how to choose all-mountain skis?

On 2004-12-21, MattB penned:
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

Well, he was sort of right. Scrapers can ruin nice bumps. Especially
snowboarding scrapers it seems. Where he failed (among other places I'm
sure, since his status is "ex") was to find some more moderate, smaller
bumps that would be more forgiving. Also, as much as I believe scrapers ruin
bumps, I probably wouldn't tell my wife or girlfriend that while trying to
teach them to ski the bumps.

Yup, he definitely failed. I agree with all your points.

When I finally took a lesson on moguls at A-Basin last year, the revelation
that I could side-slip to a better starting point was just ... well, a
revelation. It gave me a lot of freedom to explore the mountain without
scaring myself silly.

I think a huge thing here is you must be able to make good, clean, quick
turns with a pronounced lead change on flats before you should expect to be
able to do that in bumps. When I was on my college freestyle team we did
tons of drills on flats to get things sorted technically before we even
skied a single bump line. The guys all whined about it, but I think it made
better skiers out of everyone.

I'm sure it does. As I mentioned earlier, I have a hard time sticking to
small turns on smooth runs, but I've done those drills and they did help me.

Some bumps don't really even have backs (what you call fronts), especially
on steeper stuff. This will be a good skill to have and can get you out of
trouble sometimes.

I tried to find a definition of front and back side on google, but I just
couldn't get the right set of search terms =/

We both observed that double black moguls seem easier than blues, but
we had different reasons. My instructor believes that double black
moguls are shaped by better skiers and are therefore more regular; I
believe that the extra steepness helps even a slowpoke like me get
around the turn, whereas on a blue it's easier to get stuck.

I'd say both are true unless the slowpoke skier is really afraid of a
little speed. Then it probably just compounds problems because it will
be much harder to scrub that undesirable speed, and trying to do that
may eclipse trying to reinforce good habits.

I'm very slow-pokey, but I gained enough confidence that I've done okay
on some steeper stuff. In fact, I probably had my best sets of
connected turns on Palli. If the slowpoke is really afraid of getting
speed, then of course, putting them on steeper stuff is just gonna scare
them silly.

My instructor last season taught me another two important things. One was
that I can make a tight turn just about anywhere; that was important because
it mentally freed up the sides of the mountain, the areas close to rocks, etc
for use. The other, which followed, is that I *can* scrub speed on moguls; I
don't ever have to go faster than I want to, and I can always stop. That
allows me to approach even steep stuff without getting scared.

Don't get me wrong; eventually I want to string together an arbitrary number
of turns on a mogul field without stopping and with a reasonable amount of
speed. But for me, these baby steps and the realization that I *can* ski them
slowly, or stop, have given me a lot of confidence to keep skiing them.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

On 2004-12-21, lal_truckee penned:
get some young knees.

My knees have never acted young, even when they *were* young! Again, though,
this is why I'm not too anxious to slam down the moguls competition-style.
There's a definite beauty to it, but my knees are bad enough as is.

I bet Matt skis 'em that way, though, and I'm sure it looks awesome. I do
remember watching my ex come down some huge mogul field; it was really
something. It's good to know he's good at something, anyway =P

--
monique
Longmont, CO

On 2004-12-21, TexasSkiNut penned:
How about trying a Volkl 4 Star? It's not as stiff as the 5 Star and 6
Star. It has a 67mm waist, which isn't the best for powder, but won't sink
all the way to the bottom. Should be good for bumps and still do well on
the race course. Or if you want something a bit wider but still fairly
quick, check out the Volkl 7 24 series. Disclaimer: I haven't had a chance
to try any of these, but have yet to find anyone skiing on them who didn't
love them.

I now have the 7 24 EXP and EXS on my list. Thanks for the suggestions.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

On 2004-12-21, MattB penned:

It's funny, I forget all of these tips after not being coached for the
last decade. I'd like to think I just do them all naturally now, but the
truth is probably more like I just do most of them naturally and learn
to compensate for other bad habits that creep back in without someone
shouting at me while I ski.
It is nice to ski without being shouted at. Unless it's shouting like
"Woo-hoo! Yeah! Nice!". But that makes my helmet tighter.

Have you thought about taking the occasional lesson? In addition to the fact
that I still have a lot to learn, I like lessons because they keep me honest.
I can't deal with it when my husband makes suggestions, but I take it very
well from an instructor.

