Rocker

I see that rocker is the next new big thing, but is it just more hype to get us to buy new gear, like 3D HDTV? Seems like it make sense out west, but I'm extremely skeptical about the claims that it will be good in the east.

I'm quite satisfied with my quiver, but I'm curious. Just more Kool-Aid offered by a struggling industry?

I'm about in the same boat as you. I can't see how it could be beneficial on groomers/hardpack. I think it would be nice in some deeper snow though.

x2.

Like super fat skis .. the advantage is in deep pow. More control in that situation, effortless turning. Like every ski parameter it's a trade off. Probably doesn't make sense for us Gore guys.

SBR is a Jay Peak guy, and he swears by rockered skis, and that makes sense.

Ah.. the upslope...


SBR on some groomer

I would have rockers too (or whatever works) if I was a Jay Peak guy. I've been out west (CO, UT, MT) a number of times, but the best powder I ever skied was at Jay. Gore is only occasionally blessed with the dumps that Jay gets regularly.

BTW, if anyone in North Creek does travel to Jay (via Rouses Point exit) how long is the trip?

Last time I did that,I spent the night in Plattsburgh so it wasn't a direct route. It wasn't more than an hour from Plattsburgh if that helps.

On a side note, I just found out that the Clarkson ski club will reimburse you for your gas money if you drive to Whiteface, Gore, or Jay. They already have buses that bring you to Whiteface but, regardless, an awesome deal. I hope they give me some nice financial aid if I get in. This whole Buffalo thing isn't quite doing it for me.

fujative wrote

 This whole Buffalo thing isn't quite doing it for me.

Hehe. I wondered what you were thinkin when you decided to go that way. How 'bout this.... You chose that route cuz of educational priorities, proirities that will get you a better job later in life so you can ski your bootee off the rest of your life vs 4 years. Plus, you'll get more snow there, some huge dumps, Holiday Valley, et al. Can't be all bad.

How's the Babe quality there?

I remember back in the day when Edinburgh state college in NW Penna had a 7 to 1 female to male ratio. Even the squints got puddin.

There is no doubt that the ski industry is really talking up rocker as the next generation of skis. Is this a ploy to get you to buy new skis or is it a real benefit to skis. Well this is what we need to look at. The ski industry is in a major sales slump right now. To give you an example 5 years ago 1.5 million skis were sold in the US. Last year 600K were sold. Ski companies are coming up with new ideas to get skiers to buy skis. They also want you to buy more than one ski. I relate this to whitewater kayaking. We use to have one boat. Now we have a play boat, creek boat, big water boat etc.

So lets talk about rocker. Rocker is basically the camber of the ski. Traditional skis have camber that wants to push the edges of the ski toward the snow. This works great generally on our East Coast conditions where more edge equals more edge grip. In powder you want the ski to float so reverse camber is the answer. You do not need edges in powder all you want the ski to do is float. Until a few year ago that's all we had and that why everybody thinks rocker is for powder skis. Lets take a look at ways rocker can help a beginner skier. If I have a rockered tip it will be harder for the beginner skier to catch an edge upon turn initiation. This is why you will see this year a lot of rentals are going to be rockered. So there are ways rocker can help a ski and a skier. I think the problem most of us are having is we think of rocker as being huge. I have seen these beginner rockered skis and they are very subtle as to the rocker. So all in all rocker is here to stay. Right now we talk about skis as what the tip, waist and tail. In a few years the industry want us to describe a ski as whats the waist and whats the rocker. We will see how this goes.  

Wow. that sales differental is huge.....low cost ski equipment on the horizion?

Spongeworthy wrote

I see that rocker is the next new big thing, but is it just more hype to get us to buy new gear, like 3D HDTV? Seems like it make sense out west, but I'm extremely skeptical about the claims that it will be good in the east.

Were you also skeptical about fat skis, twin-tips, shaped skis, parabolic skis, "short skis," the Graduated Length Method, releasable bindings, Howard Head's radical new metal laminates and the introduction of steel edges? I think it is good sign that ski designers are investing in R&D, testing new shapes and trying to make skiing easier for us. And of course, encourage us all to expand our quivers. Sure, rocker may not be for everyone but if you ever ski on ungroomed terrain, at least a little tip rise makes a lot of sense. For a better explanation, see JMP's "The truth About Rocker," just posted as I was typing this.

Harvey44 wrote

SBR on some groomer

Oh, and Harv, that photo of me was actually taken on a rare icy day at Jay. I was trying desperately to get my big, fat, no-camber skis to turn on the hardpack and was spraying up ice chips like an out-of-control Zamboni.

Snowballs wrote

Hehe. I wondered what you were thinkin when you decided to go that way. How 'bout this.... You chose that route cuz of educational priorities, proirities that will get you a better job later in life so you can ski your bootee off the rest of your life vs 4 years. Plus, you'll get more snow there, some huge dumps, Holiday Valley, et al. Can't be all bad.

How's the Babe quality there?

I remember back in the day when Edinburgh state college in NW Penna had a 7 to 1 female to male ratio. Even the squints got puddin.

Clarkson and UB are about the same educational wise. Basically, I came out here because it was cheap, is a good engineering school, and my brothers came here. 20/20 hindsight.

My babes back home, so it doesn't much matter to me.

