Do I have the right skis now ? Will I be able to ski them on tomorrow’s snow? What about length ? Width under foot, radius, early rise ?
Do you obsess over your skis ? good! you should ! They can make a world of difference in your enjoyment – and they can help you overcome terrain or conditions that you find challenging.
What is “a good ski”?
It is often said that there are no longer any bad skis out there, and that is true even in the budget categories. But the industry has made so much progress, and the offering is so diversified, that many a specialized ski will be truly marvellous in certain set of conditions, and will be quite hard to ski in other conditions. However, if you are truly intent on owning your skis, you can get some middle of the road skis that will do everything reasonably enough, and perhaps pick a model that is tweaked towards helping you with your weaknesses.
What form that ski may take depends on where you ski the most…and who you are talking with. For me, skiing mostly in Park City, it may be something in the 70-80 mm range under foot, 15-17 m radius – but just ask someone else, and they might pitch a width under foot of 90mm or more, radius of 20 meters for the same conditions…. There is no right answer, just what works for you, and that will change by tomorrow because of the snow conditions, and next season because you have improved – or because you went to a very different resort.
The case for not owning your skis
All of that to say, most people I see at the resort would be better off not owning their skis. No shlepping them thru airports, no luggage fees, no ski bag that did not make it on time because the airline targeted bigger bags first to try to make take off weight. No skiing on the wrong ski for the conditions. No edge and base maintenance worries.
Just rent off of a demo pool: get your details sorted out in the store database at home, and then pick your skis on day one. Do not like them ? return them at mid day and get longer one or shorter ones. If you pick a store on the resort plaza, 5 minutes indoors and you walk out with just the right ski for you, for today. It snowed last night? get in the store and pick up a wide ski for today. You can get back to a carver tomorrow.
And after having tried the best skis out there, if you truly fall in love with a given pair and you just have to buy them – the store will be happy to give you some form of credit for your rental fees. Just remember – you will have to ship them home or worse trundle them thru 2 airports each way….
Convinced yet? It may not hurt to have an idea about what to rent – for this (2016-2017) season, – do yourself a favor a check out Head i.supershape Rally, and Nordica Enforcer 93 – on most days, either will be really fun. My friends at www.colesport.com carry them (and many other models) here in Park City and Deer Valley.
For more info, here is the ski magazine ski guide.
Read here for some thoughts on boots.