Flaws in Todays ski gear.

BROLF

BROLF

Active member
What do you guys think the major problems are with todays ski gear? What gear needs to be made better?
 
I think the main flaw about todays gear is the durability. There's really only so much you can do to make park skis better today, besides shed weight. I think the next break through product will be a ski that can hold up to almost anything and comes with a decent warranty.

^^Also, the thing about the tall-t's
 
The problem with this is it starts to very quickly drive the price of the product up very high. Hard goods to soft goods there's a very fine line between building products that are affordable and will last. True there are companies that build stuff that lasts forever. But you do have to pay for that upgrade.
 
Yeah, and thats the flaw. Hopefully, in time companies will find ways to make cheaper products last longer. But then the problem is that people will only buy skis every 7 years or so so the companies wont make nearly as much money
 
Meh. The 18 only weighs like 20 grams more or something negligible like that. Weight is a total non issue as long as you can use an 8+... I think the FKS15 only went down to like 6, which honestly you're not likely to enjoy the benefits of a turntable heel at that weight/size/force level.
 
I'm not the most educated on ski constructed, but I often wonder why something as soft as P-Tex is used as ski bases?

I know P-tex replaced Pine/tar bases for a number of reasons, but you would think nowadays we would have a better alternative.

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As for rear flexing boots, what exactly is the appeal? I can understand more freedom in motion, but it would be taking about a 30 year step backwards. Skiing in something like leather boots which give you the ability to flex backwards tends to send people into the backseat immediately and basically is way harder to control your edges.

Not to mention having no rear support is a one way ticket to toe-bang.

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I also think it would be pretty cool if DIN hadn't pretty much destroyed the plate binding industry. Some models from the 70's are arguably more safer then today, and could release practically every direction including down onto the ski.

(keep in mind I'm not too educated in gear so there's probably some underlying reasons this stuff doesn't happen)
 
Well about ski boots I think ski boot comfort needs to be much better. Yeah I know people always say a boot that fits you right is comfortable. But still, snowboard boots are just way more comfortable. Theres gotta be a way to make ski boots more comfortable
 
This makes it awesome, it goes for dirt cheap prices, otherwise it'd be several hundred $, but you can get them for like 50$ if you look about.
 
While I agree it would be awesome if someone made more comfortable boots, I don't think looking directly at snowboarding will help. With snowboarding you spend a lot more time facing sideways vs straight down the hill. Leaning back on a snowboard, the board will go with you, but leaning back on skis just puts all your weight into your toes and the top of your foot (or in todays case the back of your boots)

When my local hill went under 30 years ago my parents kept all the rental boots, which unfortunately just kind of ended up rotting in our backyard since they were already outdated then and couldn't be sold. The liners are all shit now, but I'll have to experiment with the shells sometime.
 
Comfy ski boot tech already exists. Look at boots like the salomon spk with the soft toe, or the atomic love fits with the soft last. Boots are now even coming out with entire custom shells so they can be shaped perfectly to the foot. The thing holding back comfort is te fitters. There are too many old a school fitters out there stuck in the old ways. Unfortunately most are in North America. Boots can be very comfy but they will only ever be as comfy as the amount of fitter skill the person fitting the boot has. The Internet I a huge issue too. To any people buy boots online and because of what they have heard about them , full tilts for example, they just expect them to fit. When they don't they blame ski boot tech rather then the fact that the boot wa not fitted for them.

So if you want to improve boots start by improving the level of service the fitters can provide and shops, stop selling boots online.
 
fitting definately does play a huge role in comfort, but I still think the botos themselves have a ways to go in comfort. And about buying boots online, I think if you had say a 27.5 full tilt and know it fits then it can be helpful to find good deals online
 
But how are you going to make your footbeds, have the liner molded and have shell work done if you buy online. This is my point. The boot is only one piece in having a comfy fit. It's te fitting that can only be done by a good boot fitter in a shop which turns the otherwise uncomfy ski boot into something you want to keep on all day. Everyone needs a custom footbed, and I would say 95% of people benefit from shell work. But I would say less then 10% of people on this site have boots which have actually been fitted. Hell look at the full tilt dying thread, if they had had the shells worked on there is no way they would be boiling them and ruining the fit, which just goes to show most people here ski in boots which have not been fitted to them. And just having liners heated does not count as having the boot fitted.
 
