GS Ski Inquiry - Page 3

From what I've been hearing from Greg, Rick, I didn't get the full picture of how fast you usually ski....

His name is FASTMAN! What do you expect? It's genetic.

Let's see...

...the original question was about GS skis. I'm 5' 8", 170 lbs, 58 years old, race Masters. Rocky Mountain Masters has some GSs (Winter Park, Vail) that are almost World Cup in length and difficulty. I was using a 180 cm. Atomic GS12 (19 meter, not race stock)...which is a great ski, but I don't think it's gonna let me carry speed and make the long arcs I need to to be fast in GS. Last spring I got a pair of 185 cm. Head IGS RDs...the 25.2 meter sidecut ski with the VIST plate...awesome ski. So this year I got a pair of this year's 183 cm. Head IGS RDs (I didn't want to go all the way to 188, and there was no 185). Also an incredible ski. Feels more like a Super G than a GS ski, and that's where I want my GS to go.

BTW, you can use race skis for all-mountain. My go-everywhere ski is an Atomic SL11 from a couple of years back...does great in bumps, has a fat tip so it's decent in powder, great in trees, it's a race Beta ski so you can let 'em buck on the groomers.

The most fun I've ever had on race skis in non-race conditions, however, was on my 223 Rossi DHs in a foot of powder a few years back at Steamboat. They buffed the course the night before our last non-stop and then it snowed a foot on top. It took us about an hour and a half to slip the line. After our training runs, we went back up to get our warmups and stuff and ski down. There was a 30-meter untracked strip outside the course...imagine 12 inches of Colorado Smoke on top of a totally buffed out base. It turns out that DH skis, which are nice and wide and usually a little soft in the tip, are great in powder...as long as you're doing 50 plus and keep them in the fall line. My teammate and I made a half miles' worth of figure 8s before we ran out of runway. Better than sex...

Dang. I keep buying new equipment, and I'm STILL a girly man.

SfDean.

Yeah I love free skiing with race skis in just about any conditons other than moguls. I might pick up a wider ski for when I go to whistler at the end of the season because I felt a little limited in the open bowls and on the glacier when I was skiing on 173cm fischer rc4s there last spring.

I know, my point is that even though I've skied with him, he apparently was holding back in the velocity department since he was on slalom sticks.

Yeah,,, I often find slalom skis a better choice for social occasions.

It's almost like a responsibility,,,, trying to uphold the family name.

Figure 8 tracks that can be seen from the moon.

ROFL*



*Rolling on the floor, laughing. On seeing this, I just barked out a laugh spraying coffee all over the monitor and keyboard.

No dash, Rick...

...that was the best. Next, lemme tell y'all about the time me and a bunch of ski bums from Vail (we were all working on the I-70 expansion back in the Seventies) skateboarded from Vail Pass down to Copper...at night...under a full moon...before the road was officially open...with a flatbed Ford with six cases of beer in the back to tow us back up...come on, you can do it! Go ahead and top "Figure 8s you can see from the moon"!

Speaking of getting on skis to give 'em a try (feigning an attempt to stay on topic: Really posting here as this is where my buds hang and I might get the real skinny)

Dr. Liz and I are thinking 'bout driving to Summit County Sunday to spend a few days (well maybe several) on snow (we ain't got it here). We're thinking Keystone. How's the conditions, crowds, is it worth the drive based on open terrain, yada yada?

Oh yeah, GS skis, hmmm, let me see,,,,,, Or is this thread about skiing really, really fast - can't remember

Next time, we'll both bring the long boards.

The rest are Greg R's.

Dang, Max,,,, see what you started!

I'd better quit while I'm ahead. When it comes to humor I'm like that old proverbial blind squirrel.

Anyway, I remember the seventies. It was skateboard crazy. That sounds like the some of the dumb a$$ sheet we did on them. The steeper the better. Somehow I escaped it intact, but I have friends that still wear the battle scars. :

Sorry about the mess, Dean.

Couldn't resist, they were sitting there. 5 are still in the hotbox (3 Slalom, 2 new GS)

Very nice Gary, no squads though?

Oops, getting the grind done. I'll get another shot with the full quiver when we get back from Colorado Kinda of homogeneous though, we've got a few Nordicas but didn't want to muddy up the picture :

Oh, and Atomicman has a lot of gs skis too:

Okay, I didn't want to but you forced by hand -- my real quiver



Just waiting for the next "vintage" race

It's all about the Rossi snowboard with the VAS...

Oh come on, they would probably make a decent ski chair...

Hey Atomicman, I thought you didn't have any more SL:11's...

Good point... I stand corrected.

