A Downside to Shaped Skis?

[HDHaller]

Okay... a question for all of you gear heads: Is there a downside to shaped skis?
Why does Glen Plake still swear by straight, 200+ cm skis ala 1986? Just to be a character? Are we skiers, or is our sport, paying any sort of price for the parabolic revolution that has changed our equipment so radically over the past 20 years?

-HDH

 

[smootharc]

I held out on the old school boards for years....

....but am since converted. I cannot find any advantage to switching back to my long, "straight" boards.

Shaped skis made me instantly better. What the heck did I wait so long for ?

God bless plake....and his choices point out there is no right or wrong. But for the average skier, why not use a nice new 4wd car instead of a 1968 wagon.....???

 

[JimG]

Shaped skis have certainly helped less skilled skiers learn those skills more quickly and efficiently. The biggest downside to shaped skis in my book is in moguls. Huge shovels just make turning quickly in bumps a real chore. That's why I use bump skis or twin tips. I don't like too much sidecut.

 

[Rushski]

If you run straight and fast, short skis will chatter and swim more than longer and skinnier. But, if you keep the carvers on edge, they are fine.

As for Plake, he is a legend, but him keeping the long boards is just a statement he is making. Sure he could kick ass on shorts...

 

[Charlie Schuessler]

The downside of shaped skis is that they are for groomers thus are not best for bump skiing...

 

[riverc0il]

i have no issues with shapers in the bumps. clearly, if you want to zipper line, you need straights. other wise, it is a worth while compromise rather rhan having a ski just for bumps.

i find shapely skis don't track dead straight as well, but what is the full with pointing um straight?! :lol:

unless you are zipper lining bumps or want to have an old school glen plake image (image is everything, of course), there is no reason to use straight skis. i can't even believe we this topic still comes up. there is a reason ski shops don't sell straight skis any more except for a few shops catoring to bumpers.

 

[JimG]

i have no issues with shapers in the bumps. clearly, if you want to zipper line, you need straights. other wise, it is a worth while compromise rather rhan having a ski just for bumps.

But you do agree that shaped skis are not good for zipper line skiing. I've taken many a shaped ski into bumps; they can be skiied using very rounded turns with alot of carve, but I find skiing bumps that way to be more of a chore than a pleasure.

I agree that the all terrain skier needs a more versatile ski than a bump only ski, that's why I compromised the past few years by using twin tips. Alot of folks don't like them, but for me they make great all mountain skis. They're wider than a bump ski which makes them great in POW, but they don't have the exxagerated sidecut that makes zipperlining almost impossible.

 

[kbroderick]

How do you define zipper-line skiing? Deflection-only turns as practiced by Real Mogul Skiers, or just the practice of skiing a line that is (close to) the line skied by Real Mogul Skiers?

I ask because I've found my T-Power Vipers (same shape as a 9S from the first year super-sidecut slaloms were generally available) to be quite skiable in the bumps. I will admit to a racing background and a complete lack of ability to ski bumps as competitive bumpers do, but I can ski a decent line on them much easier than I ever could on non-sidecut slalom skis. I will grant you that the length difference (167cm vs 188cm for slalom skis) may have quite a bit of influence.

(Note: by "decent line," I mean "a decent line when the bumps are reasonably soft, not quite as big as my Volkswagen, and not on a particularly steep pitch.")

 

[JimG]

How do you define zipper-line skiing? Deflection-only turns as practiced by Real Mogul Skiers, or just the practice of skiing a line that is (close to) the line skied by Real Mogul Skiers?

I ask because I've found my T-Power Vipers (same shape as a 9S from the first year super-sidecut slaloms were generally available) to be quite skiable in the bumps. I will admit to a racing background and a complete lack of ability to ski bumps as competitive bumpers do, but I can ski a decent line on them much easier than I ever could on non-sidecut slalom skis. I will grant you that the length difference (167cm vs 188cm for slalom skis) may have quite a bit of influence.

(Note: by "decent line," I mean "a decent line when the bumps are reasonably soft, not quite as big as my Volkswagen, and not on a particularly steep pitch.")

When I mention zipperlining, think World Cup or Olympic bump skiing.

 

[Vano]

- Shaped skis aren't all that great in deep powder and soft snow. Big fat straight boards are usually a a better choice, not that I have ever tried them. Most powder whores prefer straightish skis like Goats and Sumo or skis that are reverse side cut and reverse camber like Spatulas and Pontoons.

- Shaped skis are dangerous in narrow, steep chutes. The more shape, the less the edge of the ski comes in contact with the snow. Nothing like balancing yourself in 2 inches of edge up front and 2 inches of edge in the back with the underfoot part in the air, springloaded. Camber makes things even worse.

