Question: How do people get over the fear of going fast?

[altagirl]

+1

Just last year I took a lesson in Aspen where something was said that really resonated with me: "Roll your ankle into a new turn rather than trying to force the turn around every time.." *ding ding ding.. light bulb over my head* Are you kidding me?? I'd been skiing for 7 years and had taken a few lessons here and there and even 1 clinic, and had not ever had anyone tell me I'm supposed to do this, sure I must have been doing it to some extent to be skiing, but boy did this open my eyes. As a matter of fact I felt incredibly stupid for being so ignorant to this fact since it seems so fundamental to skiing in general! I was always so focused on either my toes (before my boots fit correctly and it was pain or slop) or my shins/knees, never my ankles. This made such a huge difference for me in how I interpret my movements and skiing as this stuff just doesn't come naturally to me like it does to say my DH who can pick things up really quickly and work out a lot of things for himself in his head.

I had a similar breakthrough mountain biking. I finally had someone make me put a lot more weight onto my front tire while cornering, especially on steep switchbacks. To me, this was completely counter-intuitive and kind of terrifying (and was to every person in the lesson group, not just me). We'd all had "If it's steep, get your weight back so you don't go over the bars!" drilled into our consciousness after our first endo. But obviously, this weighting the front tire thing gives you better traction and makes it easier to to faster with more stability and totally revolutionizes your riding. I was so excited to share it with my husband and he said: "You needed someone to tell you that? It's basic PHYSICS".

Well, whatever.

It's kind of like when you're trying to help someone who is on a ski traverse and is leaning too far into the hill for security and it's making them less secure because their weight isn't over the ski edge to give it more grip. Yeah, yeah, there's some "BASIC PHYSICS" going on there, but it's pretty unlikely that's what's going through the average person's head when they are afraid of falling off the edge of an exposed traverse - most people want to grab on to/lean into the wall of snow uphill because it gives the illusion of safety. If you've had the concept explained and practiced it in a safe situation, you can remember it when you need it.

But if you're just out trying to follow other people, some of the things they are doing aren't obvious/visible or just don't seem important. How would you see what someone's foot/ankle is doing in a ski boot? Or grasp what percentage of their body weight they are trying to use fore and aft? If you're an instructor and know to look for the subtle cues, and then you can hopefully see what they are doing, but I just think very few people have the ability to notice stuff like that on their own.

 

[bounceswoosh]

I respectfully disagree; skis shouldn't ever be flat in the fall line when you're racing gs or slalom or simply turning--that's where there should be at MAX edge angle. Downhill racers have flat skis and you have a flat ski in a tuck, but when turning, the ski is only flat during the glide phase of transition.

Unless you're smearing. Also, when skiing in trees, especially those fun gullies with a well-established route, you can use a variety of tricks related to falling leaf drills to scrub speed and avoid using edges. I'll admit this is way off topic for the original question, and isn't the first skill people need to learn, but skiing is as skiing does - sometimes edges are the last thing you want.

 

[snow addict]

I think some of you are talking past each other ...

This is fastest, no edges (and no turning) involved at all, fall line only. People shouldn't really ski that way, though.

Sure, a World Cup downhiller carving big turns down a blue groomer will travel (and arrive at the bottom) faster than a beginner wedging straight down with no wax on his skis, but that's a ton of variables at play.

I wonder if you could ski, on edge, down a spiral, like a corkscrew, that was measured exactly to the sidecut of your skis ... keep it on edge, and would you travel faster than you would tucking straight down on the bases. Probably? (English major, never took a physics class...)

It's complex, simplified version would be imagining a slope with a constant angle and see if you can get to the bottom faster on bases (i.e. Straight down) or in curved trajectory. It's not even counter-intuitive. No curvature ever will let you exceed your own speed limit, and this is what you basically need for a curved trajectory to be faster than a straight line for any given acceleration. And this is what edging is doing - shaping up the trajectory so that the speed is under control. A skier can be going very fast but never faster at least in our Universe than he would be going if pointing straight down.

 

[Skisailor]

omg this is turning into epicski!

j/k, carry on.

LOL! I know! Eeeek . . .

Hopefully, no thread locking will ever occur here though. Ok . . . I'm done with geeking out . . .

 

[tinymoose]

All I know is I will always be slow due to lack of mass, unless you tie weights around my waist. *gavel* Final answer.

 

[altagirl]

I think some of you are talking past each other ...

This is fastest, no edges (and no turning) involved at all, fall line only. People shouldn't really ski that way, though.

Sure, a World Cup downhiller carving big turns down a blue groomer will travel (and arrive at the bottom) faster than a beginner wedging straight down with no wax on his skis, but that's a ton of variables at play.

I wonder if you could ski, on edge, down a spiral, like a corkscrew, that was measured exactly to the sidecut of your skis ... keep it on edge, and would you travel faster than you would tucking straight down on the bases. Probably? (English major, never took a physics class...)

