If you are getting ready to buy new skis anytime soon, you'll find that your choices are now limited to those "not so new" shaped skis. Visit any ski shop or ski area and that is all you'll see! Why? Because the advances in ski technology, along with the very visible changes in ski shapes, have made for a very easy-to-ski ski. The hourglass shape - very wide at the tip and tail, and very narrow in the middle - makes them easy to turn and much less work to ski on. And you'll find that you don't need such a long ski to get the same kind of performance you are used to with your long, straight skis. Shorter skis, easier turns! They sounded almost too good to be true, and something I really wanted to try. So did my wife, Irene, and in fact, she beat me to it. Last winter she took part in a Head/Subaru Women's Ski Clinic at Bromley Mountain in Vermont. This free clinic tours the country making stops at 16 ski areas nationwide. [Besides providing a free day of skiing, demos, and instruction by local instructors and a professional woman skier, Head and Subaru also make a donation to the National Breast Cancer Research Coalition fund for each participant in the event. Over the last four years, they have donated over $100,000 to the NBCRC.]
She was definitely glad she went, and we both would recommend this kind of "try before you buy" approach to anyone thinking of making this switch.
I skied along within earshot of the group Irene was in, and here are some of the things she learned about trying shaped skis for the first time.
The first tip was perhaps the hardest for her to do (she said!) - equal weight on both skis through the turns. While weighting and unweighting the skis did work, it was unnecessary work. When she really concentrated, the skis would just glide through the turns almost effortlessly. It was also much easier to make very nice round turns.
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