Skis measurements

ZackskibumI’ve skied for 13 years now and I’m very embarrassed but anyone want to explain ski measurements?

There are loads of different dimensions to a ski , but the main ones are as follows:

length: how long the ski is from tip to tail, measured in centimetres (ex. 176cms)

waist width: how wide the ski is underfoot, measured in millimeters (ex 96mm)

tip and tail width: How wide the ski is at the widest point of both the tip and tail. (Ex 121mm and 118mm , respectively)

Thanks

Another one is sidecut radius. In pure carving, a ski will follow an arc dependent on the sidecut radius of the ski and the edge angle a ski makes with the slope. A slalom ski wants to makes lots of tight turns when you get it on edge. A downhill or SG ski wants to go straight. Most all-mountain skis are somewhere in the middle.

broken_skier0Another one is sidecut radius. In pure carving, a ski will follow an arc dependent on the sidecut radius of the ski and the edge angle a ski makes with the slope. A slalom ski wants to makes lots of tight turns when you get it on edge. A downhill or SG ski wants to go straight. Most all-mountain skis are somewhere in the middle.

To follow up on this, the turn radius of a ski was explained to me this way:
Imagine you put a ski on edge and theoretically ski it in a circle. The radius of that circle is the turn radius of the ski. Longer radii = more stable at high speeds
shorter radio = quicker edge to edge

CalumSKIThere are loads of different dimensions to a ski , but the main ones are as follows:

length: how long the ski is from tip to tail, measured in centimetres (ex. 176cms)

waist width: how wide the ski is underfoot, measured in millimeters (ex 96mm)

tip and tail width: How wide the ski is at the widest point of both the tip and tail. (Ex 121mm and 118mm , respectively)

Also some important caveats are that not every company measures their skis in the same way. Some measure true to length and some measure after the manufacturing process. This means that they’ll either measure the length of the ski before it is shaped in a press (true to length) or they will measure the ski after it has been pressed. ON3P and K2 are two examples of companies that measure before. Faction and Line are two examples of companies that measure after. Also, some companies will display their tip-waist-tail measurements like so:
115-123-105-120-112 (these are made up)
what this means is that the ski is tapered, so the company is displaying how wide the ski is at the very tip, how wide it is in the widest part of the nose, how wide it is in the waist, how wide it is in the widest part of the tail, and how wide it is in the tail