New rant... Backcountry/wide skis and telemarkers

[trees]

Yep. Agree.

I was out of the game for about 4 years starting when my daughter was born - it happens! Then 3 seasons ago I started getting back in the game, and I had sold my world piste/g3 targa setup. I got suckered into the "1 quiver ski" idea and picked up some used soul7's after demo-ing them on a storm powder day at whistler - where they shone!

But every time I ski them at the resort, which has mostly been hard pack or old snow, they just chitter and chatter all the way down the hill. And compared to the other setup I picked up afterwards (volk amaruq - high 80's waist and nice sidecut - no rocker) - they are unturnable!

I agree - "all mountain / 1 quiver" ski smells now like marketing hype to me. The soul7's are *great* for powder days - and annoying at best on the other 90% of days i ski.

[Gladeskier]

Practically every, if not all tele skiers I see at our ski areas are sporting new BC skis to ski inbounds. And a lot of alpine skier are doing the same. The marketing scheme of the ski industry is "the all mountain ski." Bullshit; no such creature exists. Fat skis suck on groomed snow, or in bumps, or on pretty much any inbound condition one will encounter outside the first few hours after a major overnight dump. So why do people run a ski designed to float when for 90% of it's expected use it will suffer turning efficiency in general conditions. Ah, people say "I can turn a fat ski anywhere." Bullshit. I mean yeah, you can skid and change direction on anything, including 2 by 4s, but... There is no such thing as a single ski quiver. This rant isn't against those who always want to pose as "BC" hardcores, or those who can only afford one ski and got duped by the marketing BS, this rant is against the ski industry. An interesting and funny piece on ski width I attach...

Legit rant. One ski quivers are for people that only ski one kinda snow/terrain, so I suppose they could exist. They don't get many days in though. I think guys with their fatties in the lift line when it hasn't snowed in 2 weeks look pretty idiotic.

[MSU Alum]

There were two seasons (when I had 2 kids in grad school) where I had a single pair of skis.
They were Armada JJ's back around 2011/2012 with Axl's (I think) and T2 Eco boots. I'm 5'8" tall and about 155#s and the JJ's were 115 underfoot and 185 in length. I think in the second year I put NTN's/Tx boots on them. For Utah, it was my one ski at the time.

I liked them so much, I put together a quick video to augment my review of the skis on Backcountry.


No one would call these a "quiver of one", but they were, for me - groomers, easier bumps, steeps, powder days of course and skinning up in the BC....I even barely ventured into the park with them....I sure don't do THAT anymore. You can make about anything work. I now have enough disposable income to have a quiver of several skis (and my skiing has improved dramatically as a result - hooray for technology!), and when I get back on the JJ's I think, man, how did I get by with that as my one ski - but I did.

I'm glad that there is a variety of products out there. People who sell them to the customers do have a responsibility to steer them to the right gear, but I'm not inclined to blame the manufacturer.

[FourthCoast]

[...]This rant isn't against those who always want to pose as "BC" hardcores[...]

Phew. Good to know I am safe here at the poser level. I was getting worried.

[Lo-Fi]

I liked them so much, I put together a quick video to augment my review of the skis on Backcountry.

Great skiing!

I especially like the turning in the chopped up and bumpy snow in the very first segment.

[lowangle al]

Great skiing, real solid.

[Cannatonic]

>>I especially like the turning in the chopped up and bumpy snow in the very first segment.

agree!!! nice work...he's dissecting that mogul field like a surgeon...very precise!

I now have something called "the Olympic channel" on my cable box and they show most of the FIS World Cup, I've been enjoying watching it this winter. Another year of Mikaela crushing everyone, and the men. just watched Kitzbuhel.

I sit there on my couch noticing,in a smug way, that all the ski events use 80s-90s-looking skis except slalom. Downhill, Super G, Giant Slalom, and moguls all use skinny, long boards. GS are shaped a bit more and probably 5cm shorter. the conditions resemble most resort skiing, packed out and/or icy.

*edit - actually this is BS....GS racers use 193cm skis today with considerably wider sidecut that before. Downhill and Super G skis are similar to back-in-the-day though, pretty much the same length and 25cm of sidecut.

[MSU Alum]

Downhill, Super G, Giant Slalom, and moguls all use skinny, long boards. GS are shaped a bit more and probably 5cm shorter. the conditions resemble most resort skiing, packed out and/or icy.

Speaking of which....this is pretty funny.

[Cannatonic]

that's worth it for the narration alone! What most people don't realize is that racers use special pro-form race skis not available to the general public. They have the same topsheets as store-bought skis but way more torsional stiffness for icy race courses. Apparently FIS uses a special hose system than injects water into the snow to form hard ice on the World Cup these days.

I found a pair of pro-form Dynastar SUper G skis at a swap event for $100 many years ago and loved them, they had a thick layer of metal running the length of the ski, the edge-holding was phenomenal. However I had to ski through some moguls to get to the bottom of the mountain once, and broke one of them, they are not intended to be off the race course.

this video shows the difference in mountain culture - in Austria they laugh and have a good time at skiers trying to go down the course and crashing. If you f*** yourself up on the mountains in Europe, that's on you. And we might even laugh at you. No liability for the resorts. Here in the USA they'd never allow skiers onto that course.

[fisheater]

MSU, very impressive skiing! I skied Utah 10 out of 12 years from 89 to 01. I never skied anything so firm. Same week every year, the week that spanned February into March.