Technology, it is said, ceaselessly reinvents and outperforms itself, expanding exponentially like a giant snowball gathering mass and matter as it rolls down a bottomless mountainside.
With every revolution, it seems, there comes an evolution, a technological breakthrough complete with a little light bulb flashing overhead to illuminate the next horizon.
Never has that reality been more evident in the world of skiing and snowboarding than right now. Centuries after the invention of these seemingly rudimentary snow sliding sticks, they have been reinvented for the winter of 2009-10 to establish one of those “ah-ha” moments that industry experts regard as a game-changing breakthrough.
“I get to ski test everything, and this technology makes us all better skiers,” said Allen Nolting, merchandising manager for Specialty Sports, one of the largest ski and snowboard retailers in the state. “The confidence it gives you, especially in the powder, is unbelievable. It really is going to change the game of skiing.”
The specific technology Nolting refers to is presented in the form of “camber” and “rocker.” Neither concept is entirely new to modern ski shapes, although their applications have never come under such universal scrutiny. And it is only recently that the two seemingly opposite principles have been combined with such success.
For years, conventional skis (and snowboards) have been built around the concept of camber. Camber is the slight upward bend traditionally found between the tip and tail of a ski, a curve that reaches its apex beneath the ski binding, most obvious when a pair of ski bases is pressed together.
The notion behind the bend is that a skier (or rider) will push down on it and flatten the ski into the appropriate shape when it’s placed on edge to turn. The flex works in conjunction with the edge shape to grip and carve the snow, even offering some spring as the ski rebounds between turns.
Time for technology
Rocker is a newer idea, only recently making inroads in ski and snowboard manufacturing. Also known as reverse camber, early rise or “splay,” rocker introduces a gradual upward bend to the end of a ski that increases floatation in deeper snow and effectively shortens the ski’s edge contact on hardpack snow.
Radical ski designs like the Volant Spatula and, more recently, the K2 Pontoon made use of rocker and found favor among backcountry and big mountain powderhounds, but were considered limited in their application because of poor performance on the groomed snow found at most ski resorts.
Then technology did its thing.
Last winter, French ski manufacturer Rossignol managed to create a ski that combines traditional camber underfoot with rocker in the tip and tail. The resulting Rossignol S7 ski has been the 100-year-old company’s fastest seller since.
“Essentially, when we work on a ski, we want something that feels kind of like a boat, that floats up in the powder. That’s why we introduced the rocker. But by doing that, you make a ski that’s only good for one thing. So we added the camber,” said Kurt Hoefler, Rossignol’s alpine division manager. “There are a lot of guys out there with rocker, but we’re the only manufacturer doing this. I think there’s a big difference. You gain all the things that rocker is good for in the powder and crud, but the camber allows you to ski a lot of different kinds of terrain with it, including hardpack. There’s a lot of versatility.”
Rossignol sold out of the S7 shortly after introducing it to the U.S. market last fall and, despite expanding the line, is already facing a similar shortage in popular sizes as the buzz continues to grow this season.
The progressive shape takes the emphasis away from ski width and finds floatation in a return to longer skis (Hoefler recommends increasing your ski size by as much as 10cm in the S7) that remain easy to turn because of the decrease in edge contact.
Jumping on board
Not everyone is sold on the idea. Pete Wagner, owner of Wagner Custom Skis in Telluride, gets requests for rocker-tipped skis from some younger clients. Girth remains a much more popular request than rocker among the older set.
“It all depends on who the skier is and where they’re riding,” Wagner said. “There are certainly benefits, but we try to be practical, not just say, ‘This is the answer.’ “
Meanwhile, other manufacturers are jumping on board, incorporating rocker into several new ski designs without the benefits of traditional camber. Many, including K2 and Volkl, combine an early rise tip with an otherwise flat, or zero camber, base underfoot.
“You’re probably going to see that trend just about across the board in a lot of ski lines,” said Nolting, whose Colorado Ski & Golf inventory already includes some 30 styles of rockered skis and snowboards.
“I’ve been privy to see lines from 2011, ’12 and even ’13, and what you’re going to see is even the recreational ski that isn’t a (fat) powder tool is going to have some kind of rocker. What they are finding is that the turn initiation on even a traditional all-mountain ski with just a little bit of fore-body rocker is allowing that ski to turn and not catch edges as much, so your detuning and things like that are almost a thing of the past with some of the new things that are coming on line.”
This article has been clarified in this online archive to denote Volant as the maker of the Spatula and K2 as maker of the Pontoon.