But why do ski boots need SO much work done to be comfortable? Ive never heard of people getting snowboard boots fitted. If a company could make boots that were more comfortable out of the box then that would be great
 
Snowboard boots need fitting too. And to be honest are almost harder to fit when there is an issue. A soft shell can't be modified so if they are too tight you can't just stretch a sb boot like you can a ski boot. Also think how a sb works. The high back bindings give the support it not really the boot. If we had soft ski boots there would be no power transmission so skiing would fall back in terms of what we can do. So to be able to progress the sport it's worth spending that 2 extra hours having the boot fitted right. And as I said before you even have boots now like the salomon max range where the entire shell is shaped to your foot. Spend a little time and you can have a really comfy boot. That I going to be the nearest we come to out of the box comfort for a while. The reason why is simply. If you want out the box comfort the shape has to match your foot shape exactly. There are thousands if not millions of foot shapes. Manufactures simply can't make all the shapes needed. So until we can reshape our feet we will have to have the boots reshaped instead.
 
The reason P-tex bases are used is partially because of

their ability to hold wax and to flex without breaking.

Example: Sintered base skis, waxing them regularly and maintaining them will

give you a faster ride. Also they are repairable with melting P-tex into gouges

to help with longevity.

It may be a softer less durable material, but it will be hard to find a

material durable to take the weight of a skier sliding over rocks, logs, and

rails which usually create the gouges.

Sure there could be a better option out there, but that material may be too

expensive and also may not slide well on snow/hold wax. So it’s definitely more

complex than just durability.

Search: "Sintered bases vs. Extruded bases" and you will get a

ton of information.

 
I think the oakley airbrakes are moving in a good direction with easy-swap lenses. Having two pairs of goggles for different lighting shouldnt have to happen, and a lot of goggles are a pain to swap lenses, but the airbrakes seem sweet
 
I think goggles are overpriced and taken too seriously. I went from a 200$ pair of oakleys to a 70$ pair of anons because I wanted to try a different style and I honestly think that the 70$ goggles are much better. My splices fogged up often, were uncomfortable, and were just too bulky. The relatively cheap anons never fog, are comfy and light, and look damn good.
 
yeah I dont like spending too much on goggles, I got a $75 pair of smith phenoms that I think work great, but I have to have another pair for night skiing because the lenses are too tinted.
 
I cant think of too much, but someone will come up with something that everyone needs and most of us will pay a premium for it.
 
i think all bindings need to fix this could be a hinge that would allow it to rotate forwards so that they dont break on switch landings
 
no one has said anything about binding technology. look at our skis...10 years ago, we thought a 90mm waisted ski was absolutely massive but today that size of ski has become the norm for everyday use.

how come we're not seeing more changes in the way bindings are being built other than what marker is doing with their wider mounting platforms?
 
Yes, very much so.

I honestly think the buyer is more of an inhibitor than the bootfitter most of the time. They bought a boot online because of the reviews without having ever tried it on, and now they want to just pop it on and ski away. It may take a dozen trips to the fitter to get it perfect and a lot of people don't want to fuck with that and will just be miserab;e and held back by their boots as a result.

If they had just gone in and seen a professional that could show them some different shell shapes, lasts and sizes they could have made a good decision based on shell fit and weighed the pros and cons of different liners with someone who can relate that to their own foot and not "the internet's foot" so to speak. Also it never hurt anyone to have an alignment assessment and have their shit straightened out either.

Old school may be old school but in most cases it still works smashingly. The newest techniques and technologies are awesome indeed, but people need to stop thinking they know everything and just put it in the hands of someone who really knows their shit in any case.

 
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