Chubz Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 While I am a snowboarder at heart, I took my 5-year old out skiing for his first time ever on Sunday. He did well and we both had a great time in the beginner zone. I had on a set of used Head Monsters that I picked up last summer for $100 including skis boots and bindings. My first time on shaped skis and first time in 16 years on skis. The beg. zone didnt offer much in the way of trying the stix out. Bear with me and I will getting to the alpine part of this thread. Sunday gave me the itch to go back out and give the skis a true go and so I did yesterday afternoon. Much to my suprise after 3 runs of feeling the difference, I ran them like I would run an alpine board. Tilting the boots over to angulate and wouldnt you know, they tracked thru nice big arcs, within 5 runs I was laying down some nice big ski racer type turns. I attribute it back to what alpine has taught me about truly setting an edge and running thru a turn. I used very smiliar body position and using the hands pushing toward lead boot, hips, little pencil pinch to drive thru the arc. I'm Hooked. I will still carve but it was super cool to carve turns on skis. Its why I quit skiing years ago, straight skis sucked.. My question to those who do both, are skiers divided into varying levels of getting the most out of their equipment, like alpine riders? I see a majority of skiers sorta just shooshing down the mtn and then some are really ripping, running edge to edge, butt almost on the snow. Is it b/c most people are not aware of what they can get out of a ski? I could feel the natural tracking of the skis yesterday (170 cm 15m SCR), which was a very cool sensation, even in slop and finsihing the turn. It seems most skiers do not finish their turn or maximize their potential. My other discovery is that alpine snowboarding could possibly help ski racers in certain aspects, balance, weighting, body position. I just didnt think that I was going to be able make the ski race type turns I was making yesterday, with it being the first day out on them and I give alpine full credit. Add that hobbie back to my list and skis are coming for those days that are less than carve optimal. Too bad the season is over. Now when is bruce gonna make some skis? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tex1230 Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 ...Now when is bruce gonna make some skis? Prior makes some kickass skis...and so does Donek (although I think they are more favored by the Tele crowd) - I don't think Bruce has time for skis given his previous comments on build schedule. I have skied the priors and they are awesome...but your monsters would be a better carving ski. - I'd love to try some Donek skis but I have never had a chance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingCrimson Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Good..Just bought some minty fresh Monster M77s. Get to try them this weekend! My dad has 2 pairs of skis currently, some K2 "Made by Bob and Larry" Titanal race skis in 186/65 underfoot, and some 189/105 underfoot K2 Obsetheds. Since February, he used the Titanal skis for 1 run, the Seths for the 15 or so days otherwise. They are so much better at dealing with any kind of snow except Zamboni'd hardpack or perfect groomers, but either of those end up soft and mushy down here. Even in the hard stuff he rails on them, leaving trenches that make me go hide in the trees and cry. Definitely something to be said about new skis, and if the made in China K2s from REI are killer, I can only imagine how well Priors ski. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 My question to those who do both, are skiers divided into varying levels of getting the most out of their equipment, like alpine riders? I see a majority of skiers sorta just shooshing down the mtn and then some are really ripping, running edge to edge, butt almost on the snow. Is it b/c most people are not aware of what they can get out of a ski? I was going to start a thread in OT with similar questions for those who teach both. I have been picking up on some the ideas ski instructors have about carving and there seems to be a very different philosophy to the one most of us have about what carving is. I Know there are some instructors who teach both here and I wondered what their thoughts are from an alpine snowboard carving perspective. A couple of things I notice about the way ski carving is taught stand out to me. One is that I notice when watching instructor clinics, is that many seem to taught by racing types. To have the most fun free carving we do things that don't work well in a race course. what to a racer's eye might be hanging on to the turn too long. is completing the turn for a carving junkie. The idea in racing is to go as fast as possible. The hardest part for most people learning to carve, is controlling speed with turns. So I wonder if carving as many ski instructors might teach it, is as fun as we find it. I also notice that skiers don't seem to be taught the two basic turn types that we use, cross-over and cross-under turns. Ski instructors seems to use little vertical motion to achieve the edge pressure. I can plainly see that my trenches on skis are deeper than those most skiers leave. I've been told that flexing as in cross-unders is too tiring. A more technical question that interest me, is what do people here think of early release of the old outside ski and early edge set (earlier than the new outside ski) of the new inside ski ? BobD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 The two I would love to try are Palmer and Kessler. I think I read somewhere that Kessler had worked with Palmer on their skis. http://www.carving-ski.de/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=9936 http://www.kessler-swiss.com/de/ski.html If they are anything like the boards....... BobD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingCrimson Posted March 26, 2009 Report Share Posted March 26, 2009 Bob- Look at my post history for threads I've started, and look at ski physics CGI, I actually made that post with you in mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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