Ski Dimensions

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melvs
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2005 6:39 am

Ski Dimensions

Post by melvs »

As stupid as it sounds, I know very little about the dimensions of skis. I know what is long and short, skinny or fat, but beyond that, I don't know anything. What does changing the camber, sidecut, and overall width do to how a ski rides? I know in powder you want a wider ski, but I'm an east coast kid, so I wanna know the effects on groomers.
-Pat
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littleKam
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Joined: Mon Dec 13, 2004 7:43 pm
Location: SoCal

Post by littleKam »

Hey Pat, I'm glad you made it to the forum. Actually your question about ski dimensions is a really good one. The camber of the ski affects how much pop or liveliness you have in your ski. A ski with a lot of camber will have exert more force when it tries to return to it's natural cambered shape. This may provide a ski with more spring and edge control, especially at the tips and tails.

The benefits of a wider ski is that the ski has a lot more float in powder (I'm not too sure how much the right coast gets) and is also very stable overall. But going too wide, like the Line Prophets or the new Volkl Sumos, is going overboard in my opinion and just seems too much to handle.

The sidecut of a ski determines how your ski will turn. A deeper sidecut (smaller turning radius) allows for a ski to turn real well, but then causes some problems such as tipdive in the powder. A shallow sidecut (larger turning radius) requires more effort to turn a ski, but then excels in the powder. There are a lot of different types of sidecuts you can try: traditional single radius, biradial (combining 2 different radii), and even triradial (combining 3 different radii).
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