liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I am curious about dampness in a ski. I understand that damp skis are skis which lessen the vibration from the snow. I suppose they have some dampening essence built into them.
I just bought a pair of skis which are like night and day when compared to my old skis. The old skis always bumped around, revealing every lump and bumplette in the snow. When I was moving very very fast I worried that they might easily get deflected and send me sliding into the trees if I wasn't awake to every upcoming underfoot event. But the new ones, well, they just barrel through anything, and I have total confidence in them; I never feel anything from the little perterbations in the snow underfoot. I can tell that these skis will continue their path just where I point them, no matter what, and this leaves me very confident at high speeds. I think the word "damp" describes this quality.
Usually, when a ski is really good at doing one thing, something else suffers. For instance, skis that are built wide to float on powder won't do well in a slalom course.
So I have two questions about damp skis:
1. How do ski manufacturers build dampness into the skis? Is it the longitudinal and/or torsional stiffness alone? Or are there little shock absorbers in there somewhere?
2. What's lost in a ski that is very damp? What won't it do that it would do better if it were not so damp?
I just bought a pair of skis which are like night and day when compared to my old skis. The old skis always bumped around, revealing every lump and bumplette in the snow. When I was moving very very fast I worried that they might easily get deflected and send me sliding into the trees if I wasn't awake to every upcoming underfoot event. But the new ones, well, they just barrel through anything, and I have total confidence in them; I never feel anything from the little perterbations in the snow underfoot. I can tell that these skis will continue their path just where I point them, no matter what, and this leaves me very confident at high speeds. I think the word "damp" describes this quality.
Usually, when a ski is really good at doing one thing, something else suffers. For instance, skis that are built wide to float on powder won't do well in a slalom course.
So I have two questions about damp skis:
1. How do ski manufacturers build dampness into the skis? Is it the longitudinal and/or torsional stiffness alone? Or are there little shock absorbers in there somewhere?
2. What's lost in a ski that is very damp? What won't it do that it would do better if it were not so damp?
