Quote:
Originally Posted by drjeff  It's pretty simple, the longer the radius of the ski, the more force you'll need to exert on it to really crank a turn. Now take that big 'ol 6' 200lb racer vs. that 5' 150lb racer when you really need to crank a turn and if the abilities are similar, who's going to be able to get more edge pressure and have the advantage??
By comparison, the Atomic B5 Metrons that I'm one have a 13.2m turn radius and I can use them to carve some serious "trenches" on GS turns, and then just let them do what they want to and make some real nice slalom turns with them too at that radius.
If you asked most high level racers what they'd want for a turn radius on their skis, you'd probably see them looking for a GS ski in the 12 to 18 meter turn radius range and a slalom ski in the 6 to 10 meter radius range. That 27 meter GS ski radius is probably something that the world cup racers would want on their downhill skis, not their GS skis. |
That all said, it still seems somewhat silly to me. Perhaps 'back in the day' they had similar restrictions. I raced for a season in High School in the early 90's and it was simple, you had your GS ski and your SL ski, size was entirely up to you.
I guess the whole 'radius' thing is somewhat new to me, even though it's probably been around for ten years or more.