(Asnes) fishscale ideas

[riel]

I have noticed that the double cambered Asnes skis, like the Ingstad, Amundsen, and Gamme, get their wax placed way forward, while skis with a round camber, like the Nansen, can get away with a smaller wax pocket underfoot. Some observations suggest that fishscales developed for a round cambered ski might not be ideal on a ski with a moderate or prominent wax pocket.

In the diagrams below, I have indicated areas of friction in the ski with red, with a thicker line corresponding to more friction. There are two major areas of friction for a double cambered cross country ski, as can be seen by where the glide wax wears off fastest. One area is at the tip, where the location of maximum friction varies depending on how compressed the ski is (amount of nordic rocker lifted up) and what kind of snow we are skiing on. Somewhere under or behind the heel, the second camber of the ski's kick zone transitions into a glide zone, and there is a second area with lots of friction.

Kick wax is in green, and fishscales in blue. A thicker red line indicates more friction, and a thicker blue line indicates deep fishscales, compared to the shallow ones used towards the ends of the traction pattern.

On a double cambered ski, for use in the backcountry, it is common to use a really long wax pattern, placed pretty far forward, in order to get traction even when the trail surface is highly irregular, and parts of the ski underfoot are not touching the snow due to bumps in the trail. The kick wax zone may overlap slightly with the maximum friction zone under/behind the skier, but most of the time skiing seems to work better when the traction is in-between the friction zones.

The Asnes fishscale pattern appears to have been developed on the Nansen / Cecilie ski, and then copied onto their skis with a different camber pattern. Nansen is a ski with a round camber, resulting in the short fishscales having pretty good contact with the snow on those skis, on trails that are not too uneven.

However, on a ski with a larger wax pocket, there is a significant area of the ski that has no traction on it, yet which also is not in an area where lots of friction is experienced. This is no big deal on a smooth, groomed trail, but it can lead to a bad experience in the backcountry, where the trail may be very uneven and the skier may end up with the front of the ski on a little bump in the trail, and no good way to get traction.

Furthermore, there is significant overlap between the fishscale pattern and the maximum friction zone under & behind the skiers' heel. That overlap is desirable to some extent, because on a steeper trail the skier might kick their heels in on the way up and expect that to result in a little extra traction.

Here are some ideas on how the Asnes fishscales could be modified on skis like the Ingstad, Amundsen Fram, and Finnmark. First, the difference in glide between deep and shallow fishscales could really be used for good here.

The fishscales could be deep, for maximum traction, between the X-Skin attachment point and right in front of the heel of the skier. That would give excellent traction when the skier places that part of the ski over any small bump in the trail, which will be easy to do on many backcountry trails. This part of the ski also has minimal friction while gliding, because the second camber reliably lifts that out of the snow.

A little further forward and backward in the kick zone, we have more friction from gliding, and less frequent need for traction. However, the skier will still want some traction from this area of the ski when skiing on uneven terrain in the backcountry, because the terrain is not always easily predictable and having a more forgiving kick action in the ski will allow the skier to travel across uneven terrain without having to pay quite as much attention.

That means the area between the X-Skin attachment and some distance (8-10cm?) away from the maximum friction area in the front of the ski could use shallow fishscales, as could the area from under the skier's heel to the transition zone behind the heel.

From experience with other ski brands, it appears Fischer Offtrack Crown fishscales go forward a little too far, resulting in relatively poor glide in many situations, while the Alpina Sollte pattern seems to have good glide with a fishscale pattern that starts about 10cm behind where Fischer's pattern starts.

That leaves one issue to deal with: skiers have differently sized feet. Here it may be worthwhile to just look at the average distribution of shoe sizes and transition from deep to shallow fishscales somewhere near the average. For example, if 70% of skiers buying a particular model ski have shoe sizes between EU sizes 38 and 44, you might have an average size 41 and standard deviation 3. The transition from deep to shallow fishscales could happen somewhere around that average, to achieve a good compromise between kick and glide.

This might even result in one additional difference between the skis for men and for women, with the skis for women transitioning from deep to shallow fishscales a few cm closer to the balance point.

The exact best point to transition is something that will probably need experimentation...

Do any of these ideas make sense?

Does anybody have ideas for improvements?

[riel]

One thing I forgot to make a drawing of last night is why I would really like fishscales that extend further forward: a lot of the trails around here have bumps in them that you have to go straight up, because they're too narrow to sidestep.

WIth short fishscales, the forward ski might not have any traction at all trying to go up a bump like this, while longer fishscales (even just the shallow ones) would allow the skier to at least get enough grip to also get the other ski across the bump and then make progress from there.

With skis 200 or 210cm long, the skier is unlikely to be able to make "steps" with the ski much longer than about 40% of the ski length in one go. That means the ski needs to have enough traction pattern in the front 40% of the ski to allow the skier to stay into place until the other ski is over the bump in the trail.

Maybe this is not an issue in the wide open slopes in Norway, but it very much is something to take into account in the forests of eastern North America.

[lowangle al]

You said the trails are too narrow to sidestep but when I'm in the situation you describe I find that I will sidestep with my skis at a 15 or 20 degrees from the direction of travel. Just enough to lessen the angle and enable you to get more of the weighted part of the ski on the snow. Your ideas were pretty good though as long as they don't compromise other qualities of the ski.

