the original expression? I'm guessing: "A small cogwheel in the
machine" which morphed into "small cog in the system". ??


TCS (The Colorado Skier)
Colorado Springs - Gateway to Colorado Ski Country

VtSkier wrote:
Walt wrote:

You've got carvers, skidders and scrapers.

Carvers leave a clean line and don't affect the snow very much.
Skidders push it around a bit, but otherwise leave it in OK shape.
Scrapers ruin it for everybody. My estimate of the breakdown is
something like:

Skiers Boarders
carvers 19% 1%
skidders 80% 80%
scrapers 1% 19%

Very few snowboarders carve. Very few skiers scrape. The vast
majority of riders skid to a greater or lesser degree.

Hmmm, I'm not sure the numbers can be proven,


I am. I'm absolutely positive that these numbers can't be proven. Like
93.27% of all facts and statistics presented on usenet, it's entirely
made up. (c:


but it appears to be within my observations
here in the east, with no actual verification.

My own skiing, especially on busy days, is a
high proportion of skidded turns. Reason?

Because carving's not the be-all, end-all technique. It's just one tool
in the kit. But it's probably the most satisfying thing to do when the
conditions are right.


--
//-Walt
//
// There is no Völkl Conspiracy

Walt wrote:
VtSkier wrote:

Walt wrote:


You've got carvers, skidders and scrapers.

Carvers leave a clean line and don't affect the snow very much.
Skidders push it around a bit, but otherwise leave it in OK shape.
Scrapers ruin it for everybody. My estimate of the breakdown is
something like:

Skiers Boarders
carvers 19% 1%
skidders 80% 80%
scrapers 1% 19%

Very few snowboarders carve. Very few skiers scrape. The vast
majority of riders skid to a greater or lesser degree.

Hmmm, I'm not sure the numbers can be proven,



I am. I'm absolutely positive that these numbers can't be proven. Like
93.27% of all facts and statistics presented on usenet, it's entirely
made up. (c:

Har!

but it appears to be within my observations
here in the east, with no actual verification.

My own skiing, especially on busy days, is a
high proportion of skidded turns. Reason?


Because carving's not the be-all, end-all technique. It's just one tool
in the kit. But it's probably the most satisfying thing to do when the
conditions are right.

Ayup. And those conditions include a sparsely
populated hill. At least for me.

VtSkier

Walt wrote:

I am. I'm absolutely positive that these numbers can't be proven. Like
93.27% of all facts and statistics presented on usenet, it's entirely
made up. (c:

BS. My statistics are 100% accurate!

lal_truckee wrote:
Walt wrote:

I am. I'm absolutely positive that these numbers can't be proven.
Like 93.27% of all facts and statistics presented on usenet, it's
entirely made up. (c:


BS. My statistics are 100% accurate!


Right, mine too.

David Harris wrote:

Mary Malmros wrote in
:


David Harris wrote:


Mary Malmros wrote in
news:zPadnb6fFbW4AWbcRVn- :



David Harris wrote:



Pure carving, w/o skidding is a racing technique.

How come Bode Miller skids? Deliberately?

IOW, in the real world, it ain't all as cut and dried as that.



I agree with that - I should have been more clear.

My point was that pure carving carries the most speed through a
turn,which makes it important and suitable to racing, and less
essential to free skiing.

So how come Bode Miller often skids deliberately? Because he doesn't
want to use a tool that is important and suitable to racing? Because
he's so much better than everyone else and doesn't want to make them
look bad?


He does this when he has to, I assume. As do all racers. Why else would
he do it?

To carry better speed _overall_. The point of a race is to have the
fastest time to the finish line, not to carve the most elegant line
through any particular turn.

Racers also need to lose speed on occasion to keep to an achievable
line. Slalomers also need to snap their skis around faster than a
pure carve allows, and will do that as necessary.

It's much more than "on occasion", given current course sets and
conditions. Go browse the SR archives; there's a link in there to an
off-the-cuff (but still excellent) explanation by Bode.

What are the SR archives? Actually, there's probably no need, I think we
are in agreement.

_Ski Racing_ (www.skiracing.com).

If you disagree with the amount, i.e. "on occasion", then no big deal.
It was just a phrase - not intended as an absolte measure. If it's
something else, please explain.

Well, he does it _a lot_, and it's a part of the plan, not an occasional
"couldn't help it" thing -- IOW, it's a tool that he uses positively,
not a negative incidental side-effect of what he really wants to do.

I'll try again - the point I wanted to make is that a lot of people seem
to be obsessing over two-ski carving as the ultimate goal in skiing.

Yup.

I
thing there a number of other ways to enjoy a day on the slopes, and that
pure carving is of primary importance to racers, who are measured.

....and, as it turns out, not even that important/functional to them. We
are indeed in violent agreement.

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

VtSkier wrote:
lal_truckee wrote:
Walt wrote:

I am. I'm absolutely positive that these numbers can't be proven.
Like 93.27% of all facts and statistics presented on usenet, it's
entirely made up. (c:

BS. My statistics are 100% accurate!

Right, mine too.

But of course. Why would you waste your time making up innacurate
statistics?


--
//-Walt
//
// There is no Völkl Conspiracy