Ski stiffness rating

knows_butter

knows_butter

Member
Why is there no standard measure for ski stiffness? A rating out of 10 for instance, with 10 being super stiff and 1 being noodly soft.
Ski companies are always really vague when it comes to describing their skis. Usually after reading a skis description I have no idea how stiff or soft it is.
For instance: " Tanner engineered himself into the ski with a unique flex pattern designed for the next level, where every inch of the ski is in play." - WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN? HOW STIFF IS THIS SKI?
 
A problem with that though is that different skis have different flex patterns and points, they don't have the same flex all the way down the ski. In fact, many skis have sort of a hinge (not literally) that allows them to flex extremely in one spot while being stiff in others. 1-10 just doesn't describe it enough.
 
The rating wouldn't be an exact measure of what the skis' flex is. It would be in a general sense, to get the overall stiffness so you would be able to tell if it was a stiffer/softer/in between flexed ski. This would also make it easier to compare different skis. It isn't meant to be rocket science, just to get the general picture.
 
this is a really good idea +k. i lot of people including myself want to know stuff like this when buying skis.
 
different skis flex in different locations though as well (think butterzones, etc). unlike a ski boot where all you can really have is forward flex.
 
that could potentially be even cooler, something kind of like a rocker-style rating (10x30 etc), but lets take an afterbang for example, it might be rated with a general flex rating of like 5 (10 being the stiffest), with a butter-zone flex of 4. idk, might be cool to see something like that
 
maybe if the manufactuers creater some sort of a diagram of the ski, using colours to represent different stiffnesses, seeing as most parks skis and beyond don't have a consistant continuous flex. so yeah a universal flex rating would be cool, just not in a numerical form
 
thats kind of like when they describe the underfoot stiffness and then the tip/tail stiffness, (where the butter zones would be located.......generally underfoot is obviously stiffer for stomping landings
 
Line's pretty good at pointing at this. Shit they even specify where they're supposed to flex
 
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