13032637:tomPietrowski said:
Really both those skis suck to pop on as they are so super soft. What park skis have you been on if they are the politest skis you have been on?
for park skis ive ridden g butters, ar7's, multiple 4frnt's, invaders, multiple surface's, recoil's, volkl bridges, and tried others through friends/demo's.
so thats a pretty good mix of stiff and soft, normal cambered skis. between all of those, i dont think stiffer ever meant more pop. there's a lot more to a ski's pop than just how soft or stiff it is, some ski's are soft initially then stiffen up and give you a lot of platform to pop out of the flex, some are noodles all the way through but you can flex the crap out of them and still get a lot of spring/pop, and how the ski rebounds from being flexed is super important. i've always found stiffer skis harder to pop like an ollie, especially at slow speed, onto rails, etc.. thats where something like the invader kills it. but stiffer skis generally seem to pop better at high speed off lip's and stuff where its less of an ollie and more of a quick little pop. thats where a noodle just collapses pretty much.
anyway in regards to the ep's and hellbents, at high speed popping off park jump's they pretty much have nothing, you jump off the underfoot part of your skis because you dont have a tail to do that super quick snappy pop. but slow-medium speed, jibbing around, ollying on flat, and especially popping off random lips all around the mountain and BC, they are easily the poppiest skis ive ever ridden, it doesnt even make complete sense to me, i dont know the "science" behind it. but for some reason they just pop like a mofo.
maybe its something to do with them already being in a "flexed" position, maybe its more the shape of the ski and how it rides on the surface? rather than normal camber that pushes against/resists flexing and airing off the ground (a cambered ski with no rider input naturally would want to keep contact with the snow over bump's/lips, almost like suspension), and instead is shaped to naturally want to pop off and air off bumps, lips, features. (again with no rider input, think how a rockered ski would contact a bump, nose naturally wants to rise up the bump, the ski already wants to air off it before you even get to the tails, as the tails hit the bump they dont resist it, they want to deflect off of it rather than push down against it like a cambered ski) which would explain why they seem to pop so big with minimal effort, they naturally want to deflect off features, so any rider input to flex/pop off the tails just aids in what the ski is doing by itself.
it would also explain why they dont pop off big park jumps, because its a long smooth transition, they dont have that bump/lip to hit and want to deflect off. yet with jumps onto rails and natural features where its abrupt enough they pop so much better.
i dunno, thats all i can come up with, makes sense though, wakeboard companies seem to already understand the importance of aggressive rocker to get pop. i really wish ski companies would ditch the dual camber stuff and play around with flat underfoot/rocker for more park/all mountain skis. i could live with less pop off big jumps to gain that mega pop off small lips, onto rails, and flat ground.