It's complex, simplified version would be imagining a slope with a constant angle and see if you can get to the bottom faster on bases (i.e. Straight down) or in curved trajectory. It's not even counter-intuitive. No curvature ever will let you exceed your own speed limit, and this is what you basically need for a curved trajectory to be faster than a straight line for any given acceleration. And this is what edging is doing - shaping up the trajectory so that the speed is under control. A skier can be going very fast but never faster at least in our Universe than he would be going if pointing straight down.

This only makes sense except for factoring in friction. If the speed of the ski on edge is significantly faster than the speed of the ski on it's flat surface (where there is a lot more ski in contact with the ground to add friction), it could be enough to make up the difference in distance covered with turns. That's basically what I'm saying. I can also attest that if I'm traversing along a flat, if I just edge my skis side to side (not skating, which would require muscular effort) but just keeping them on edge in long lazy curves rather than on the flat surface, I speed up and catch up to people on a flat ski, and if I'm on the flat of the ski, I slow back down. I think this is because A: I have very little sidecut on my skis and B: when my big old powder skis are flat, there is more surface area with friction to slow me down (and my skis are rarely waxed ideally).

If you are doing the same experiment with a ski with a lot of sidecut, the result is probably different because you'd be turning enough to make up the difference (i.e. covering more ground so even if a little faster in ground speed, it's not fast enough to get from point A to point B faster.) And I think that's why in speed skiing, it's a combination of super well prepared bases and needing optimal body position for stability, which overtakes the advantage of being on edge.

Edited to add that the camber of the ski probably has a lot to do with it too - if you're on a flat ski you're not getting the energy from the ski's camber that you would if you're carving turns either....

 

[SkiBam]

Unless you're smearing. Also, when skiing in trees, especially those fun gullies with a well-established route, you can use a variety of tricks related to falling leaf drills to scrub speed and avoid using edges. I'll admit this is way off topic for the original question, and isn't the first skill people need to learn, but skiing is as skiing does - sometimes edges are the last thing you want.

Absolutely. We don't always want to be carving. For fun I looked at the Epic thread on this topic (well, a bit of it - it went on for pages and pages and pages). Wish I was out on the snow rather than just talking about this stuff - but, yikes, with the freezing rain, rain and now a freezeup, one would just go at warp speed no matter what one did! (Could likely sideslip down as fast as going straight - ha ha)

 

[bounceswoosh]

I can also attest that if I'm traversing along a flat, if I just edge my skis side to side (not skating, which would require muscular effort) but just keeping them on edge in long lazy curves rather than on the flat surface, I speed up and catch up to people on a flat ski, and if I'm on the flat of the ski, I slow back down. I think this is because A: I have very little sidecut on my skis and B: when my big old powder skis are flat, there is more surface area with friction to slow me down (and my skis are rarely waxed ideally).

I would add that this works for you because you have good edge control / carving skills. If you're inadvertently skidding your tails when you think you're edging, you might think "gee, edging on traverses only slows me down!" .. I haven't tried this, but I bet that if I did, I'd find myself slowing down, at least until I improved my discipline. Hmm. New drill to work on!

 

[bounceswoosh]

omg this is turning into epicski!

j/k, carry on.

I like seeing some technical discussions here to counterbalance the jacket threads. It's a good thing that we have a lot of women with strong technical knowledge of skiing!

 

[Skisailor]

I can also attest that if I'm traversing along a flat, if I just edge my skis side to side (not skating, which would require muscular effort) but just keeping them on edge in long lazy curves rather than on the flat surface, I speed up and catch up to people on a flat ski, and if I'm on the flat of the ski, I slow back down.

I'll echo this as well - just as SkiBam posted earlier. This happens to me all the time, and I can often catch people who are bigger and heavier on flat cattracks by riding edge to edge instead of skiing on the flats of my skis. So to the OP, the whole reason for drifting off into this crazy skiing tech-talk world was to raise the topic of how using your edges vs. the flats of your skis might contribute to your overall speed. And it was all in response to Vanhoskier's excellent observation that you were skiing alot on the flats of your skis in that first video.

 

[Skisailor]

Any turns will be slowing you down, no matter how you turn.

You're not being a pain! This is fun. Couldn't help myself. I think maybe where the disconnect is happening is that you seem to be talking velocity and I am talking speed. Velocity is the combination of speed plus direction. So yes, someone carving high speed turns might take longer to reach the bottom of the run as a result of having skied a longer course than the person going straight down. But that doesn't mean that the skilled skier who is carving a pure turn and staying on their edges isn't moving faster over the snow along their track than someone riding straight down on the flats of the skis. That's the pure physics part. The edges have less surface area and hence lower friction. That's the "acceleration" that SkiBam spoke of in an earlier post.

I think we agree (we've both stated in this thread) that speed control when carving occurs through turn shape (i.e. turning the skis across the fall line or even pointing them up hill a bit!) It HAS to happen through turn shape when carving. Cause edging in that way is really really fast.

 

[pinto]

...And I think that's why in speed skiing, it's a combination of super well prepared bases and needing optimal body position for stability, which overtakes the advantage of being on edge....