I don't really hate it here, I can definitely think of some places I'd rather be. If I'm paying of it though, I figure I should actually enjoy where I am. UB is about $16k a year, but hardly give out financial aid. Clarkson is about $35k but gives out tons of financial aid. We'll see what happens in the spring.

OK enough off-topic .

I definitely don't think my one ski quiver would be a rockered ski, unless it was one with a slight early rise and regular camber underfoot. In that case I'd consider it.

I figure if I am transferring to Clarkson (their ski club will reimburse your gas money if you keep the receipts for driving to Jay, Gore, and Whiteface), then my friends and I would definitely be hitting up Jay as much as possible. Also I'm getting into a trend of heading westward at least once a year. I'm looking for a fairly soft ski, mellow regular camber underfoot and early rise, 110 underfoot (+/- 5mm), and [relatively] cheap. Ideally, I'd like some AT boots (with interchangeable pads so they can be used for alpine bindings), AT binders and some skins. Money, money, money....

Judging by this thread, and just thinking about the increase in independent ski manufacturers in recent years, I get the feeling that there might be a price crash coming for skis . . . Especially "old-school" cambered skis (which have always worked out well for me).  I'm going to wait it out until spring and then see what kind of deals are around (I have a feeling that there is going to be a lot of leftover inventory for shops to clear out).

It's all that it's cracked up to be in deep snow, or soft cutup. Rough bumps are terrible, soft bumps with 6" of fluff =3 dimensional FUN. conventional sidecut+rocker=soft groomer "return home ski", rocker+reverse sidecut on harder snow CAN = blown ACL! Tool for right medium etc etc I really like the full rocker combined with the conventional pintail sidecut of my volkl kuros. It's admittedly a huge ski that's strangely manageable in less than perfect pow conditions. A NECCESITY at Greek Peak;-)

I had the opportunity to test a lot of this season's skis last season. First of all, most manufacturers have not yet jumped on the rocker bandwagon. A couple of lines have added a fair amount of rockered skis. K2 is pushing rocker in a big way while Volkl has taken a more moderate approach building rocker into some skis and leaving others alone. Off the top of my head I don't recall how Atomic and Rossi embraced this new design.  Most manufacturers are taking a tempered approach that will allow them to either a) continue with rocker on selected skis or b) let it fall by the wayside. I think that we'll see rocker in twin tips for a while. I found no advantage on hard packed snow. Do experienced skiers need rocker in powder or do fat skis work just fine? I think that the market will determine the future of rocker. Clearly this is a change that is only being driven by the industry and the industry has not committed yet. I think that with the exception of K2, they are hedging their bets.

Mike Doyle is a prolific ski blogger for About.com.

Apparent he thinks rocker is a significant innovation that is here to stay.  An excerpt on using rockered skis in other conditions:

"While we are not at the complete one ski quiver, and in my mind never will be if you are thinking of taking one ski from Maine to the Rockies, to Alaska. But, engineers are getting close by tweaking the camber range and the shape of the ski and putting skis out on the snow with testers who can bring back definable information well beyond "it's an awesome ski."

The 'rocker' concept has now come to commercial fruition, showing up in mass production, varying by brand and model in composition, amount of rocker, point of rise off the snow, height of rise and ski shape.

My assessment is the rocker ski is here to stay, just as the shaped ski took over all design. Why? Because it makes for easier skiing and an easier learning curve. I know some powder purists call it cheating and some instructors say it cuts technique. To these I say, 'Get over it.'"

Full Mike Doyle blog entry here:

http://skiing.about.com/od/skis/a/rocker-skis.htm

I just picked up some Rossi S6's off of Steep and Cheap.
174cm, 136/106/130. Not super wide, but definitely solid for some powder days.
I'm a bit concerned about it and need to do some more research (structural Integrity), but I've been thinking about a DIY early rise. Not much, maybe 1/2 an inch over the first 12"-16".

I think I finally understand the potential advantages to Rocker on hardpack.

Today, on surfaces are that were hard but edgeable, I found myself doing something that I'm sure is a bad habit.

I was leaning back onto my heels, to make parallel turns easier.  Basically by relieving pressure from the tips I was able to more easily manage hardpack snow with loose snow on top.

I'm guessing that a rockered tip could do the same thing, while allowing me to keep my weight further forward.

Do I have that right?

Still I can see disadvantages to a rockered tip, in those most critical, difficult, icy headwall decents.

This guy might be more believeable if he tucked in his shirt and pronounced "orientated" correctly. Still I learned something:

The perfect ski for me would be -90-95 underfoot rockered 185s  If I'm skiing rumor on a hard day I am gripping with about 170 but when I am in Valentine's Day Pow the tips ride up and I am sitting on top of the fluff with 185 cm of carvers.  They have the're place.  I think we are farther away from the one ski quiver than we used to be but overall...they're easier!  I skied rockered way before it was cool...my Atomic Bionic SL 207 were bent so many times in the bumps and sort of Returned to form by Jack at Alpine that when you laid them flat they only touched for about 180 cm...By the way they ripped in Utah deep

I've always been calling the last one rocker, everything else early rise. I've heard that from many other people as well. I think at this point, it's just whatever the company decides to call it.

Rocker helps so you don't catch on rails? That's weird, because they're only about 4" wide

Steve... my friend and I were experimenting with rockering his dad's old Elan 204's. If it works alright, I wanna mount them up and take them out for a day. We did mount my new skis though!