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Do Skis Get Blunt?

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Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#101

Post by swader999 »

Loic wrote: post #75
swader999 wrote: post #8

I'm a ski race parent. I tune every couple of days on snow. My U12 boy skis on 0.5 degrees base bevel, three degrees side edge. Here he is on a firm course at his last race this year: https://youtu.be/RWYO2ib-qe8?si=CRH01ViFUFApSx_o Setting that up is difficult but it's pretty easy to maintain once it is there. Side cut.com has great advice and tools. If you are on groomers and ski on decent skis, not powder boards,…

Son is U16, same 87/0.5 and if I am not doing them well, he will tell me as he can feel the difference. Of course, we have race and training skis, this helps having the race skis very well tuned. Your son is good :-)

Thanks, he's been working really hard at it since 3 years old! We're at Mt Hood this week so tuning is still a thing even today lol.

U16 is quite a step up, the courses get quite challenging at that level.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#103

Post by swader999 »

oldandboring wrote: post #93

Former junior and Masters racer here. Glad to see there's some very qualified voices in these comments, including a few who are currently involved (as racing parents). I very much appreciate the level of technical detail and accuracy in those comments. I'll talk base bevels all day. Pretty much agree with everything those folks have written. Most definitely sharp edges, and your bevels, matter when you are really pus…

Nice clarification about the polishing once you have it setup. This is fairly quick to do too.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#104

Post by swader999 »

matsemann wrote: post #65
sgt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They got to spend time with you, which is its own reward. I only realized this now when I got a kid (he's 3). Never thought about it that way before. Do you have kids?

Yes, that is true. And no, no kids. But if I do, I'm thinking I'd like them to do something not as expensive and time consuming. But with my own 50 days skiing this winter, it might just end up being skiing anyways, heh.

Skiing is a great family sport. You get to build cameraderie together exploring a big mountain. It's quite an undertaking for a parent and yes, expensive. Most other sports, the parents are typically just watching.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#105

Post by swader999 »

oldandboring wrote: post #99
swader999 wrote: post #8

I'm a ski race parent. I tune every couple of days on snow. My U12 boy skis on 0.5 degrees base bevel, three degrees side edge. Here he is on a firm course at his last race this year: https://youtu.be/RWYO2ib-qe8?si=CRH01ViFUFApSx_o Setting that up is difficult but it's pretty easy to maintain once it is there. Side cut.com has great advice and tools. If you are on groomers and ski on decent skis, not powder boards,…

I can tell you are very proud of your U12 boy and from that video, you should be. His fundamentals are rock solid. His fore-aft is good, his timing is excellent, he's clearly prepared for the course well in inspection. He's generally not reaching to cross-block, as evidenced by the strategic inside-clear at the top of the pitch. Really, really strong.

Thanks and you know what you are looking at!

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#106

Post by oldandboring »

swader999 wrote: post #103
oldandboring wrote: post #93

Former junior and Masters racer here. Glad to see there's some very qualified voices in these comments, including a few who are currently involved (as racing parents). I very much appreciate the level of technical detail and accuracy in those comments. I'll talk base bevels all day. Pretty much agree with everything those folks have written. Most definitely sharp edges, and your bevels, matter when you are really pus…

Nice clarification about the polishing once you have it setup. This is fairly quick to do too.

Believe it or not, as a junior I had the hardest time believing this. We'd be down in the waxroom filing our edges to death every other day and it would feel like I couldn't get an edge otherwise. The idea that the edge could be "polished" back to sharpness was alien to me. That being said, on skinny skis in the 90s, it took a lot of work to set an edge and little kids were at a disadvantage. I was basically skidding around and the sharp edges were just keeping it at bay.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#107

Post by oldandboring »

swader999 wrote: post #105
oldandboring wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you are very proud of your U12 boy and from that video, you should be. His fundamentals are rock solid. His fore-aft is good, his timing is excellent, he's clearly prepared for the course well in inspection. He's generally not reaching to cross-block, as evidenced by the strategic inside-clear at the top of the pitch. Really, really strong.

Thanks and you know what you are looking at!

I drink and I know things.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#108

Post by ptero »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #77
gorbypark wrote: post #21

It totally depends on the type of skier and the type of skis you have. I worked in the ski industry and thus lived and worked in ski towns for 15 years. If you are a ski racer, tuning edges matter. If you aggressively ride groomers all day, then they will matter. Riding big fat powder skis everyday, inside and outside of the resort? More or less doesn't matter. Are you a park rat that only ever skis the park? Those f…

Ski here in the northeast or midwest and on the ice we get? You're going to want sharp edges.

I ski mostly in the Northeast and my old, unsharpened skis work just fine for me. I don't ski double blacks now (for the knees that feel it much more than 30 years ago) but I am doing just fine on single blacks and below.

Do I ever wish for a sharp edge when I occasionally end up on an icy plate scrubbed by snowboarders at the end of the day? Yes. But so rarely, that I never care enough to actually sharpen them.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#109

Post by oldandboring »

creato wrote: post #17
swader999 wrote: post #8

I'm a ski race parent. I tune every couple of days on snow. My U12 boy skis on 0.5 degrees base bevel, three degrees side edge. Here he is on a firm course at his last race this year: https://youtu.be/RWYO2ib-qe8?si=CRH01ViFUFApSx_o Setting that up is difficult but it's pretty easy to maintain once it is there. Side cut.com has great advice and tools. If you are on groomers and ski on decent skis, not powder boards,…

You can see in this video that the interaction of the ski with the snow is much more than just the edge of the ski. I really doubt the fine tuning of the edge matters that much. I don’t think there is any objective way to settle this debate. I think if you enjoy tuning skis, go for it. I like sharpening knives and tools so I get it. But I don’t bother with my skis.

Respectfully, this is incorrect. That would be like telling someone who games competitively that their GPU and CPU don't matter. Once you can tell, you can tell.

If you gave a blind test, same exact skis but varied the tuning, most serious racers would be able to tell you what changed after a few turns. Edge or base bevel angles, wax, tuned or de-tuned. I haven't raced in years and I wager I would do pretty well on that test.

Re: Do Skis Get Blunt?

#110

Post by oldandboring »

strstr wrote: post #58
amluto wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds entirely straightforward to do a randomized, blinded test of freshly sharpened vs unsharpened skis. (Okay, the skier can feel the edge or look closely, but a cooperative skier could just not do that for the purpose of the experiment.)

You could also sharpen just one edge of each ski (opposite edges across the pair), then put the skis on random feet. Then see if they can tell which edges are sharp! Most of a typical skier’s weight is supported by the inside edge of the downhill ski while carving. Youth racers tend to ski with one set of edges on the inside for training, and the other edges inside for racing (under the theory that the inside edges t…

True enough at younger levels but as you move up in age and skill, the weight distribution between the downhill and uphill ski gets closer to 50/50. What you're saying has a kernel of truth and young skiers are still taught downhill ski as a fundamental but shaped skis have really changed the game on this.
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