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Ripstick 96 Green and Black

Jim McDonald

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FWIW, Blister measures all test skis the same way -- straight pull from tip to tail.
There seems to be little consistency among makers in how they measure their skis.
As @Philpug so often says, don't get caught up in numbers...
 

Fleece82

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Thanks. This is so strange in that measurements seem to be all of the place. @Chubb also has 180's and his measure ~177. Another guy on tetongravity forum has his 180's measure 177.6 cm.
I agree. But with your height and weight, I would def go 188. Unless you truly want a shorter ski. But these are very intuitive, easy to ski, and extremely light. So the 188 shouldn't be an issue!
 

justaute

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I agree. But with your height and weight, I would def go 188. Unless you truly want a shorter ski. But these are very intuitive, easy to ski, and extremely light. So the 188 shouldn't be an issue!
Agreed. That's the direction I'm going. I actually contacted Elan USA, which told me that the 2022 versions will be closer to their stated length.
 

justaute

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Thought y'all would find this interesting. Decided to order a pair of 188. For the first two photos I used 10 cm mark on the tape as the starting point to get a more precise measurement.

Photo 1: straight-pull measurement from tip to tip. Given the rockers' curvature, there's obviously a gap between the tape and the top sheet when using this method.

Photo 2: measured along the top sheet by following the contour of the ski.

Photo 3: similar to Photo 2, but measured on the base side.

PXL_20210409_212033034~2.jpg
PXL_20210409_212120156~2.jpg
PXL_20210409_214315717~2.jpg
 
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justaute

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^^ Now we know what happened to the guy who messed up the NASA Mars mission; he works at Elan.;)

How long is the ski?
185 cm.
OK, then divide by 2 and a half and it's 74 inches.
How long is the ski?
74 inches.
Well 74 inches times 2.54 cm/inch is 188 cm. Mark it!

LOL...the sad part is that those measurement inconsistencies seem to be wildly inconsistent. FWIW, my Nordica 186 measures ~186 along the top-sheet. Do Austrians measure better than Slovenians? :)
 

François Pugh

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LOL...the sad part is that those measurement inconsistencies seem to be wildly inconsistent. FWIW, my Nordica 186 measures ~186 along the top-sheet. Do Austrians measure better than Slovenians? :)
I've caught myself making the same type of error going from mph to kph, when converting in my head half-hypnotized by the road on long drives. Canada switched over to metric after I got my license and was quite familiar with miles. Speed limit was 80 kph,...that's 50 mph, 50 is 80 is 130. These days that kind of foggy thinking could get me a $10,000 speeding ticket, a suspended license and an impounded car for a week.:geek: Decades ago I might have gotten the ticket reduced to no points.
 

Tony S

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Apparently no one is entertaining the much more likely possibility that the engineers did their work perfectly and then the marketers changed the "size" of the ski after the fact.
 

justaute

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I've caught myself making the same type of error going from mph to kph, when converting in my head half-hypnotized by the road on long drives. Canada switched over to metric after I got my license and was quite familiar with miles. Speed limit was 80 kph,...that's 50 mph, 50 is 80 is 130. These days that kind of foggy thinking could get me a $10,000 speeding ticket, a suspended license and an impounded car for a week.:geek: Decades ago I might have gotten the ticket reduced to no points.

That's understandable.

Although I do not know Elan's hand-made construction process for the Ripstick, I would imagine it should have certain standard/processes/mold. If the inconsistency is well, relatively consistent, then I get it; however, based on what I've read thus far regarding the various Ripstick measurements, I'm not so sure. And, the standard of deviation of the inconsistency seems quite high (very small sample size).
 

justaute

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Apparently no one is entertaining the much more likely possibility that the engineers did their work perfectly and then the marketers changed the "size" of the ski after the fact.

Certainly possible. I wouldn't venture to speculate the reason in that there's really no point. I just find the inconsistency quite odd.
 

Larry

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Certainly possible. I wouldn't venture to speculate the reason in that there's really no point. I just find the inconsistency quite odd.
Yep, my 174 is really a 173.
So is the
188 really 185
180 really 178
174 really 173
 

justaute

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Yep, my 174 is really a 173.
So is the
188 really 185
180 really 178
174 really 173

Based on my sample size of one, pretty much. I measured again. Straight-pull (tip2tip) is just over 184 cm. Top-sheet contour measurement is ~185 cm. Also comparing to my K2 Mindbender 90Ti in 184, which measures ~183 tip2tip, Ripstick is about 1 cm long.
 
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Tom K.

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^^ Now we know what happened to the guy who messed up the NASA Mars mission; he works at Elan.;)

How long is the ski?
185 cm.
OK, then divide by 2 and a half and it's 74 inches.
How long is the ski?
74 inches.
Well 74 inches times 2.54 cm/inch is 188 cm. Mark it!

Or, as Adam Baldwin put it so eloquently as Jayne on Firefly:

"Ten percent of nothing is—let me do the math here. Nothing into nothin’. Carry the nothin’…still nothin'!"
 

tazdevl

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FYI ski essentials has 2022 96 and 106 172cm Blacks in stock. Just ordered the 172cm 106 for deeper days. Waiting for the 164cm 96 and 2022 Attack 14 GWs to finish up the quiver. Think the white bindings will actually look good on this ski and make it a little easier to pick out on a rack.
 
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