Just out of curiousity: What are the opinions of you folks regarding "race" skis vs racestock GS skis. When you mention the skis you're on, are you speaking of racestock or mfr's race skis? I recall a time when there wasn't necessarily a great deal of difference. Top racers had their skis made for them of course but race room skis were just carefully selected, meticulously prepped essentially stock race skis. Obviously that is no longer the case. I still have a pair of Volkl P60 GSR "race" skis that I naively purchased, thinking they were race skis. The difference between these and an earlier pair of P20 Rs supers I owned is night and day. The P60s are not much more than a wimpy recreational ski with flashy graphics in my opinion. I assume this kind of treatment is pretty typical across the board for most if not all mfrs today. Comments?

Is it the "real deal"?

Good question!
There was a time, I believe late '90's early 2000's where several manufacturers where putting out 'recreational racing' skis that were not the FIS deal. They perceived this is what the larger market wanted (don't know why, a racing ski is for racing). It seems later that many of the marketing gurus realized that there was this market for all mountain carving skis as a product with their own appeal and the cheater racing skis started to disappear.

What's under the cosmetics

With most companies today that offer a real racing ski the construction is a metal/fiberglass/wood laminate with vertical sidewalls and square tail OR exotic cap construction (which I don't use and don't know that much about, admittedly). Depending on the company the "real race" ski IS the same ski that is produced for the WC or USSA Jr's but the production ski is the ski adopted from last season. Doesn't mean, however, they aren't the real deal. Each season the manufacturer keeps testing new ideas and these "prototypes" are tested by the company's WC skiers throughout the season. Those skis sometimes make out to the public but rarely (my wife's got a pair of 181 Rossi Y47's, don't exist : ). The favored prototype of that season usually becomes the mass produced "race ski" for the following season (using mass produced loosely). Keep in mind that most companies make Junior, Women's and Men's skis. These skis will vary quite a bit in construction (mostly how much of what is used) and considerably in flex patterns. They will all be FIS compliant on the radius restrictions and total stand height from bottom of ski to top of the plate.

Race Stock vs. ???

Depending on the company this can mean this year's prototype to their generally manufactured race ski. Rossignol, for instance (I knew them best), make all their race skis in their "race room". They do not have a boiled down race ski other than those specifically intended for recreational use (such as the Radical Mutix). All the skis that are shipped in (basically for the US Junior program) are the same side cut dimensions and construction (for the year and model such as Y41, Y51, etc). All those skis the hit the warehouse ARE Race Stock skis.

I'm guessing that some other companies may have different constructions with different year's cosmetics but I haven't really heard of this lately.

So the moral to the story is the more recent the ski and if it says FIS approved it is probably the real deal and it just comes down to what properties you like in your ski. Different manufacturers different flex patterns, sidecut and behavior.

Well, yes and no...

This is what I know/think, and I think there are lots of others out there (Atomicman) who probably have a lot more insight than I do, but here's a stab:

- Pretty much any Super G or DH skis are race stock. A long time ago, anybody could actually buy this stuff off the rack in a retail shop, because there were some rec skiers who actually skied on the damned things. Not really any more. I know shops that cater to racers that sell DH/Super G skis, and they're race stock in the sense that they have the same basic construction that the World Cup skis have, have pretty fast, well prepped bases, and are flex matched. On the other hand, I heard a story that a few years ago when Hermann Maier was the Big Dog on the porch at Atomic, the bases on his skis came from the beginning or end of each roll of PTEX 4000, because that's where the fastest bases generally come from. Did he or do any of the other speed event skiers on the WC get skis made for them that have unique sidecuts, flexes, bases, edge configurations, and so forth? I think so, but what also tends to happen is that Atomic makes a pile of speed event skis, the Atomic techs wax, hot box, and tune them in the summer, and glide test them. Fastest skis go to...whomever. The story was that Thomas Buergler, who was Stefan Eberharter's Atomic tech, got the inside track on the fast stuff that Bode and Daron have been using for the last couple of years...thus denying these skis to Hermann Maier and the other Atomic athletes.

- For GS and SL, it gets a little weirder. Again taking Atomic as an example, I believe the manufacturing quality of all their race skis is really good, or at least that's what I've found. In shops that service racers, you generally have your choice of two basic items: A non-FIS legal ski, usually a 19 meter sidecut, and a FIS legal ski, which is usually marked ">21" and tends to be 23-25 meters in radius. In general, you'll get a beefier plate on the FIS legal ski, and yes, there is a difference. I have two pairs of 204 Atomic Super Gs, one with the stock, off the rack plate, and the other with the thicker WC plate, and it's like night and day. This year's Atomic GS12 is an example: you choose, FIS or non-FIS. Once again, however, it's my impression that the manufacturing quality is about equal. I got a pair of non-FIS GS12s last year, and the bases are incredibly fast and well structured, and the side/base bevels were very close to what I wanted.

