The concepts of ski construction may seem overwhelming, and many folks may be hesitant to get a glimpse into how the sausage is made. The bottom line, however, is that most ski constructions follow similar basic building practices, no matter who is making the ski. We’ve consulted with iconic skier Glen Plake to help flush out the ingredients of your skis through words, bullet points and diagrams, as well as imagery captured in the Elan ski factory in Slovenia. This is Gear Made Clear: Skis.

What’s the most important thing to keep in mind when purchasing new skis?



First and foremost is what are you going to use them for? In today’s world we have so many skis out there, you need to know what their purpose is and obviously you know certain skis are designed to do one thing and others are designed to do another.

That’s the hardest thing for people is to decide what they are trying to buy. If you’re looking to buy that pair of fat skis with rocker for skiing powder, so be it, versus buying a nice pair of carving skis to rip around on groomers. Customers need to look at their day-to-day skiing goals. Are they buying a pair of skis they’re going to ski on a vacation? Or regularly at their local ski area? Are they slowly but surely building a quiver, so to speak, over a series of years? There are lots of different ways to decide what skis you need or want.

Once you get into the actual style of ski that you’re trying to buy, then consumers need to get into the details; now we’re talking about length, specific sidecuts, specific rocker profile, specific construction materials, all of the things that make skis unique from one another.

It really is important to do your homework, do your research, go to some demo days and find out what kind of ski you want. Maybe you’ve got two or three pairs of fat skis and you’re like, “you know what, I see my buddies ripping around the groomers and it sure looks fun, so I’m going to go ahead and buy a damn pair of groomer skis.”

Why would you go ski something that’s the same as what you’re already on? Make sure when you go to a demo day you go ski on something that you don’t necessarily want to ski on or have ever skied on. You’ve got to pry people open to try something different. I just want you to try something different. People often miss an opportunity there. Go take advantage of the demo days, don’t just walk into a store looking for a new pair of skis.

The main point is each ski is unique and each ski is different from a category standpoint. A DPS ski is going to be a completely different ski than an Elan Ripstick, even if they’re both in the same category, they’re all completely different skis. Not only is the category very diverse but even the execution of that category is very diverse, and I think people need to take advantage of those demo days so they can get the right ski.

Rocker & Camber Profiles

TRADITIONAL CAMBER has a slight upward curve in its shape, which allows the ski to make full edge contact with the snow when the skier puts pressure on the ski and initiates a turn. These planks are meant to provide incredible power in and out of a turn.

REVERSE CAMBER, also known as rocker or early rise, is the opposite of traditional camber. Reverse camber profiles are less interested in edge contact and more focused on allowing the skier to pivot, smear and, in general, surf the mountain. Early rise in the tips and tails enable easier turn initiation in deep snow.

HYBRID means the combination of early rise in the tip and/or tail with traditional camber underfoot. This profile is wildly popular as it provides the playful, maneuverable and float characteristics of reverse camber, with the power and edge contact of traditional camber.



The profile is what the ski looks like if you’re sitting it on a table and looking at it from the same angle as the table. Profiles are not only about personal choice, but also engineer’s and manufacturer’s choice. The coolest thing about these new modern skis is the variation in that profile, that’s what’s really changed, whether you’ve got early rise, double camber or combination skis, again more like an Amphibio, those are all profile modifications and to me it’s cool, because it really comes down to the shaper, the guy that decided that this is what’s going to happen, this is what I want to have happen.

Gear Spotlight:

Elan Ripstick 96 The Ripstick 96 boasts all of the versatility, power and performance you seek without any of the extra weight. Elan employs its Amphibio profile–traditional camber on the inside edge with a rockered outer edge–in the Ripstick series, allowing for precise entry and quick exits in and out of your turns. This ski is built with a mix of paulownia, beech and poplar wood, along with carbon tubes running from tip to tail, all resulting in a strong, chatter-free, responsive ride without any bulk. Whether you’re crushing resort terrain or journeying off-piste, the Ripstick 96 will keep you floating through a few inches of snow swiftly and ripping down corduroy with smooth stability. This charging ski will take you anywhere you want to go, and give you the best ride along the way.

Buy now — $800



Torsional Rigidity

Defined as the amount of resistance a ski has to twisting. A ski with the right amount of torsional stiffness can hold up to even the most aggressive skiing, helping to boost power and edge control.



I think we all agree that torsional stiffness is something that we want, but at the same time, because of rocker technology or something like Elan’s Amphibio profile, speaking from a brand standpoint, we’ve realized that there is some advantage to having torsion-less tips and tails that allow the ski to do some really nice things in the transition between turns.

Flex

In general, a ski’s flex can be stiff, soft or somewhere in between. Stiffer skis are generally relied upon for on-piste skiing where carving is the main goal. Those who need a more forgiving construction when high-tailing it through moguls and other off-piste obstacles covet softer skis. Many skis employ a flex somewhere in the middle of the spectrum for better versatility.



Flex is something that we all talk about, but what does it really mean? Obviously, carving skis designed to ski fast are typically stiffer skis, they tend to take more input and be less forgiving. At the same time, the old adage of a soft ski not being a good ski, that has been proven wrong. Especially in recent years, softer skis can in fact have wonderful performance.