[Woodserson]

This is good stuff, I think. You are correct, the Nansen WL is the best WL ski I've skied from Asnes. I have it in a 205 and even with my light weight per company recommendations I can still get enough traction. I have towed a pulk on the 205 Nansen WL. When I had the Ingstad WL 195cm I did OK too, but it was on edge. This ski I was more in the weight range for, and I'd consider borderline, as you mention there is increased camber on the Ingstad vs the Nansen. The MT51, of which I have in both Wax and WL is pretty useless and a victim of applying one-size-fits-all patterns on all skis.

I wouldn't worry about the foot sizes too much, I think it would be relatively inconsequential overall, especially if the pattern length was tuned for different ski sizes. There are few instances of someone with a 47 foot who is going to be on a 185cm trad. length ski, for instance, or a 36 foot on a 205cm ski.s

So I think the take-away is: longer pattern, but don't overkill like Fischer, and different pattern length for different length skis.

I will say that my grip wax rarely goes very far beyond the snakebite. A few inches maybe. I do not have grip wax going as far forward as you are showing.

This is from another Asnes Waxless conversation:

This is the thread, it's a good one with decent info from a bunch of different skiers https://www.telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4059

Yes, it wouldn't take much fiddling to get it to work in a wider range of conditions and skis and skier weights. The pattern itself is FINE, it's the lack of it that is the problem. A bit more of the aggressive pattern underfoot and maybe going forward, some more of the less aggressive pattern on the ends, and we are good. My equivalent Offtrack Crowns are 90cm long, they don't need to be the that long, 70cm should suffice.

I almost alway wax over any fishscales behind me boot heel with a hard cold wax, and there is little to no grip reduction. But I want good grip underfoot, under my pin line, and a bit forward.

[Woodserson]

delete to condense

[Woodserson]

You said the trails are too narrow to sidestep but when I'm in the situation you describe I find that I will sidestep with my skis at a 15 or 20 degrees from the direction of travel. Just enough to lessen the angle and enable you to get more of the weighted part of the ski on the snow. Your ideas were pretty good though as long as they don't compromise other qualities of the ski.

this is a fine technique if you are on skis that have a longer waxless pattern, I do it all the time. However, the short pattern of the Asnes makes even smaller bumps, bumps you are cruising over without thinking on any of your non-Asnes WL skis, impossible. I'd be sidestepping miles of trails.

[riel]

You said the trails are too narrow to sidestep but when I'm in the situation you describe I find that I will sidestep with my skis at a 15 or 20 degrees from the direction of travel. Just enough to lessen the angle and enable you to get more of the weighted part of the ski on the snow. Your ideas were pretty good though as long as they don't compromise other qualities of the ski.

We have a quiver of skis not because the different skis make different things possible (almost everything I ski would be possible on any of my skis), but because the different models of skis make different things easy and fun.

As for compromising other qualities of the ski, the main ones that fishscales could impede are glide (Fischer Offtrack Crown is just a little too long, Alpina Sollte seems fine) and turning (not sure how to evaluate that, but presumably shallow fishscales have less of an effect than deep ones?).

The idea I poorly illustrated above reduces the fishscale depth under the heel, which is a high friction area, and extends shallow scales forward across an area we traditionally slather in kick wax without ill effects.


I am a firm believer that for high performance skis, the fishscale pattern needs to be optimized for both traction and glide, the same way a ski's camber and flex are. However, to make the skis truly useful on many of the irregular trails we have around here, they need the traction extended a little forward from where it is today.

[Woodserson]

The idea I poorly illustrated above reduces the fishscale depth under the heel, which is a high friction area, and extends shallow scales forward across an area we traditionally slather in kick wax without ill effects.


I am a firm believer that for high performance skis, the fishscale pattern needs to be optimized for both traction and glide, the same way a ski's camber and flex are. However, to make the skis truly useful on many of the irregular trails we have around here, they need the traction extended a little forward from where it is today.

I've been finding out that any pattern beyond my heel is pretty much useless. It's, as you say, a high wear area, and gets a lot of drag while gliding but has no real appreciable grip when kicking. I, anecdotal as it is, have found that filling the pattern behind my heel does not affect grip at all, and probably makes me a tidbit faster. We need, specifically in Asnes' case, more grip forward. Take it to the snakebite at least, maybe a bit more with the shallower scales.

[riel]

I've been finding out that any pattern beyond my heel is pretty much useless. It's, as you say, a high wear area, and gets a lot of drag while gliding but has no real appreciable grip when kicking. I, anecdotal as it is, have found that filling the pattern behind my heel does not affect grip at all, and probably makes me a tidbit faster. We need, specifically in Asnes' case, more grip forward. Take it to the snakebite at least, maybe a bit more with the shallower scales.

Pattern behind your heel may be useless in the general case, but I suspect there is still the useful special case of "stomp your heel on a little bump in the trail to get traction", which is why I proposed transitioning from deep to shallow fishscales somewhere underfoot, and having the shallow fishscales end a little further ahead than where they currently do.

In the front, I would like to see the deep fishscales continue to the X-Skin attachment point, and then maybe 10-15cm of shallow fishscales in front of that, at least on the 205cm Ingstad skis. For shorter skis I imagine the fishscales should stop about 10cm behind the front contact point with the snow when the nordic rocker is fully engaged, so there is a reasonable amount of ski surface to glide on before even the shallow fishscales start.

[lowangle al]

Well I know peeps on this site tend to like there skis on the long side, maybe they would climb better if they were sized down and still have acceptable glide. It sounds like more of a problem than just in specific situations. I find it hard to believe Asnes doesn't have this right.