 

[thetrailboss]

One big downside: tuning them. Using a conventional vice is difficult.

 

[teachski]

Only down side I can think of is that I had to learn not to keep my feet as close together, after learning for over 30 years to get them that way.

 

[JimG]

Only down side I can think of is that I had to learn not to keep my feet as close together, after learning for over 30 years to get them that way.

Another reason that shaped skis are not great in bumps.

 

[NYDrew]

I'm wondering, I have become fairly proficient bump skiier on shapes. And I still ski the traditionals when I have the bug to. I wonder how I would do in the bumps on the strait skiis....hmmmm

 

[skibum]

Didja ever notice little rooster tails of snow kicking up at the rear contact point of a shaped ski when just flat tracking straight?
Flite Snowboards used to claim in their ads for their Weapon racing line that "too much sidecut is a drag".
Then again that was '86, Flite has gone out of business, and I'm just a knuckledragger.

 

[Sky]

I skied with one of my pals earlier this week. The guy was a fabulous skier on his stragight skies. Very graceful.

He and I demo-ed shaped skies together a few years ago and he hated them.

So this year, we're on the same rec race league. He bought new gear (shaped skis included).

We were working on our "form" with a Master Race (wait....Masters Racing guy *eeeeek*) and after several runs...the guy with the new gear said...Wow, I can't believe how much easier these shaped skis are to ski on. Normally after this many runs, I'd be exhausetd."

Downside? Erraahhh...more time on snow prematurely ages your face?

 

[HDHaller]

Miscellany:

-Have shaped skis made learning easier? Have they brought more people to the sport and thereby helped the industry?

-Do you mogul skiers think, then, that the shaped ski revolution has hurt mogul skiing in any way?

-Shaped skis have obviously made carving easier.

-Shaped ski technology has created more specialty skis and boosted the expense of the sport: more expensive skis; more types of skis to buy.

HDH

 

[Bumpsis]

Hype.
I'm always a bit miffed when marketeers try to pump happy sunshine up my behind.
The arrival of shaped skis had a lot of bull with it.

Sure, this was a good innovation and it helped a lot of intermediates up the skill ladder, but frankly, I really did not see what the big hoopla was all about.
If you knew how to carve on "straight" skis, shaped skis really did not make that much of a difference.

Moguls.
I'm also of the opinion that straight skis are better in moguls. I can get get through a nice mogul field on my shaped skis but the bigger shovels do get in the way. I still ski on straight skis if I know I'll be spending most of my time in the bumps.

One real downside here: because people are on shorter skis now, moguls are getting tighter.

Too many choices.
It's actually more difficult to find a good, all mountain ski that's a really good for most conditions.

 

[riverc0il]

It's actually more difficult to find a good, all mountain ski that's a really good for most conditions.

i don't know if i would say it is more difficult to find a good all mountain ski. rather, i would say the all mountain ski itself, rather than shaped skis, are the myth being marketed by the ski industry. instead of "all mountain ski" i think the real wording should read "one ski quiver", because that is what the "all mountain ski" really is, a HUGE compromise on various aspects of performance.

moguls are definitely the short fall of the shaped ski, that is why the pro bumpers still ski on straight skis.

hype? shaped skis? not a chance. i used to race on straight skis, the change over to shaped skis was amazing and the various shapes and side cuts in production allow for some great new ideas that allow skis to do some incredible things performance wise.

 

[Bumpsis]

hype? shaped skis? not a chance. i used to race on straight skis, the change over to shaped skis was amazing and the various shapes and side cuts in production allow for some great new ideas that allow skis to do some incredible things performance wise.

No hype??? Are you kidding me??
There was MEGA HYPE when this design started.

Let's be clear on definition. Hype is defined as excessive, extreme promotion, publicity of a product/idea where the reality falls short of the promise.

Phrases such as fantastic, revolutionary, incredible were and still are (see above) being freely thrown around when describing the benefits of shaped skis.
Given such sperlatives, one would expect that at the very least, maybe HALF of what was said, indeed was true.

OK, everybody's ski experience is a subjective experience, so there is no good measure of that.

However, it would be really interesting to compare racing times now and let's say 10-12 years ago (or whenever racers started to use shaped skis) in various categories (slalom, GS etc.) and see if indeed the times for the same courses have been dramatically shortened, like, let's say by half - give the mentioned superlatives.

I don't have acces or time to dig for such records, but I'm guessing that the race course times did not improve all that much. Figure into this improvements in training methods and other idependent statistical factors and I'm willing to guess that the overall improvements due to equipment did not exceed 15%, at most.
Prove me wrong. :idea: