Sidecuts, Waist Widths and Tip Flex...oh my! (Part 1)

There are two kinds of skiers: Ones that buy skis because they look pretty and ones that ski pretty because they buy good skis. If you're the first type and you're fine with that, you can stop reading now, but if you are the 2nd type (or would like to be) keep reading. This is a basic primer for narrowing down the purchase of some sticks based on things you can look for in the shop.
The best way to buy a pair of skis is to demo em'. Many shops have demo days or can tell you when one is going to be happening at a resort near you. Demo skis are pretty much like rental cars, you can take em' out, put em' through their paces and return them without having to shell out a ton of cash for a new pair. But if you don't have the chance to demo every pair you're interested in or just plain don't have a clue what you want, a good shop and some knowledge of what affects a ski's performance is a good thing to have.

A ski's performance can be generalized by 4 criteria:
1.) The Waist Width
2.) Sidecut Dimensions
3.) Flex Pattern
4.) Length

The effects of waist width on a ski are pretty obvious. The wider the ski, the more surface area it has to float on top of powder. Less obvious is how the width underfoot affects the "quickness" of a ski. Take a pair of slalom skis vs. a pair of pow skis. A typical FIS legal slalom board will have a width in the 65mm range, much less than the 100-130mm width of today's radest powder skis. How quickly a ski transitions from one turn to the next depends on how quickly the skier transfers from one edge to another.
A greater distance between the edges means a slower transition, so in theory a powder ski will go from edge-to-edge slower than the slalom ski, which is why you don't see Ted Ligety rockin' Prophet 130s in a World Cup event. Keep in mind that this is just what the skis are most efficient at doing. If you don't physically make the ski transition quickly, you won't turn quickly. A pair of wide skis in the right hands can make turns almost as quickly as a pair of narrower skis, it just takes more effort.

So to summarize, wide skis = more float, slower edge-to-edge transition while narrow skis=less float with faster edge-to-edge transition.

So width affects float and "nimbleness" in a ski, but the actual turn shape depends on what the sidecut is and how you use it and this is a subject for the next article. Stay Tuned!


"If you french fry when you should have pizza'd, you're gonna have a bad time."

Geoff