Testing & Selecting Skis for Racing
When we run on-snow demos, or work with our customers testing skis on snow, we find that most of the feedback we get is focused on the handling characteristics of the skis. People will come back from testing and talk about characteristics like stability, cornering, and edging. They might also talk about the climbing characteristics, or the smoothness or liveliness of the ski. It’s relatively rare that somebody talks about speed when they’re trying skis at a demo, and when we do get feedback on speed it’s often inconsistent. Different skiers identify different skis as being “fast”.
This is in stark contrast with the kind of experience we have testing with high-level racers – people on the Nor Am or World Cup circuit. These folks are all about speed, and the process of testing skis is one of reaching consensus on which skis feel fastest. A lot of times this focus on speed is really a focus on drag – the coefficient of friction – particularly at low speeds where sensitivity is pretty high. Sometimes the subject of stability or handling characteristics comes up with elite racers, but usually it’s something that the racer is willing to sacrifice in order to go on the ski that has been deemed “fastest”.
All of this raises some questions. It’s logical that more accomplished skiers would require less stability than the average citizen skier, but is it really an either-or? Are citizen skiers prone to overemphasizing stability? Are elite racers prone to overemphasizing speed? I’m pretty sure that the answer to both questions is yes, but I’m equally sure that the citizen mindset yields more successful decision-making most often. My feeling is that racers often focus too much on eliminating sensations of drag, and lose sight of the task they face in producing speed.
To understand this, it’s important to have a clear vision of the goal. What we are after is optimal average speed. Climbs, corners, downhills, and everything in between determine the time it takes to ski the course. It’s also a matter of physical capacity and effort; skis that help to get the best and most complete effort out of the racer will produce high average speed. When we focus only on eliminating friction, it’s easy to lose track of the concept of traction. Anybody who’s raced mountain bikes will recognize this trade-off. Do you go on really fast-rolling minimalist-tread tires, or do you go on something knobby and burly that’ll allow you to stay upright on corners and ride with more confidence?
When you think about it, the speed vs grip question is one that we face every time we go classic skiing. In a race setting there is almost always a choice between adding some wax for additional grip and keeping it thin for better speed. In classic race settings we tend to see kick prioritized more often than not, while the same skiers will go for fast and unstable skis in skate races. It’s a bit inconsistent and illogical, really.
To be fair, there are enough individual exceptions among both citizen racers and elite racers to make the generalization highly questionable. You may identify with both points of view in your own experience (I know that I do). But it’s useful to think in these terms as we examine the task of selecting skis. Whether you’re a self-supported citizen racer or a World Cup Red Group skier, accountability for your ski choices is yours. So let’s discuss some strategies for becoming a better asset to yourself as you select skis to build your fleet, and choose skis from your fleet for races.
Goal – Know your skis
To make the right decisions about which skis to use, it’s important to know your skis. Most of our customers want simple instruction about when to use which skis, and we do our best to identify optimal ranges and select appropriate grinds for different skis. But this doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about the way the skis will perform on snow. Getting to know your skis means getting to know the differences between your skis, and it involves dispensing with the assumption that you can select your skis based only on temperature or snow-type.
Process – Learn your skis
To learn your skis the process is simple. Ski on them! But more importantly, take out more than one pair each time you go skiing, and compare them. Comparing the way they feel on the snow is an important first step, but the best testing comes when you can select a short loop and compare lap times. As soon as you start this process you’ll be learning about more than just your skis. You’re learning about yourself, and conditions, and the lap you’ve selected as well. There are a lot of variables in-play, and it sounds daunting to try to keep track of everything. My suggestion is to do this frequently and not to put too much stock in any one session. But in time the picture will come into focus, and you’ll be accruing truly useful information.
Goal – Know Yourself
Maybe the biggest difference in the populations that we’ve identified boils down to confidence. Citizen skiers may under-rate their skill, and therefor emphasize ease of handling in their ski evaluation. But even more likely than that, elite racers may under-estimate the challenge of producing speed and rely too strongly on their personal mastery of the technical challenge when they select speed at all cost. The factors you consider when you select skis probably reflect your opinion of your ability as much as anything else. So what if we dispense with your opinion, and actually set-about learning what factors contribute the most to your success?
Process – Learn Yourself
To learn about yourself, it’s a good idea to pay attention to your average speed. This is as simple a task as picking a loop and timing yourself. Switch skis, and do it again. Do it often, and keep in mind that while you’re testing skis, you’re also testing yourself. Pay attention to which skis provide which kinds of qualities – stability, control, speed; come up with your own definitions. But most importantly, observe how you respond to these factors. It’s nearly impossible to conduct a truly scientific test, and even if you diligently record heart rates and lactate scores, you can’t control the experiment. Instead, I recommend doing this kind of testing with just a wrist watch, and doing it often enough that the signal emerges. You will find your opinions and priorities evolving as you pay attention to the process, without ever putting too much stock in any single test result. In time, you will learn about yourself simply by putting your skiing on the clock and comparing efforts.
Goal – Know Your Task
One of the most important aspects of selecting skis is understanding what qualities need to be prioritized for a given event. A good example came up at World Championships in Falun, where the classic courses involved a lot of fairly flat striding and gradual downhill terrain, followed by Mordarbakken – “Murder Hill” – a long and intimidatingly steep climb. It was really easy to go out and slog up Mordarbakken in training and come to the conclusion that it would be absolutely necessary to have perfect kick. And yet, as the racing got underway it became very clear that fast skis were much more important than good kick. Anybody who had to work hard for the early “easy” terrain was out of the running. Developing a good sense of the most critical performance factors for a given course isn’t as easy as it sounds, since our impressions are so easily steered by confidence and initial emotional response.
One of the most important factors to consider when you assess your task is the event format. There are really big differences between individual start races and mass-start races. When you’re skiing on your own it’s clear that whatever solution produces the highest average speed and the shortest lap time will be the best. But in mass-start events the decisions become more tactical and the race can be decided by differences in ski performance in places that you might not anticipate.
Process – Learn your task
To learn the task, I think it’s a good idea to set-up informal tests to challenge your assumptions. Review a short section of course with some distinct challenges, and make a guess about which ski characteristics will be most important. And then try some different set-ups to test your hypothesis. Weigh the importance of the obvious course features (big climbs, stability challenges, long glide-outs, etc) against the reality of average speed in the lap.
It can be really helpful to ski some laps with friends or teammates so that you get a sense of the comparative differences between skis. If you’ve got bad climbing skis, but great glide – can you hang on the climb, and create a gap on the descent? Is the cost of your weakness sufficiently compensated by the benefit of your strength?