Do you know the procedure to custom mold your skiis or board from standard camber into reverse camber. I figure it is just the combination of heat and weight but if you know any tips or tricks please feel free to fill me or us in.

thanks!

When we finally decided that carving skis was more desirable to pivoting skis, and that up and down was not as efficient as over and against shape became the issue. That was when snowboarding hadn’t received wide acceptance.

Now that snowboarding thinks that skiing is a derivative of it (rather than the opposite), and riders have part surfer in their souls the word ‘Rocker’ emerges in the sport.

Rocker helps the ski not ‘dive’ in the deep and wet (fore and aft shape)…. like on a windsurfer: inside edge and ride the shape no finesse of pressure required.

Now, what I don’t get ………. my boards all had graphite stringers so that the board would not flex…… (how many boards did I break at HO-o-KE-pa by coming over the wave and landing flat NOT riding the rocker?) is why anyone would rather be ‘ON” the ski than ‘vs” the ski ..but there again is where personal preference plays a role.

Ryan

BTW, the rockered powder ski isn’t exactly a new invention. Those of us who learned to ski powder on GS race skis — and that includes anyone who learned to ski powder before 1990 — eventually wound up skiing on a bent metal ski. Sometimes you wouldn’t figure out it was bent until the tail end of a great powder season. During the years I taught at Squaw Valley, my favorite ski for deep wet Sierra Cement was a pair of Atomic 635RS, the fluorescent-pink successor to the famous Red Sled. Several years of descents through Magoo’s Madness off Emigrant’s northeast nose bent both skis back into a smooth rocker, without affecting powder performance. But the skis were scary on the last blast across groomers to the locker room.

Another approach to this problem was pioneered by Mike Brunetto. He reasoned that in order for the shovel to float up in powder, either the tail had to sink or bend. You can make the tail sink by making it narrow, but that doesn’t help overall float or turn shape — so he built a ski with a very soft, resilient tail, and called it the Heliski. It was hugely popular among deep powder freaks in the ’80s, before fat skis appeared (the Heliski had a traditional GS shape). If you think about it, making the tail soft has the same effect as building in a rocker: you get heroic performance in powder at the price of grip and stability on hard snow.

Seth

If you’re unsure about the appropriate ski flex and torsion for the snow you want to ski, that’s a good reason to get really expert advice. Or to get a ski designed just for you.

I’ll have more to say about this when I talk about sizing skis.

If I’m at a ski shop and looking to get a pair of skis, is there an easy way for me to determine whether or not a ski has an appropriate flex for me? What about torsional rigidity?