High Rocker Skis

[Cadman]

I have been thinking about where this rocker technology is going and wanted to talk about this on the forum and get some opinions from all of you that have been experimenting.

I have heard about matching flex and sidecuts as well as matching sidecuts and rocker radii. My question is if you have a ski with a sidecut radius of
say 23 meters and you match the bottom rocker with 23 meters, I would think that you would have so little area under the foot for stability that you would have in effect, a rocking chair. I would think that you would be constantly fighting to keep your forward and backward balance. I think it would be horid on the pack or hard snow. Maybe it would be great in powder only but I don't have a helicopter in my back yard.

It appears to me that you don't need that much rocker. Maybe a cm at the most. I see people barrelling down the slopes and the tips and tails look like they are going to take off like a bird they are flapping so much. I can hardly call that an all around ski. I would also think that the vibration would make it slip around on the harder snow. Wouldn't having a nice low rocker help with hooking up into the turn so when you lay the ski over and push you get more purchase of the edge by how much pressure you put on it? It would also make sense that you have more of a flat base or platform on the snow under your foot so you would have more stability and less balance issues. From what I have seen with early rise, you don't need much early rise to make your ski tips "catch fee" as K2 states it.
I personally think that if you want to have a ski that you can ski just about anywhere with, you need to stay away from high rockers.

Your turn!

[gozaimaas]

I agree. Although I ride boards the same principals apply, I have boards with camber, rocker and hybrid rocker/camber and have decided that camber is for me.

[MontuckyMadman]

I agree with the premise of the low rise rocker matches the flex and sidecut 4frnt thing, but if im in deep snow i want a large long rise tip period. Seems those lower rise rocker designes you have to really size up for a 200lb dood even if hes 5'10".
unless im really hauling ass ina big flat area of pow i want a larger rise tip.
the all mountain full rocker thing for me has never worked. I want tail on hard snow.

[Brazen]

^ what he said.

[falls]

I had never taken the matched rocker and sidecut to literally mean that the rocker radius and sidecut radius were actually equal. I always felt they were trying to say that they had designed the core profile, sidecut shape/length and rocker profile to all work together.
I think that the evolution of Eric pollard's skis for line shows a good timeline of thoughts about rocker design and probably represents a good progression to a final (not actually final!) rocker and sidecut profile that actually works.
I think that a lower profile tip rocker is really beneficial as it provides good planing in powder, but also still allows the sidecut arc in the tip rocker to engage the snow when you are on hardpack and lay the skis over. Some small amount of camber underfoot and either a rocker tail if you are skewing more towards powder, or a normal tail if you need more hard snow performance.

[twizzstyle]

I agree, if you want an all mountain ski you've got to keep the early rise minimal. My powder skis are flat underfoot with a lot of early rise, basically entirely reverse camber. They are excellent in powder, but at any speed on a groomed run they are extremely squirrely unless I have them laid WAY over on the edge, and then they're fine until you have to transition to a turn the other direction.

I think that's why you're seeing a lot of skis now with positively cambered center sections with pretty small radius sidecuts, with the widest points fairly far from the tips, with a long rockered tip. That gives you the float for powder, with a short sidecut for hard-packed (although running length is still fairly short). I've never skied something like that, but it at least makes sense in my head.

[vinman]

Twizz that is exactly the way I think about mixed camber and mixed sidecut skis, and they do indeed work like that.

I agree also about keeping and on piste/firm snow ski's rocker on the low side and increasing it some the more it will be used as a powder/BC/off piste ski.

[Cadman]

It will be interesting to see where the pendulum ends up in the next couple of years. I personally think that the pendulum is way over to the left right now. I have not skied any of those odd looking Surface skis but they look rediculous.
I have seen this phenomenon many times over the past 20 years. I remember when they made the first shape skis. They had so much sidecut that you couldn't even think about going straight. Then Elan
figured it out and the rest is history. It went way short and then way long and then back short again. Now it is starting to creep up into the mid 180's again. I am getting old enough that I wouldn't mind seeing some big roller bumps again. Those were a kick in the rear to ski.