Blister recommends wide rockered skis for beginners

[tromano]

Why do people think that beginners on a fat rockered ski would have more fun?

 

[LuliTheYounger]

Why do people think that beginners on a fat rockered ski would have more fun?

Someone above my original post was arguing that beginners should only have groomer skis so that they stay on groomers and develop technique; apologies for not quoting them.

I don't think every beginner is going to have more fun on a fat rockered ski – that would be kind of a wild generalization on my part lol. I do think that there's a segment of beginners who are always going to jump almost immediately into skiing off piste, because it's fun or they want to follow their friends, and it makes some sense to guide them towards a ski that's going to be friendlier in those situations.

 

[Flo]

Well look until they can prove they can do better than Reilly on SL skis in powder my point stands, doesnt it?

Is Reilly a better skier than Candide? Hard to tell… Different skis for different styles. Misconception here is that all beginners have the same background, athleticism and objectives.

 

[BMC]

Someone above my original post was arguing that beginners should only have groomer skis so that they stay on groomers and develop technique; apologies for not quoting them.

I don't think every beginner is going to have more fun on a fat rockered ski – that would be kind of a wild generalization on my part lol. I do think that there's a segment of beginners who are always going to jump almost immediately into skiing off piste, because it's fun or they want to follow their friends, and it makes some sense to guide them towards a ski that's going to be friendlier in those situations.

How many beginner skiers are actually jumping off piste? I don’t think I ever see that. They’re not capable of getting down, no matter what skis are under their feet. Who actually sees that? I don’t.

You may see an out of depth intermediate from time to time but their being out of their depth isn’t related to the ski - it’s their skill level.

I think it’s me to whom you refer suggesting beginners would be better to stick to the runs suited to their ability (on skis that will optimise that experience). I 100% stick to that. What good can come of beginners skiing advanced and expert runs? They’ll hate it, no matter the skis under their feet, because it will be beyond their skill level. Like I say, I have no idea what Blister envisages as a beginner skier - it’s not my idea of one that’s for sure.

I remember skiing off piste on 62mm and 65mm waisted skis early in my skiing journey (but not as an absolute beginner). My first trip to Japan was on 78 underfoot, and the next one 82mm underfoot. An 80mm waisted ski is ample to start playing in the off piste as skills develop - it doesn’t stop people skiing off piste. Not having the skills to do so is the impediment,

 

[BMC]

Sorry and just to add I don’t think beginners should be on uncompromising carve skis either. I agree with Blister some tip and tail rocker is valuable. But I firmly disagree with them on the width or even type of skis they’re recommending. How will a beginner skier ever develop on a Salomon QST 106, for instance? Or a Blizzard Rustler 10? It’s a totally stupid suggestion.

 

[tromano]

Someone above my original post was arguing that beginners should only have groomer skis so that they stay on groomers and develop technique; apologies for not quoting them.

I don't think every beginner is going to have more fun on a fat rockered ski – that would be kind of a wild generalization on my part lol. I do think that there's a segment of beginners who are always going to jump almost immediately into skiing off piste, because it's fun or they want to follow their friends, and it makes some sense to guide them towards a ski that's going to be friendlier in those situations.

All good. This wasn't directed at you specifically either.

The only person I know who started skiing off piste - I had a coworker a while back who was an ultra marathoner. His first ski run was a tele tour up a 2000' peak in the BC and then down. Not a steep peak but... He said it took him a few hours to get down, much longer than it took him to climb. He stayed on the groomers at the resort for a while after that he said.

 

[LuliTheYounger]

How many beginner skiers are actually jumping off piste? I don’t think I ever see that. They’re not capable of getting down, no matter what skis are under their feet. Who actually sees that? I don’t.

You may see an out of depth intermediate from time to time but their being out of their depth isn’t related to the ski - it’s their skill level.

I think it’s me to whom you refer suggesting beginners would be better to stick to the runs suited to their ability (on skis that will optimise that experience). I 100% stick to that. What good can come of beginners skiing advanced and expert runs? They’ll hate it, no matter the skis under their feet, because it will be beyond their skill level. Like I say, I have no idea what Blister envisages as a beginner skier - it’s not my idea of one that’s for sure.

I think it might be a difference of what we'd call a beginner for sure! I feel like there's a pretty wide range, honestly.

