Is there ANY advantage to hiring anything but economy skis?

Kowal.ski
I am training towards ISIA ski teaching qualification.
In answer to your original question I would say if you played tennis for 1 week a year would playing with the same tennis racket as Roger Federer as opposed to a well maintained 'middle of the road' racket make you play any better? And the answer is almost certainly "no" and the same applies to skiing and skis.
Of course ski hire shops want people to believe that expensive hire skis will somehow magically transform your skiing and hence get more money out of you but the truth is they won't improve your skiing.
The money would be far better spent on having some lessons.
As long as the skis have been serviced then you are right to hire the cheapest in the shop.
I say well done to you for not getting sucked in.
PS Some people believe that spending £1000 plus on the same clubs as Rory McIlroy will make them play like him. If only it were that easy!

Okay F34 how about this scenario. Skier 10 plus weeks and trying to master powder. Completely agree lessons should be step one , however is difficult to dismiss fact that hiring fatter skis would give them the confidence to stay centered on the skis?
Yes if you are a confident powder skier and willing to go at reasonable speed you can cope with all but deepest powder even on piste skis but renting the right equipment for the job can be a stepping stone.

F34, you are correct that lessons will help an inordinate amount, but do you seriously believe what you wrote to be 100% true? If you do, then please tell me that you are still skiing on the same skis you were in the 80's. I bet not! Why? Because technology DOES improve how a ski behaves for a given ability. Whilst not always the case by a long shot, typically a £400 ski will have MUCH BETTER manners than a £200 ski.

Skis will NEVER replace or mend deficiencies in technique, BUT they can make the job of learning easier. After all they are tools, and better tools can often be easier to use, helping to accelerate the learning curve.

Take one or two simple characteristics like vibration damping and edge hold; there are a multitude of solutions offered by as many manufacturers, some more effective than others. One thing is unanimously agreed upon though and that is solving or reducing the 'bad' characteristics WILL make the ski easier to use and thus make it a whole lot more pleasurable for the user.

This was quite interesting, I thought:

http://www.paullorenzclinics.com/which-skis-are-the-best-for-you

Excellent write up!

"Stiffness is a difficult one to offer general advice on and describe. The best thing for every skier is to demo a few different skis to see what sort of stiffness is suitable for their skiing. "

Thank you all for your patience. As the original poster, I would now like to provide an update following this year's ski trip (to La Plagne).

To remind you, I have been skiing for about 30 years, and each year I always hire (and thoroughly enjoy using) the cheapest skis available. Last season I started to wonder if I would notice any difference in hiring more expensive skis – or do you just get given skis according to your ability regardless how much you pay. So I added this post for comment and the responses I got were mixed with many saying there was a world of difference between cheap and expensive skis but a few said they thought they got the same skis regardless of how much they paid.

As promised, this year I finally tried out some more expensive skis for myself. I did this in a controlled manor as I wanted to make an objective comparison between them.

I had 8 full days skiing in La Plagne (courtesy of the overnight Eurostar) with near perfect conditions and I did my usual trick of hiring the cheapest skis but this time only for the first 7 days after which I had booked the second most expensive skis for my last day (3 levels higher). This allowed me to familiarise myself completely with the resort and find my favourite pistes before trying out the more expensive skis on my last day on slopes I knew well. I felt this would allow me to be completely objective on comparing the more expensive skis against the economy ones – which I couldn't have done if I had taken them for the whole holiday – especially as I was in a resort that I hadn't skied before.

As usual, I could find absolutely no fault with the cheap skis and I thoroughly enjoyed skiing with them on every single open piste in La Plagne. Nevertheless, I was really looking forward to experiencing what were supposed to be better skis on my last day.

Now I want to point out that before I collected my "better" skis, I had made a point of explaining my planned experiment to the guy in the ski hire shop. However, this was deliberately after I had picked up my economy skis as I didn't want there to be any chance that knowing my plan could unfavourably influence the first skis I would be given - but I was more than happy to influence the second pair though. He knew that if I was impressed by the "better" skis, that I would be hiring that category from now onwards - so I fully expected to get the best skis he had (he really was genuinely interested in my experiment and quizzed me on my findings at the end).

