OK, guys, I need some explanation.
In John's original post, he equates sidecut (and turn radius) with turns in 3D snow. I had always assumed that there were two different forces that bent skis. On a hard surface where the edge has something to hold onto, the edge causes the turn. However, in soft snow (when the edge doesn't have anything to hold onto), isn't it the flex of the ski and the distribution of pressure over the bottom that causes the ski to bend?
Soft snow where you are skiing the firm surface underneath doesn't count, but off-piste you need a flex pattern that will allow the skis to bend into a curved shape so that when you tip them in the snow, that curved shape becomes the turn?? If you ski really fast, then you need a stiffer ski because there are greater forces against the bottom of the ski, to get started in 3-D you need a softer ski that will flex into a curved shape at slower speeds.
Help me out here with my education? What causes skis to turn when the edges don't have a gripping surface? How does sidecut come into play in 3-D conditions? And, concurrently, what is the real turn radius of a ski, since the sidecut measurement may be good for comparison, but really doesn't measure the turning radius of a given ski for a 180 lb skier at 15 mph?
Example. Jim's Ullr's Chariots are a pretty stiff ski on groomed surfaces, but off-piste he thinks the wide shovel has more pressure the greater amount of snow underneath, and therefore doesn't "feel" as stiff.
So I had always assumed that a good ski for me would have lots of sidecut for the groomed, be fairl soft so that it bends in the powder at the speeds I ski, and have good lateral stiffness so that the sidecut didn't wash out at slightly faster speeds.
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