The better you are, the fewer people are in your lesson. For you, it would
probably be an effectively private guided tour through the gnarliest stuff on
the mountain, with suggestions thrown in. On the flip side, if your
personality can take it, maybe you could ask some experienced friends to watch
you and comment on what they see.

Also, unlike coaches, instructors don't yell at you =P

On a mostly unrelated note, the goalie for my ice hockey team recently went
skiing for the first time. She explained that she's not the type of person to
take lessons. A few of us, some much better skiers than I, looked at each
other and one said, "Well, not taking lessons is a good way to get yourself
killed, if you're skiing." I'm a huge fan of lessons; I'll take a lesson in
just about anything I want to learn. I love benefitting from the experience
of those who've come before me. Really hard for me to understand the "lessons
bad" mentality.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

On 2004-12-20, Vincent Walker penned:
Demo skis, everything has a different personality. If you're going to ski
consistently in the Rockies then something in the 70-75 mm range is going to
be fine. In my neck of the woods (the East), a little narrower waist works
better. Surface area is the key. If you have a very wide shovel/tail you can
go shorter and maintain stability. I think the Head Ic160 (comes in uni and
female models) is a good choice to demo (I'm partial to Heads). I tried them
in fresh snow and they worked very well. The new Atomic Metrons seem to have
a unique solution to things but I haven't tried them. Salomon's are known
for being very smooth. Fischer skis are great but from my experience they
really like HARD conditions. You're just going to try them.

Okay, thanks for the tip.

Head has the WORST interface of any ski manufacturing website I've yet seen
.... amazing.

Anyway, this ski seems very much like it has a narrower waist than I'd like.
Their website is making it hard for me to get excited about the skis. But
maybe ...

--
monique
Longmont, CO

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2004-12-20, Vincent Walker penned:

Demo skis, everything has a different personality. If you're going to ski
consistently in the Rockies then something in the 70-75 mm range is going to
be fine. In my neck of the woods (the East), a little narrower waist works
better. Surface area is the key. If you have a very wide shovel/tail you can
go shorter and maintain stability. I think the Head Ic160 (comes in uni and
female models) is a good choice to demo (I'm partial to Heads). I tried them
in fresh snow and they worked very well. The new Atomic Metrons seem to have
a unique solution to things but I haven't tried them. Salomon's are known
for being very smooth. Fischer skis are great but from my experience they
really like HARD conditions. You're just going to try them.


Okay, thanks for the tip.

Head has the WORST interface of any ski manufacturing website I've yet seen
... amazing.


Where did you look? - www.head.com is absolutely a paragon of
intelligence compared to K2.

Anyway, there's actually real information buried in there. In
particular, download:
http://www.head.com/ski/files/pdf/ATechnicalManual2003.pdf
- there's good stuff about fitting and modifying boots in this pdf.



Anyway, this ski seems very much like it has a narrower waist than I'd like.
Their website is making it hard for me to get excited about the skis. But
maybe ...

On 2004-12-21, lal_truckee penned:


Where did you look? - www.head.com is absolutely a paragon of intelligence
compared to K2.

Really? Their popup-type descriptors didn't work for me much of the time, and
the links would go un-linky. The site has to *work*, first and foremost.
Then, once I managed to coax it into a given category and thence to a given
ski, I had to click *again* just to get info on dimensions!

K2, despite its ridiculous "secret agent man" motif, at least shows the basic
specs on the first page about the ski. No stupid "look at the ski ... no,
really, look at it ... okay, now you may select a link and hope that it has
the info you need" business.

It makes me very sad to say all this, as Head is using php, while K2 is using
that nasty asp stuff.

Anyway, there's actually real information buried in there. In particular,
download:
http://www.head.com/ski/files/pdf/ATechnicalManual2003.pdf - there's good
stuff about fitting and modifying boots in this pdf.

Fine, but I want to know about their skis =P Which actually brings up another
pet peeve of mine. Most of the "information" Head has on its "tech specs"
page is "recommended" gear. Like I'm going to choose a boot just because I
like the ski. Given how different all of our feet are, I'm gonna have to call
bull****. I don't like the "drink the koolaid" approach to sales.

Recommended accessory: our ski travel bag. *puke*

--
monique
Longmont, CO

Monique Y. Mudama wrote:
On 2004-12-21, MattB penned:

It's funny, I forget all of these tips after not being coached for the
last decade. I'd like to think I just do them all naturally now, but the
truth is probably more like I just do most of them naturally and learn
to compensate for other bad habits that creep back in without someone
shouting at me while I ski.
It is nice to ski without being shouted at. Unless it's shouting like
"Woo-hoo! Yeah! Nice!". But that makes my helmet tighter.