When I picked up my "superior" skis I was told that they were new this season (it was early Feb) but to my untrained eye they didn't look (structurally) any different to the ones I had just returned. When I got out onto the slopes, I noticed immediately that they were slightly slippier – but only like any skis would feel after a fresh waxing (and possibly what my other skis had felt like at the beginning of the week before I had skied 300 miles on them) but this was only really noticeable at slow speed on gentle slopes. Anyway, I put them through their paces for almost 50 miles of skiing on a wide variety of blue, red and black slopes (including easy, hard, icy and steep) and I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I didn't notice any difference between them and the ones I had been using for the previous 7 days. They were just as enjoyable and just as controllable as the cheap ones had been – just 2½ times the price.

Conclusions: I am now personally convinced that there is no benefit to me in hiring anything other than the cheapest skis available each year.

I'm willing to believe that some people might benefit from the different categories of hire skis available (and they probably know exactly what skis they want). However, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of skiers out there who blindly book these more expensive skis (because the rental sites recommend them for their ability) also wouldn't notice any difference between them and budget skis.

From my discussions with the ski hire shop staff both last year and this year, I got the impression that budget skis are simply where the more expensive ones end up after 3-4 years use. After all, what else would they do with them? So they won't be the latest model, they'll be scuffed and may not be as stiff – but I couldn't tell the difference.

Closing Tip: I will now pass on some advice which will make a more noticeable difference in the skis you get from hire shops…

Over the years I have found that the only noticeable difference in the skis I am given is due to their length and by trial and error I have found what the perfect length is for me (170cm). Hire shops, however, are definitely inconsistent in the ski length they recommend for me based on my height/weight/experience. They rarely offer the same length as each other and even rarer the length I prefer (usually going shorter). This means that if I blindly took the skis that I was given by the hire shops (as I see most people do) I would not ski as well nor as enjoyably as I could.

So my advice is to find out for yourselves (by experimenting) what length skis you are most comfortable and capable on and insist on that length instead of just blindly taking what you are given. This could make the world of difference to your capability and enjoyment on the slopes. I have always found hire shops are more than happy to switch skis for a different length – especially if you do this when they are not so busy and I regularly experiment with slightly shorter or longer skis just to make sure that my preferences haven't changed. After all I started skiing on 195cm skis – but that was when skis looked a lot more like planks.

Chris

P.S. You may have noticed that I haven't specified what skis I was actually given this year. This is quite deliberate as it clearly isn't relevant. The point is: whatever skis I was given – good or bad - I still paid for a pair of budget skis and a pair of advanced skis - and they were indistinguishable from each other (and from all the other cheap skis I have ever rented) - length was the only factor that changed anything from my perspective.

I think I posted this too late last season for anybody to read it

I too struggle with the question of what type of skis to hire. I have been skiing for over 25 years now and am a confident on-piste skier. Unfortunately, I have never managed to gain any competence in powder. I usually tend to go for the "red" grade of hire skis, on the assumption that the entry level skis are either pretty old or will not be up to higher speed skiing (without really having any evidence to support this belief). I typically do not apply any other criteria and accept whatever I am handed by the hire shop, other than length (up to my chin!).

On a couple of occasions recently, I decided to upgrade to the "premium" category (usually in resorts where the price difference is relatively modest). However, I found that the skis I got were extremely heavy and stiff. It may have been down to the limitations of my technique but I found them very difficult to control (albeit in soft slushy conditions on both occasions) and certainly did not enjoy the experience. On each occasion, I had to return to the hire shop with my tail between my legs and ask for something "more forgiving" :oops: .

At this stage, I think I am resigned to the fact that I should be satisfied with the "red" level skis and not agonise about the issue any more!

While I do not ski powder (because I can't and I am not sure that my ancient knees are up to learning at this stage of my life), I would fully accept the views expressed about the value of special fat skis for those seeking to venture off-piste.