Ski Graphics - Left & Right.

TonyH said:

I have to say I think you're either lying Dave or you've convinced yourself you're some kind of psychological genius.

This is not the first time that you have either directly accused me of lying or associated it with me. Certainly, I am not a genius. I hope you have a large bank balance.

As to the subject, I am an engineer and understand production manufacturing and it's limitations. However, a major factor in ski variants is usage, and how the two skis become damaged in different ways during their lifetime.

There are many ways in which ski damage occurs, the two main divisions, apart from initial variants, being incidents and constant usage by the same skier.

Incidents might include hitting or glancing off something, tree, rock banking, (or in my case, Admin) Because of preferred turn direction, most hits occur on the same side, and damage compounds.

Without realising it, most skiers do use a left and right, even if they neither plan to do so, nor even think about it. The reason why I identify l&r is that my right hand holds the skis with the right ski brake on top, then I pull upwards with my right hand, and drop that ski to the right. All right handed skiers do this most of the time, because their right arm is stronger. Left handed skiers do the opposite, but they do it constantly.

Now, almost everyone has a dominant turn, and this is only significantly reduced with experience. Your dominant turn, TonyH, is right.

The effect if this is that one ski is constantly under greater pressure than the other. Over time, torsional and longitudinal stiffness between l&r increasingly varies.

Then the question is, can you notice it? My view is that VERY inexperienced skiers will never notice the difference, they will have too many other issues to contend with. Then there will be intermediates, some who do think about things, and try to understand the hundreds of variations going on in ski technique.
Of course, some skiers do not care about technique. Fair enough.

When you consider the great advice from people such as Pavel, Trencher and CEM, on how much difference a small change in binding and boot set up can make, then why would you NOT consider how much difference a ski variant can make?

No I am not a genius, I just think things through. And I can assure you that I do not lie. By my reckoning, this is the third time that you have accused me, or associated me with lying.

I'm with Dave Mac on this

Tony_H wrote:I have to say I think you're either lying Dave or you've convinced yourself you're some kind of psychological genius. No one would know if skis were identical which "should" be right of left.

With regards to the original post, yes, my skis do have specifically different graphics and I have swapped them over sometimes to see any difference. Which I am convinced there is not.

They might be identical, but if you decide which one is which and stick to it, they will usually stop being so identical. Different edge wear and flex pattern will change a bit etc. Dave is 100% right, and the difference can be fairly pronounced. It's just that for skis with graphics it's decided in advance which foot you shout put then on, even that when they are new graphics will be the only difference.

An interesting drill I've done a few times is to switch just one ski with someone. In just a few turns I adjust to having a different length and side cut radius on each foot. I don't differentiate left and right with any of my skis and have never noticed a difference between them. Having said that, I don't doubt that other people have become used to having a left and right ski and would notice the difference for the reasons Dave gave and many more.

There are many aspect of skiing that people can disagree on, but still have respect for each other.

I suppose that if you swap them all the time the wear will be more symmetrical. I have no idea what is better, probably neither...

It would be an interesting experiment to label one's skis, in small writing, 'left' and 'right' and then use them as normal and see how many times you ended up putting them on the correct foot - something like spinning a coin and seeing how many times it came down 'heads'.

I can well believe that if you consistently put the same ski on the same foot then after a lot of use the skis would develop different wear patterns, which you could detect if you swapped them around, like shoes do.

However, even if I had my own skis I don't think that ski-ing once or twice a year (like I do) would be enough time for the differential wear pattern to develop. It's different for DaveMac because he does masses of ski-ing.

I am sure I would notice if it was possible somehow to swap around my left and right welly boots

I have noticed that some more experienced skiers have a left and right ski.

When my kids used to race on the dry slope all the racers had their skis marked L and R.
Also, my daughter has race skis and they are clearly meant to be used on a specific side.
The tips indicate which and if worn on the wrong one they look pigeon toed.

So whats being said is that skis BECOME left and right skis because of wear and tear. They're not made left and right, right?