I know people who've skied for years and won't do anything above a green, which I think would reasonably be a beginner.

On the flipside, I have a number of friends who ski west coast single blacks pretty competently, but I would still call them beginners because they've only been on snow 5-10 times. (Most of them self-identify as beginners as well, lol, not just me putting that on them.) A lot of them are coming from mountain sports like climbing, or college level sports. They come in with the mentality and the athleticism to get through a lot of situations, but they're just not super experienced. Most of them do jump little cliffs, ski moguls and powder, etc. Our crew makes do on a lot of different skis – one of these friends skied a full Alta powder day last year on 70mm kids skis – but I think a lot of them can benefit from an upgrade. Just knowing the types of people that tend to hang around the outdoor industry, I kind of suspect that this is the type of "beginner" that Blister reviewers actually interact the most frequently.

 

[BMC]

I think it might be a difference of what we'd call a beginner for sure! I feel like there's a pretty wide range, honestly.

I know people who've skied for years and won't do anything above a green, which I think would reasonably be a beginner.

On the flipside, I have a number of friends who ski west coast single blacks pretty competently, but I would still call them beginners because they've only been on snow 5-10 times. (Most of them self-identify as beginners as well, lol, not just me putting that on them.) A lot of them are coming from mountain sports like climbing, or college level sports. They come in with the mentality and the athleticism to get through a lot of situations, but they're just not super experienced. Most of them do jump little cliffs, ski moguls and powder, etc. Our crew makes do on a lot of different skis – one of these friends skied a full Alta powder day last year on 70mm kids skis – but I think a lot of them can benefit from an upgrade. Just knowing the types of people that tend to hang around the outdoor industry, I kind of suspect that this is the type of "beginner" that Blister reviewers actually interact the most frequently.

Yeah we have a radically different conception of a beginner. I don’t see any beginner is cliff jumping, powder skiing, bump skiing (and to add something from Blister ) tree skiing.

ESF (France) says it’s where you’ve not skied before, progressing to “level 1” (a low intermediate).

https://www.skicollection.co.uk/ski-extra-info/ski-school-levels/

Aspen has “Green zone skiers” (aka beginners) covering the following;

”Green Zone Skier

We recommend lessons
Level 1: “I’ve never skied.”
Level 2: “I can slide, slightly change direction, and come to a stop.” – Green terrain
Level 3: “I can link basic/wedge turns together without stopping on the easiest green terrain. My turns are usually all the same size.” – Green terrain
Level 4: “I am linking turns together smoothly on all green terrain. I can make narrow and wide turns” – All green and easiest blue.”

I’d personally be saying their L4 is a low intermediate, but I won’t quibble here. I think the general demarcation from beginner to low intermediate would be moving to good stem to parallel turns, and skiing blue runs.

Ski & Snowboard School Lessons | Guide | Aspen Snowmass

Enjoy the mountains of Aspen Snowmass more with a Ski & Snowboard School lesson. This guide will help you find the right lesson for your abilities and goals.

www.aspensnowmass.com

I could keep going the world over but nowhere would a beginner be characterised as one jumping cliffs, skiing powder, trees and moguls. There’s lots of ski school affiliated contributors here but until today I e not thought the demarcation is anything other than I’ve broadly observed.

But sure if Blister is targeting their recommendation to a 20 something year old athlete with 15 days on skis who is skiing powder, bumps, trees and Jumping cliffs then they should say so.

Luckily I doubt any but a tiny handful of what would broadly be characterised as beginners are actually reading Blister so I guess no harm no foul.

 

[Tony Storaro]

At the end of the day, skiing is just another sport with a transport as an equipment.

In my mind, carvers and carving is just one aspect of the sport. Though I aspire to be a good carver, I try to suppress my feelings of superiority vs the other disciplines in the sport of skiing or even beginners.

The way I do this is by comparing skiing to bicycling (or to be more grammatically correct, biking or cycling). Bikes are an almost universal transport and probably the most widespread sport with transport as an equipment, so it's a good analogy that everyone could understand.

