realskiers

I just do not know where the line is drawn between a carver (say a waist less than 70mm) and an all mountain carver (with a waist of say 70-75mm) in terms of what is gained and what is lost.?
-SCott

Scott:

Peter has a couple of excellent articles on the main web site that talk about all-mountain skis (back when wider meant 70mm) and discusses the advantages of a 66-68mm waist for gaining skills and learning to ski as opposed to the wider skis which feel easier to the casual skier because they are harder to get up on an edge and return to flat much easier, but are actually harder to use when learning skills.

The other factor, in addition to waist width, is amount of sidecut the ski has (indicated by it's turning radius).  For an eastern ski, you probably don't want a radius much greater than 14-15 while pretty 'turny' skis will be in the 11-12m radius range.  My eastern ski is a '04 Head i.SL Chip (radius of a 12?) and I think Ron/Gary are either Head SuperShapes or Fischer RX-8 (both newer than mine, but I love the versatility of mine).  Michael has a Fischer RC4?? that is almost a racing footprint, I think.  it's hard for me to keep up with his (or Ron's) current choices without looking at a recent post.

Jim