But if that were true, wouldn't you see super well prepared bases, optimal body position, AND being on edge when someone was attempting to beat the world record? (They should try that stuff on ice skates, real honest-to-goodness ice skates.)

There is something about gravity in here...

 

[Skisailor]

But if that were true, wouldn't you see super well prepared bases, optimal body position, AND being on edge when someone was attempting to beat the world record? (They should try that stuff on ice skates, real honest-to-goodness ice skates.)

There is something about gravity in here...

Yeah . . I was thinking about that too. I wonder if a skier could balance on a ski with a straight triangular "edge" down the middle of the bottom of the ski, whether that would be faster than the flat bases. But clearly, we also have to take the snow surface into account. Because we are dealing with a softer surface (snow) rather than something hard like ice, whatever the speed skier is balancing on needs enough surface area to bear his or her weight without sinking into the surface too far thereby increasing friction in a different way.

But, LOL, that's way above my paygrade . . .

 

[snow addict]

This only makes sense except for factoring in friction. If the speed of the ski on edge is significantly faster than the speed of the ski on it's flat surface (where there is a lot more ski in contact with the ground to add friction), it could be enough to make up the difference in distance covered with turns. That's basically what I'm saying. I can also attest that if I'm traversing along a flat, if I just edge my skis side to side (not skating, which would require muscular effort) but just keeping them on edge in long lazy curves rather than on the flat surface, I speed up and catch up to people on a flat ski, and if I'm on the flat of the ski, I slow back down. I think this is because A: I have very little sidecut on my skis and B: when my big old powder skis are flat, there is more surface area with friction to slow me down (and my skis are rarely waxed ideally).

If you are doing the same experiment with a ski with a lot of sidecut, the result is probably different because you'd be turning enough to make up the difference (i.e. covering more ground so even if a little faster in ground speed, it's not fast enough to get from point A to point B faster.) And I think that's why in speed skiing, it's a combination of super well prepared bases and needing optimal body position for stability, which overtakes the advantage of being on edge.

Edited to add that the camber of the ski probably has a lot to do with it too - if you're on a flat ski you're not getting the energy from the ski's camber that you would if you're carving turns either....

You are not getting any faster. Friction plays little role otherwise we wouldn't need to learn turning, just point skis down then wait when friction slows us down. Carving actually generates friction forces too. Just because you can overtake other skiers doesn't mean you are going in a carve faster than you would be going in straight line. Without any additional force applied to you in the direction of your travel you can only go slower, not faster. It will be the same regardless of the skis you are on. If you good generate higher speeds by carving why everyone is skiing straight before the speed guns? Surely a carve or two would help with a better result. The truth is it won't.

 

[Pequenita]

All I know is I will always be slow due to lack of mass, unless you tie weights around my waist. *gavel* Final answer.

Don't sell yourself short. I pass people all the time on cat tracks.

 

[Skisailor]

Don't sell yourself short. I pass people all the time on cat tracks.

Bet you are doing a better job of staying on your edges.

 

[Pequenita]

Bet you are doing a better job of staying on your edges.

Stiff skis, too. I remember skiing with RachelV when she was on soft skis, and I kept zipping by her on the flats (because she had zipped by me on the more technical stuff).

 

[pinto]

Wax plays a huge role in speed on the flats ...

 

[snow addict]

You're not being a pain! This is fun. Couldn't help myself. I think maybe where the disconnect is happening is that you seem to be talking velocity and I am talking speed. Velocity is the combination of speed plus direction. So yes, someone carving high speed turns might take longer to reach the bottom of the run as a result of having skied a longer course than the person going straight down. But that doesn't mean that the skilled skier who is carving a pure turn and staying on their edges isn't moving faster over the snow along their track than someone riding straight down on the flats of the skis. That's the pure physics part. The edges have less surface area and hence lower friction. That's the "acceleration" that SkiBam spoke of in an earlier post.

I think we agree (we've both stated in this thread) that speed control when carving occurs through turn shape (i.e. turning the skis across the fall line or even pointing them up hill a bit!) It HAS to happen through turn shape when carving. Cause edging in that way is really really fast.

But this is what the speed control means - the ability to slow down, you are bleeding speed by turning, no matter which method you will be using. Slower or quicker - you are still slowing yourself down. You won't go faster than your original acceleration will allow. No matter how "perfect" the carve is.

 

[Skisailor]

Snow addict . . I think Pinto nailed it when she said we are talking past each other. If you'll go back to my original post you'll see that my whole point had to do with "when turning" - since that was more relevant to the original poster's question and video, and Vanhoskier's analysis of that first video. The concept I was putting forth was that turning by carving on your edges is faster than turning by pivoting on the flats of your skis.

Here were the first two sentences I wrote from my first post:

"Edging definitely does provide control, but the only speed control while carving comes through turn shape. Turning by staying on your edges is always faster than turning on the flats of the skis. Turning on the flats provides more friction and friction is slow."

I thought the whole "is carving faster than straightlining" part of the discussion was a fun sideshow . . . but not really relevant to my original point.