slow skiing on steeps/carving

[Jamt]

If you are carving arc-2-arc you are losing the minimum amount of energy to friction and doing the least amount of work on the moving object to slow it down. A force applied at 90 degrees to the moving object does not slow it down, only the friction force applied tangentially to it slows it down.

With no losses, all of the potential energy due to height, mgh becomes kinetic energy, 1/2 m (V^2), your velocity would be the square root of 2gh after desending a height of h. A little less with losses IFF you are pure arc-2-arc carving. You will quickly reach terminal velocity on steeps if you are pure arc-2-arc carving.

If you do not have a DH or SG ski with a LOOOOONG turn radius, you will not be carving pure arc-2-arc turns at the speeds you will soon reach on steeps with good carving technique.

It's simple physics:
To hold a 2 g turn with a 26 m turn radius ski you need to tip it up to 63 degrees to reach critical angle. Tipping that 26 m ski up that far reduces your turn radius to about 12 m. A 12 m turn at 2 gs will give you a speed of 55 kph. Far above the speed you would reach on steeps with good carving. This applies roughly to a hard surface. You can feel the difference if you go out and make some turns back to back with an old SG ski and any modern shapely ski.

Not as simple as it may first appear. If the skis are not pointing in the same direction as the CoM is moving when the are engaged, you also lose energy due to the "impact". It does not matter if the turn is carved or not. Since the skis and CoM trade places during transition, this direction difference will always happen.

Also. the 2g/63 degree only holds if you assume static balance. In a good turn the upwards acceleration may be around 2g as well.
It is like if a magic force is pushing your skis down into the snow with a force corresponding to twice your weight. 63 degrees on top of that and you have some serious edge hold. Static, i.e. no upwards acceleration, you are doomed.

55 is not that fast is it

 

[François Pugh]

Just trying to keep it simple. @Jamt is correct, there's more to it (including work on the snow), but nevertheless, you can't come even come close to carving clean arc-2-arc turns at say 50 mph without a speed ski. Note in my example above we are talking 55 kilometers per hour, not that fast at all.

 

[dbostedo]

Closing the ankle in this way may work, but it is important that this is only something you do in transition or very early in the turn. When the pressure starts to really build you'd better be balanced primarily on the balls of the outside foot. If you continue to actively close your ankle you only have the heels and the shaft left as balance points, which is not a good foundation, and that may very well send you into the back seat, the very thing you wanted to avoid from the start. If you are balanced on the balls of the feet you are forward, and you can still pressure the shafts, but only with help from the turn forces and eccentric contraction.
The tricky thing with fore-aft is that when the shovels engage the pressure point under the skis move forward, and if you are not moving the body parts accordingly this pressure point shift will send you quickly into the back seat. This move starts in the end of the previous turn.

Agreed. To expand a little... feeling the font of the ankle tense helps when I feel I'm getting backseat, but when I feel in better balance over the arches of my foot, I don't need to feel that tensing, or it comes and goes as I turn. And it's a good feeling for me to be able to play with, so that I notice when I'm backseat more often. I don't always unless I'm focused on it. So as a check it helps too. Still working on all of this though!

 

[Monique]

One of my instructors talked of skiing as an "ing" sport. You're not balanced - you're balancing. You're not flexed - you're flexing. Everything is in constant motion and adjustment.

Another way to think about this -
If you're already at the extreme, you don't have room to move. For example, if you're already "crushing the grape," you can't flex the boot - you're already as flexed as you can be! You have to back off in order to flex again.

Dunno if this helps anyone else, but it helps me.