Here's my analogy for skiing and biking:

Bike - Ski

Bike with training wheels - Wide ski with rocker (Blister recommended), 90cm ski (Sandi Murovec recommended), sub 80mm chin level (resort recommended), etc

Mountain biking - Backcountry skiiing

BMX/X Games biking - Park skiing

Race cyclists (like tour de france) - Cross country skiing

Now what would be the proper biking analogy for carvers? This guy in the white shirt wearing the backpack:

It would be a bizarre day indeed if Mr. Wheelie with the backpack here thought of himself as superior to Tour de France cyclists and BMX/X Games bikers and mountain bikers and beginner bikers in training wheels and weekend warrior dads donning their leotards.

Whenever I have the nagging feeling of superiority vs the great unwashed skidding their way down the mountain, I just think that I, carver, am just the equivalent of the white shirt backpack wheelie guy on the snow.

Your analogy is nice but not entirely correct. The city commuter and Remco Evenepoel need the same set of skills-that is to ride a bicycle in a straight line with as little falling off the bike as possible. Difference between the average road cyclist and the world champion is that the latter pedals MUCH faster. But this is not a difference in skills.
Whereas in skiing the only thing Marco Odermatt and I have in common is that it says Stockli on his skis and mine. Apart from that-different universes.

And the notion of some perceived superiority is also not correct-no such thing. Quite the contrary-I am speaking here about myself of course but I am sure that applies to 100% of people here-during ski season I ski with beginners/low intermediates great amount of time. Why? Because they are family and I am supposed to show them the beauty of the sport and I cant say "screw you, here is your ski, here is the piste, go have fun" because this is not what responsible adults do. What they do is make sure the beginners get better so that they can really enjoy themselves and yeah....get off my back so I can ski and not pizza around behind flailing kids
That's why it pisses me off when I read such stuff that is so far removed from reality it is not even funny.
Good thing is that I live and ski in a country/continent where there is no such thing as 80+ skis in the rentals, kids/beginners are taught properly on proper equipment and 95+ territory is something only good skiers venture into so I really have no problems with the cool kids on fat skis. Around here they are all decent and don't pose threat to themselves or to others. Unlike snowboarders.

 

[James]

The whole carving as a separate thing to skiing is odd. You’re controlling edge angle of the skis. It’s an important skill, even backwards. One can choose to start early with high edge angles and maintain them, or not. It’s skiing.

I just think it’s hilarious that “carving” is presented as Darth Vader and the Storm Troopers, And yet-

A couple of photos in Blister’s Beginner Skis thread.

Hmmm… so maybe it’s important the Rebels train to hold 45 degree bank angles in their rockered X-Wing Fighters.

 

[Tony Storaro]

View attachment 179767

In my dream world all the beginners and actually ALL the people on the mountain would ski like that. That'd be paradise.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

In my dream world all the beginners and actually ALL the people on the mountain would ski like that. That'd be paradise.

What carving in dreams is like


What carving in reality is like

 

[Tony Storaro]

What carving in dreams is like


What carving in reality is like

Yeah. I have watched the first vid hundreds of times. Marcus Caston is one of my heroes. The legend...

The second vid shows the way to the level of the first one. And there are no shortcuts. People there are doing great for their level. Kudos to them.

 

[Rich_Ease_3051]

I know bowling is more of a "thing" in the US but it's exactly the sort of activity where I get frustrated by not being good enough to be consistent but have no interest in investing the time in getting better. See also why my golf career stalled at the driving range.

It's hard for us to understand but there are heaps of skiers interested enough to enjoy the trip occasionally but don't need to do it perfectly.

Our top vertical metres man in Perisher Australia racks up hundreds of thousands of metres and gets top spot, year after year, season after season, with what looks like a powerslide. So it's not just for weekenders.

 

[fatbob]

Unfortunately for those who abjure anything that smacks of a “prescriptive manner” there really isn’t an infinity of different ways to learn to ski well. To pretend that anything goes certainly won’t enable newbies to progress as fast as possible (or maybe even at all) however much of a hassle it may seem for younger people.

I think you are right in that the physics of skiing are pretty simple and if a random person has access to a " by the book" progression then they are, on average, going to reach more advanced levels more quickly.

But the real world interferes quickly. How many newbies going skiing every Saturday or one trip per year get to work through that progression with the same instructor? How many different learning styles are there? How much kool aid is out there from influential people's pet obsessions? Who gets to write the book? Japan, ANZ ( from the admiration of some of their top skiers here) , Austria?

