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Charger vs playful

LiquidFeet

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Yesterday I realized that a GS race ski, with some length, would have come in handy for me (a woman). There was fresh ungroomed dense snow oh maybe 4-5" deep on all the groomers and I was in a race clinic going mach schnell run after run down those trails all day.

The first pair of skis I had bent too easily as they hit the lumps in that snow, and did not instill confidence at those speeds. The second pair I used did not bend easily so they blasted through the dense snow, but they were only 160 in length. Boy did I have to be precise in my balance, which did get better as the day moved on.

But I wished I had what the race coaches in my group were using - genuine GS race skis -perhaps a bit shorter for me than what the bigger guys were on. They would have offered more security and confidence.

We were charging. We were not using finesse, and we certainly were not being playful.
 
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AmyPJ

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I would have asked, "Is 'Charger' sometimes a euphemism applied to an I-Beam that's only useful to someone over 200 pounds?"

You see my point here? There is inherent male / bigger / stronger bias in all this stuff. If a ski is stupid stiff and the skier can't leverage it, the problem is with the skier. If a ski is lovely and compliant and the skier overpowers it, the problem is with the ski. Kind of irks me.

I want all the women on the board to chime in here, please. @AmyPJ , @Analisa , @elemmac , others.
Well hmmmm... so, if you're looking for an opinion of what I think is a charger vs. playful, that's coming from my perspective as someone who HERSELF is not particularly a charger. So, I like a ski that has some charger personality to it, but is still playful. How does that sound? :poo: One of my favorite things about my current daily driver, the Nordica Santa Ana 88, is that it's a powerful ski that smooths terrain out for me, yet is super playful and doesn't wear me out.
 

Noodler

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I would have asked, "Is 'Charger' sometimes a euphemism applied to an I-Beam that's only useful to someone over 200 pounds?"

You see my point here? There is inherent male / bigger / stronger bias in all this stuff. If a ski is stupid stiff and the skier can't leverage it, the problem is with the skier. If a ski is lovely and compliant and the skier overpowers it, the problem is with the ski. Kind of irks me.

I want all the women on the board to chime in here, please. @AmyPJ , @Analisa , @elemmac , others.

When I hear someone talk about a "charger" ski, I always envision someone "charging" down the mountain. If you're going to be charging, then I would think the following ski characteristics would be sought after:
  1. Stability at speed - it can't be a ski that will fold under pressure
  2. Crud busting - the tip profile, flex pattern, and weight needs to be able to smash through the garbage
  3. Medium to Longer turn radius - teeny tiny little turns need not apply when we're charging
So it's not just about being an I-beam as that could actually create more problems for you to really be able to charge down the mountain. So I guess in a way I'm agreeing with you that one person's finesse ski could be another's charger. It's all in the application for the particular skier.
 

Tony S

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@Noodler - Totally. No disagreement with anything you said. Good post.

I have a long rant in the works about one aspect of this general topic but I haven't been able to really pull it together yet. It's seasoning.
 

nemesis256

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I recently heard a ski school director say to another instructor, "There's no reason for a woman to be on any ski longer than 155."
That's crazy. I wouldn't want a lesson from him if I was a woman.

I want all the women on the board to chime in here, please. @AmyPJ , @Analisa , @elemmac , others.
I'm male but woman "sized". I 100% go for playful skis. Even some skis that are known to be playful are close but not quite enough for me. Nordica Soul Rider 97 and Atomic Bent Chetler come to mind.
 

fatbob

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I would have asked, "Is 'Charger' sometimes a euphemism applied to an I-Beam that's only useful to someone over 200 pounds?"

Fair enough. Interestingly while equipped with enough mass to bend most skis I'd still take a Rossi Soul 7 over a Head Monster ( those were some planky skis) etc. In fact I back to backed the Soul 7 and the Cochise once and liked them equally. Sure they did things differently but you got different payoffs with each. And very few people would put them in the same spectrum.
 

Lauren

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I would have asked, "Is 'Charger' sometimes a euphemism applied to an I-Beam that's only useful to someone over 200 pounds?"

