Ski Graphics - Left & Right.

Ian Wickham wrote:Who notices graphics any way !!!!

In one of my shops I was working in I put all the Point of Sale down one of the isles up side down, not one customer noticed 8)

I would have noticed, I may just not have said.

Dids1 wrote:

Ian Wickham wrote:Who notices graphics any way !!!!

In one of my shops I was working in I put all the Point of Sale down one of the isles up side down, not one customer noticed 8)

I would have noticed, I may just not have said.

That one is covered, we used to have a lot of elderly customers who never seem to miss a thing, especially if steradent went up by a 1p :wink:

Ian Wickham wrote:

Dids1 wrote:

Ian Wickham wrote:Who notices graphics any way !!!!

In one of my shops I was working in I put all the Point of Sale down one of the isles up side down, not one customer noticed 8)

I would have noticed, I may just not have said.

That one is covered, we used to have a lot of elderly customers who never seem to miss a thing, especially if steradent went up by a 1p :wink:

:thumbup:

That's me.

brooksy wrote:
Doesn't the servicing balance it all back to the original state?

Not really referring to edge and base surface wear, Brooksy, more the permanent, but mainly minor changes that occur, but have an accumulative effect.

If you have ever seen someone checking for inherent wear, they will push the skis together, and release, looking for the strength in the spring back. Well used skis get to the stage that they are quite "flappy". Now, you could well imagine that the change in the spring of the ski (longitudinal stiffness) is not the same in each ski, nor are changes uniform along the full length of the ski.

The same is true of the ski lateral stiffness, although the changes are likely to vary between ski, they are more likely to remain uniform along the length of the ski.

When you combine the lateral and longitudinal variants, the skis have developed different overall characteristics. As I previously explained, for many people they may not notice a difference. Where differences are noticible, they are mostly observed in more extreme conditions such as ice days, where you really need torsional stiffness, or when skiing very fast in soft snow, and longitudinal variants can be felt.

Hiring skis makes little difference. Although it is true that most ski hire places put out good quality skis, they do not control who has skied on them! Many more variations! I did once take a pair of hire skis back, and gently suggested to the manager he might check the skis. He was sceptical, but I had him test them, and there was quite a difference between the two.

So there you go, if you are having a bad day........

Oh, and:

It makes sense to practice these manoeuvers on an uncomfortable side as often as you can for the very reason that when you resort to them you don't usually have a choice of direction.

Spot on, do some drills every day, just 10 minutes to keep you thinking, but that's a different subject.

I'm not convinced that the asymmetrical stresses of consistent left/right use would be significant, but if that were the case... My thinking is that the greatest difference that might develop between skis consistently used as left and right, would be asymmetric variations in the torsional stiffness. Torsional stiffness is important to ski performance, especially on hard snow. Skis are twisted in various ways during a turn. A ski that is constantly twisted the same way might become less resistant to torsion in a particular pattern. This pattern of deterioration in torsional performance would be greater than would occur if the skis were swapped around often, and would be more detrimental to a ski's performance than a more symmetrical loss of resistance to torsion.

In other words, torsional performance would be better preserved by swapping left/right often.

Trencher - so you'd say, don't buy skis with those ridiculous matching graphics?

AllyG wrote:Trencher - so you'd say, don't buy skis with those ridiculous matching graphics?

Not if you are OCD :wink:

GTrencher, I agree 100% with the premise of the importance of Torsional variation. I have just never been able to establish a significant potential for cause in variation. Any variation would be very significant on ski control in hard snow. (I love that. In Europe, most people talk about ice!)

Longitudinal damage is easier to think of ~ bombing down through/alongside the trees, make a mistake, and one ski takes a head on hit. The other ski suffers no damage. That, together with the other aspects that I have previously mentioned can assimilate damage to the skis in differing ways.
You question the significance, and I guess this may depend upon personal circumstance. If you change skis every 2/3 seasons, there may be lesser variation. When you change every 5/15 years, the significance will increase. I have certainly witnessed a visual variation as well as physical.

Hmm, thinking aloud, if the skier repeatedly turns harder on a right turn than a left, it would repeatedly stress the ski ~ in the same repeat manner, both torsionally and longitudinally. Hence the stress cycles would accumulate one way.

Which leads me to conclude that the general torsional and longitudinal deteriorisation would be be better averaged by regular L/R swaps. What you said.