What ski someone is on is only a tiny bit of the range of variables. Let's take it as indisputable that for someone on reasonable condition groomers a mid fat or above is unlikely to be the optimum tool particularly for a learner doing a taught/ supervised progression. Hell the instructor can drag their charges down to their fave rental shop if they wany. Great those who want to condemn Blister for their recklessness can stop there.

But Blister don't seem to be talking about that. They are talking about the many people for whom skiing development is a smorgasbord of stuff from trying to mimic friends, ad hoc tips, the odd formal lesson, some figuring out for themselves, maybe some youtube done in less standardised environments from the manicured bunny hill, greens, easy blues.

We revere the pioneers of the sport as some sorts of demigods for what they developed but deny there is any worth in people trying to do similar themselves in this day and age. Maybe that's the right attitude to take because by being individualistic people are not being efficient in thrir learning journey. But just like this tiny nerdy corner of the internet has little influence on what behemoths like Vail and Alterra do, it has almost no impact on what newbies coming to the sport will do. Peers and family hold almost all the cards there.

 

[fatbob]

Our top vertical metres man in Perisher Australia racks up hundreds of thousands of metres and gets top spot, year after year, season after season, with what looks like a powerslide. So it's not just for weekenders.

Not sure I'd call that a true powerslide rather than averagey intermediate undynamic skiddy turns. But the vid makes another point. They aren't talking about how rad their carves are but how chasing the million is what they get their fun from. Why does anyone need to punch down on them? There is a hell of a skiing population to do that on that you'd just wear yourself out.

 

[BMC]

Not sure I'd call that a true powerslide rather than averagey intermediate undynamic skiddy turns. But the vid makes another point. They aren't talking about how rad their carves are but how chasing the million is what they get their fun from. Why does anyone need to punch down on them? There is a hell of a skiing population to do that on that you'd just wear yourself out.

Normo (in the video) is a pretty well known character in Oz, and a good man. I’ve met him no more than once, but he’s been generous to me as a human being. An impressive person.

 

[Superbman]

Is Reilly a better skier than Candide? Hard to tell… Different skis for different styles. Misconception here is that all beginners have the same background, athleticism and objectives.

Um... Reilly is a really, really great instructor skier...Candide is one of the greatest skiers alive, it's not that hard to tell.

 

[anders_nor]

ref jumping and beginners, I brought my polish friend for offpiste, after he had tried skies. 10 times ish? it was interesting, I said he had to be able to jump across some gaps so skis wouldnt get tips caught. we practice on a small gap, and dude didnt jump as much as he tried to DIVE like in water. it was interesting, tips caught and he did superman that stuff, he got better. we went and shredded 3-4 feet of pow the day after! he was struggeling of course, but really loved it, put him on 184 bibby pros 10cm above his height aprox. now 100+ ski days later he still raves about that trip, and sadly we have not been able to replicate the ammount of snow, and lack of people.


I have a friend of a friend that is a terminal intermediate, that insists on running his bibby pro's with touring bindings for our resort skiiing. I did hook him up with proper SL skis, so its a work in progress, but takes time.

he did actually hit me, when trying to come to a stop on ice, but... bibby pros with soft tune + ice.. = bam. he did get a good talking to about gear (again)

I think a lot of people want to improve, but are to cheap for instructors.

instructors = cheating, its like getting 1-2 years of skiing on your own, into a few days.

 

[BMC]

TBH rather than trying to push gear that’s a crutch to cover a lack of acquired skill* why not encourage readers to acquire those skills?

When I first started skiing they used to have “ski weeks”, where you bought a 5 day lift ticket and for a very discounted additional sum you got 5 x 2 hour group lessons as well, usually with the same instructor. It was pretty inexpensive, a great way to meet new friends, and a great way to develop skills and Impart mountain etiquette. People don’t seem to do it anywhere near as much nowadays. Anyway, my view is that if people just did one of those for their first two years skiing they’d have much of the basic framework to be a great skier. Plus they‘re intrinsically fun. You could probably self teach from there and not go radically wrong. Why not recommend lessons Blinter?


* The notion that beginners haven’t yet acquired ski skills is in no way a criticism - how could a beginner have acquired ski skills Before they started? And I really do challenge the Blister theory that the skis they’re recommending, particularly the very widest ones, are a crutch at all. I think they’d be a handicap for beginners, and frankly have no purpose on the runs where beginners start their ski lives.