What I'm going to race on this year, though, are one of two pairs of Head IGS RDs I got: a pair of last year's 185s, and a pair of this year's 183s. I don't see the manufacturing quality as being any better than my GS12s, but they have a beefy VIST plate and a 25.2 sidecut, which is where I want to go with GS.

I just got a pair of race stock SL12s...great ski. A beefier plate than off-the-rack, flex numbers inked on the tail, excellent manufacturing quality. A lot of manufacturers are only making SLs in 155 (FIS legal for women) and 165 (FIS legal for men).

Are there made-for-each-athlete tech skis for the World Cuppers? I'll bet, but I don't know the details.

What does this mean for somebody who's buying a race ski? I'd say start by thinking about how and where you're going to use it. If it's going to be beer league GS, I'd probably stick to a 180 non-FIS legal ski. That's NOT the place for a full on race stock 188 (or worse yet, 193) GS. For Masters or similar, up to you depending on the length/difficulty/speed you'll achieve...but you might think about a bigger hammer...

Race, stock, room, lock, and barrel...

Thanks to the modern miracle of eBay (and the providence of impoverished racers and former racers everywhere) you can get all kinds of non-mass market skis that descended in weird arcs from high level skiing. (Just so that you can, if you're like me, descend in weird arcs of your own.) So, from WC D team skier to college racer to eBay buyer.

A few things to think about:

(1) is it FIS legal and do you care? I have a couple of pairs of Atomic GS 11.21s, made back when the "recreational racing" (mass market) ski had a 21 meter sidecut. I also have a couple of pair of Atomic Skiercross SX:11s with an 18 meter sidecut that are just right for me, and a better match (turnier sidecut) for most of the courses I ski. Fairly bizarre graphics. (Hmmn. blue-orange-green, it turns out, is not the new black.)

(2) is it too stiff? A common BIG difference in WC skis from the softer flex mass market skis is how stiff the ski is, and in that regard stiffer is not always your friend. A really stiff ski is great for the WC guys, skiing incredibly fast on incredibly challenging courses, where the G forces they generate bend those stiffer skis plenty. I don't weigh as much as those guys, I don't ski as fast, and I sure as @#&*% do not carve turns as tight as they do. A ski with the right stiffness for the WC guys is patently wrong for me, and would be a big step in the wrong direction if I want to ski better. For years, at the Tichy clinics they've been telling club league, junior and masters racers to get less stiff slalom skis to ski better, and now Atomic is specifically making bendier slalom skis (a whole range, with SkiRacer55's SL:12s with the real race plates on one end and on the other, the SL:9s in the middle (IIRC) and the blue ST:11 and ST:12s much more flexible. For those, though, the graphics challenge is different. You've got to be pretty secure: "Hey Joe--you better beat racer 976--he's got girls' skis...")

(3) can you get good information about the actual ski? The mass market skis are ubiquitous. On the lift or in the start area, you can ask literally dozens of racers how they like their boards, you can read reviews, you can demo them, you can post here at EpicSki and go through the replies. But buy a true race ski, from the manufacturer, another racer, or on eBay, and you have a much smaller universe of data points on how it will actually work for you.

I've had the impression that manufacturers today produce race skis that are not even the same construction as the race stock skis actually intended for competition. The Volkls I mentioned, for example, are a cap type ski although their race stock skis are the traditional construction with flat tops and vertical sidewalls and, I presume, more metal in them. I also have a pair of GS11s from a few years back that are constructed with Atomic's Beta lobed top sheet. Do you mean that these are comparable to Atomic's race stock? Both these and the Volkls claim to contain titanium, both are labelled to have a 21m sidecut. I have been skiing on racing skis for over 40 years now and have noticed the trend to seemingly market what must be a second tier performance ski to the general public labelled as a race ski. Of the skis I've purchased in the last few years, only the Elan SLX World Cup slalom skis seem to measure up to what I used to take for granted in a so called race ski. As far as I know they are the only race stock model I've purchased in recent years also.

Does the general public really need to be on true race-stock skis- especially given how well top-tier consumer skis perform these days? I doubt it. Those that have a need (USSA/FIS racers) can easily access the real stuff, and smart consumers can seek out race-stock skis through race centers or online.

I tend to like brands having consumer race gear, as it gives us older racers with no equipment restrictions more options. I know of no company marketing their second-tier race skis as the "real deal". More often it's the retailer who makes the mistake.