Have you thought about taking the occasional lesson? In addition to the fact
that I still have a lot to learn, I like lessons because they keep me honest.
I can't deal with it when my husband makes suggestions, but I take it very
well from an instructor.


I've thought about it, but I never do. I just want to ski when I'm out
on the hill (and with the arrival of my son last year the time spent
skiing is that much more precious).
My friends and I do offer up tips to each other if we see someone
struggling with something or doing something scary (scary being
something more dangerous than the skier realizes). We also ask each
other for feedback sometimes, but not very often.

As an aside: My ski/ride buddy Chad is the guy in the red parka in a few
of these shots. He's probably my most frequent ski buddy lately (and
also a new dad). He also used to ski on the same freestyle team as me
and we critique each other when we feel like it. More often we throw
things at each other and exchange juvenile insults.
http://www.miketittel.com/Skiing%20Gallery.htm

The better you are, the fewer people are in your lesson. For you, it would
probably be an effectively private guided tour through the gnarliest stuff on
the mountain, with suggestions thrown in. On the flip side, if your
personality can take it, maybe you could ask some experienced friends to watch
you and comment on what they see.

Also, unlike coaches, instructors don't yell at you =P

On a mostly unrelated note, the goalie for my ice hockey team recently went
skiing for the first time. She explained that she's not the type of person to
take lessons. A few of us, some much better skiers than I, looked at each
other and one said, "Well, not taking lessons is a good way to get yourself
killed, if you're skiing." I'm a huge fan of lessons; I'll take a lesson in
just about anything I want to learn. I love benefitting from the experience
of those who've come before me. Really hard for me to understand the "lessons
bad" mentality.


Generally I like to take lessons to get to the point where I can take it
from there myself. I haven't taken a lesson since I was about 15, but
have done countless workshops and coached days since then. It might do
me some good to take one, but I just don't see it happening anytime
soon. Ski time is play time for me. The level at which I ski doesn't
interfere with my goal: having fun. So I just ski and have fun. If the
fun runs out I stop and go home.

Matt

On 2004-12-20, MattB penned:

As others have said, go forth and demo. Demo realizing that you may need to
play with your timing and weight distribution a bit with different skis
(just so you don't try and ski them exactly like your old ones without
taking the differences into account).

Well, I just called the Winter Park West Portal rental shop, and they do
demos. $35/day for as many skis as you'd like to try. They have bindings
mounted on K2s and Salomons right now; Atomics and Volkls are in the shop, but
not yet mounted.

They do have the K2 Apache Recon by which I'm intrigued. The lady I spoke to
also mentioned that she ski'd the women's Burnin' Luv and did find it to be a
good all-around ski, so I may have to check that out.

I'm having a hard time interpreting the Salomon site -- all of the skis seem
to have just about the same description, at least within the "all mountain"
category. Maybe I'll just ask for some suggestions when I get there. The WP
fourpass is good this weekend, so ....

My husband is not too happy about my interest in demoing skis.
Understandable, considering the amount I just dropped on boots. The thing is,
I bought my current skis as stopgap equipment while I got myself back into
decent skiing shape. I'm now much better than I was before my hiatus, and I
really don't think my current skis are doing much for me. I figure that
either I'll demo some ski and fall in love, knowing it's just right for me, or
I'll demo a bunch and find them to be no better than what I have, in which
case I won't spend any money (beyond the cost of demoing). I told him that
just because I'm demoing now doesn't mean that I'm buying now, but that I need
a lot of lead time to know what I want before the end of season sales. He
still sounds suspicious. I can't blame him, knowing my impulsive tendencies.

--
monique
Longmont, CO

In article ,
Monique Y. Mudama wrote:

bull****. I don't like the "drink the koolaid" approach to sales.

I like the Austrian approach to selling skis. Head Skis are manufactured
in Austria, where ski making is a religious calling. K2's are made in
China. I asked a K2 pro rep how Chinese manufacturing would impact K2's
sales while he was pitching A. J. Cargill. He said they'd be cheaper.
I then explained to A. J. why I ski on Austrian skis. She is sponsored by
Atomic now, (another Austrian ski). You are responsible for your own decision.
--
According to John Perry Barlow, "Jeff Davis is a truly gifted trouble-maker."