You see my point here? There is inherent male / bigger / stronger bias in all this stuff. If a ski is stupid stiff and the skier can't leverage it, the problem is with the skier. If a ski is lovely and compliant and the skier overpowers it, the problem is with the ski. Kind of irks me.

I want all the women on the board to chime in here, please. @AmyPJ , @Analisa , @elemmac , others

Not all powerful skis are chargers, not all playful skis have finesse. Likewise, a ski can be both a charger and playful or have power and finesse. These are all just adjectives to describe a ski, it’s not a black and white situation, there are many shades of grey.

My basis of where a ski falls on the spectrum is generally about how well a ski cuts through snow versus how well it pops up and over the snow. Does the skier need to absorb bumps in the snow or does the skier need to power through it?

As for your comment about whether it’s the ski or the skier, I’m a believer that it’s almost always the skier. A lightweight expert should be able to ski an I-beam of a ski, just as a heavyweight expert should be able to ski a noodle. Would they be better served with a different ski? Of course. But an expert should be able to adapt their skiing to their equipment. You can’t judge someone’s skill solely based on what they prefer to ski on.
 

Noodler

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Here's some food for thought regarding ski flex, courtesy of Tom Gellie. Almost every normal sized adult can bend almost every ski available. Take any of the skis, even serious FIS level skis, put them on a hard floor and stand on them. Does the middle of the ski fully decamber and touch the floor? Yes, most likely they do. What this shows us is that if we understand how to use our body weight in proper positioning over our skis, it's not about being able to bend a ski. Rather, the flex drives how much energy/rebound that's going to come back at us when we release the ski. So choice of flex really becomes a choice of how much rebound energy you want to handle. So often skiers make comments about "not being able to bend a ski", but that's really not the concern with proper technique (as @elemmac is basically stating regarding the I-beam).

This has some bearing as skiers consider whether a ski has the power to be a "charger". For me, it's not about the overall stiffness, but rather the flex pattern (tip vs. middle vs. tail). A soft noodly tip is likely not to get the call as a charger. My old Scott Crusade skis are one of the few skis I've ever encountered that actually have a stiff tip/soft tail flex pattern. It's a quite rare design choice, but it lends itself very well for charger duties.
 

AngryAnalyst

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To me, the defining characteristic of charger skis is that they’re stable bases flat and/or making really big turns at speed. This is a bit different than a great carver that might want to be on edge all the time even if I’d expect carvers and chargers to be similarly stable at normal human speeds in normal resort conditions.

Playful is actually more complicated because there are so many ways to be playful (good for tricks and skiing backwards, easy to release from a turn in soft snow, etc).

Neither is really about carving per se in may view.

As an example - the skiers I most enjoy watching from the chairlift fall into two primary camps. There are the ultra clean technical carvers with excellent upper/lower body separation who make everything look smooth. Then, there are the crazy dudes who make 5 turns on an entire run and take big air off small undulations in the ground and throw a flip with it (well, as long as the run is sparsely populated enough I’m sure they aren’t going to kill small children).
 

David Chaus

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I firmly believe I am a finesse skier. IMO, most of my skis are finesse skis. I like them that way.

Interesting point, as IIRC your also like Volkl which often tend to be on the stiffer end of the flex spectrum. And as @Noodler pointed out, stiffness alone isn’t what determines charger vs finesse, energy rebound Is really important.

I had an interesting experience demoing at an ON3P demo day a couple years back. The Wrenegade 116 and 108 are thought to be “charger” skis, and I found they wanted to stick to whatever turn shape you (or they) started with. The wanted to go, and the energy was directed totally in the direction they were already going. When I tried to tighten up the radius of a turn and adjust the shape of the turn while in the turn, I sometimes caught an edge and almost lost it at speed. They just wanted to keep going. The Kartel models in similar widths would practically allow me to spin around whenever I wanted, even at longer lengths they allowed me to pivot easily, and it was surprising I could take a 108 or 116 wide, 187 ski and maneuver easily through decent-sized bumps. I settled on the Billy Goat, because while I didn’t necessarily need a 116 wide ski, the flex pattern, sidecut and rebound/energy balance was just right for me, as well as an easy to release tail shape. Very Goldilocks as far as charging (for my size and weight) and finessing. Carve through bumps and crud rather than pivot through them, without having to bash through them.