We all flex our skis and bend on the tails and it’s all supposed to mean something, but to be honest most people don’t know what they’re trying to flex or what that flex test is for. You might as well smell the ski, we used to do that as a joke, you smell the ski and go, “yeah, smells like a great pair of skis.”

Sidewall Construction





A. CAP

The topsheet folds down over the edge of the ski, protecting the core materials. This economic build provides easy turn initiation and durability thanks to the rounded corners.

B. HALFCAP

This combines cap construction on top with sandwich on the bottom, yielding a lightweight, powerful build.

C. HYBRID

Generally, ABS sidewalls are used underfoot with cap in the tip and tail for power where you need it and swing weight savings at the extremities.

D. SANDWICH

Each layer of the ski is flat with a vertical ABS or P-Tex sidewall placed at the sides to protect the core. This construction provides the best power transmission and edge control, although in a slightly heavier build.



In general, we like to have vertical sidewalls, sidewalls put up against the ski, those tend to ski better. But, certainly it’s not the only way to make skis. When we get into actual construction of skis, you have sandwich, or laminate, construction then you have cap construction. Laminates were always considered the skis that were better for higher speeds, skis that tended to be damper, able to run flatter, but now with new construction processes, it’s not entirely the case. Relating it back to Elan, now that we’re using the carbon fiber tubes for the absorption material, all of a sudden we have skis that ski like laminates but aren’t in fact laminated metal and wood skis. In general, cap skis tended to have more energy and laminate skis tended to be damper.

Core Construction

Your ski’s behavior is directly derived from the materials within its core.

The foundation of any ski worth skiing on is wood. Different types boast different characteristics and thus different performance once on the snow. Manufacturers utilize paulownia for its low weight, although it isn’t skilled at reducing vibrations. Bamboo, aspen and poplar, however, provide a great balance of weight savings, vibration-dampening and energy. For a stiffer, torsionally rigid and powerful ski, builders often use woods like fir, ash, maple and beech for their thick, dense properties.

To complement the wood, composite materials are often bonded to the core. Titanal, for example, is an aluminum alloy that dampens vibrations and creates a more rigid ski. Fiberglass achieves the same goals as Titanal but in a slightly more affordable package. Builders often use carbon for its incredible strength-to-weight ratio, however it does come at a higher price tag.



I think these new materials can do wonderful things, but they can also simply be buzzwords. You have to be careful. We, the ski industry, have used carbon fiber in skis for many, many years. But, we haven’t used it in 3D form until recent years. Then there’s some more exotic materials. We’re dealing with a paulownia wood, now, which was a wood that we didn’t really use a whole lot in skis in the past, but now we’re using it a whole lot. Some of these exotic materials might in fact be natural materials, as opposed to say titanium or carbon fibers—unnatural materials—but if it works then I’m all for it. No matter what we do, we tend to like wooden skis. There’s something about that wooden ski that just feels so good underfoot, and whether that wood ski is blended with something else or enhanced with a layer of metal or enhanced with carbon fiber tubes or enhanced with some sort of a urethane or bamboo sidewall or something, whatever it is, when it comes down to it we tend to like the wood.

Sidecut, Taper & Turn Radius

The way the ski will turn is affected by the curvature of the ski’s edge from tip to tail.

Those who enjoy quick, sharp turns should seek a deeper curve (1), while those who prefer big, drawn-out archs should search for shallower sidecuts (2). A middle of the road sidecut produces a combination of both (3).

Manufacturers often thin the width of the ski in the tip and/or tail, which is called taper. Since rockered skis have a shorter effective edge, they’re built with tapered ends to avoid tip catch in deeper snow.

A radius is the distance from the center of a circle to its perimeter. Theoretically, if you were to ski a perfect circle around a center point with different skis boasting different sidecuts and stiffnesses, your tracks would leave different sized circles. Stiffer materials and less sidecut create large turn radii. The opposite is true for softer materials and deeper sidecut. For reference, radii of 16 meters and below allow for quick turns, 17 to 22 meter radii helps skis excel across varied terrain where versatile turning is required, and radii of 22 meters and higher are ideal for sweeping turns down wide open terrain.



Sidecut is the hourglass shape of a ski if we look at it from above. You can also have five sidecuts or double sidecuts, back in the carving years, pretty much every ski was symmetrical as far as its sidecut was concerned. Now in more recent years we’ve gotten into some more varying sidecuts. We’ve also started moving around where the center of the circle is. So if you have a symmetrical sidecut, theoretically the center of your foot is in the center of the circle, where nowadays we’ve taken the sidecut and moved it behind the binding, we’ve moved that circle on the ski compared to where we stand on it.

If I have a carving ski then chances are I want a lot of sidecut on it, I want that ski to be able to really have some amazing edge control. At the same time, if I’m out ski touring, I don’t want a lot of sidecut because now I want to make the ski turn based on my input whether it’s shifting weight, twisting, hop-turning or drifting on the snow, I do want skidding to take place.