Sometimes you just have to try the ski for yourself to determine how much of a playful or charger ski it is for you.
 

geepers

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Read all the posts. Came to the conclusion that there wasn't a lot of agreement on meaning of terms.


And i never pass on a good deal, but have been instructed by my wife to buy whatever i want, as long as i am happy

And is the quid pro quo for this affordable? :cool:
 

KevinF

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I’ve been trying to stay out of this discussion. I’m 6’2”, 185 pounds. Nobody who has skied with me describes me as a “charger”.

My two “regular” skis are Stockli Stormriders — 88 and 95 versions. No review I’ve seen of either ski described them as “playful”.

I like them for a lot of reasons— they hold like crazy, they work in bumps, and they do not under any circumstances fold up in dense snow.

Go figure. Finesse skier skiing chargers.
 

Josh Matta

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I recently heard a ski school director say to another instructor, "There's no reason for a woman to be on any ski longer than 155." Yes, there are some weird ideas about the needs of skiers according to their gender.

Yesterday I realized that a GS race ski, with some length, would have come in handy for me (a woman). There was fresh ungroomed dense snow oh maybe 4-5" deep on all the groomers and I was in a race clinic going mach schnell run after run down those trails all day.

The first pair of skis I had bent too easily as they hit the lumps in that snow, and did not instill confidence at those speeds. The second pair I used did not bend easily so they blasted through the dense snow, but they were only 160 in length. Boy did I have to be precise in my balance, which did get better as the day moved on.

But I wished I had what the race coaches in my group were using - genuine GS race skis -perhaps a bit shorter for me than what the bigger guys were on. They would have offered more security and confidence.

We were charging. We were not using finesse, and we certainly were not being playful.


the SSD at Bretton? just wow.

Want some 176cm Blizzard master skis?
 

GregK

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Thought of this thread when I saw this video yesterday from Stomp It Tutorials. He’s a very well known freestyler with popular instructional videos for doing common tricks in the park or off piste. Smooth, playful style but can charge too.

He tries a pair of Atomic S9 slalom skis and it’s the first time in over 10 years he’s tried a “non freestyle/freeride” ski. It takes him about 4 turns to get the hang of them and he’s carving decent turns and having a blast on them. Of course he then takes them into the parkand is still having fun with them. Lol
You can tell he just loves to ski and could ski anything and still have fun!


Video proving it’s more the skier than the ski although some skis do make it easier to be playful and some are easier to charge with. The “wrong” skis for that type of skier just make it more work.
 

Magikarp

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Sorry to resurrect an old thread (maybe I should just make a new one), but is it true that some skis "charge" differently going in a straight line (down the fall line) vs when turning? I ask because I've been trying out different skis lately and the "chargeyness" of skis are different in how they react when going straight vs when turning, due to the sidecut, construction and other aspects.

Thoughts?
 

mulva28

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When I think of a "chargey" ski, I think damp, crud busting, long(er) radius. My wife thinks of me as a charger type skier lmao! I'm a short turns enjoyer!!! I just do short turns fast. I don't agree with a typical charger ski. It's like a "Big Mountain Lite". Think long lines and avalanches but the fake, resort version of it. So charger would be a longer sidecut and pretty beefy construction. IMO.
 

tromano

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Flex is a red herring. The ability for the skier to bend the ski is assumed, if you can't bend the ski it's a sizing issue or a balance issue.

The idea that a ski is a charger for me but finesse for you is likewise hard to comprehend. Because...

Chargers go though the terrain. They are typified as long radius turns, stability, damp feel. They flatten 3d terrain and keep on truckin.

Playful skis go around and over the terrain. Typified as shorter radius turns, getting air time, responsive, and having snow feel. They accentuate and enhance playing with 3d terrain.

Most skis are not purpose built as chargers nor as playful skis either. So I think these terms are a bit overused in ski talk.

For example most people talk about the Mantra as a charger. But its really just a good all around ski, not something made for charging.

The so called playful charger is another thing that I really don't understand.
 
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