I was asked a few weeks ago, by a friend, what some of my favourite ski tech is. There were three things that immediately jumped to my mind – dampening tech, metal plates, and multi-radii sidecuts.
When looking at renting skis - especially with rental skis matching closer than ever to market skis - or even buying your own tech, it can be important to understand what’s in the ski itself. After all, this is what makes a ski feel a certain way or perform to a certain level, so getting the right tech in your ski is the ticket to getting the right ski for your needs.
Vibration dampening is a really fun recent innovation in skis that has been passed down directly from the World Cup circuit. In much the same way that innovations in Formula 1 tech filter down into everyday road cars, the same thing is true with skis; tech tried and tested on the slopes of the world cup circuit is brought down, often unadulterated, into the skis you find on the racks to buy or rent in resorts around the world.
Why is vibration dampening important? It comes down to edge hold. Edge hold is vitally important for your skiing, especially at higher speed on piste when you can rock your skis edge to edge and just enjoy carving down the mountain. In an ideal world, the snow is perfect, with no variation, no bumps, no icy patches, no nothing, but we know that is never the case. Vibration dampening helps iron out the differences between snow types and sudden changes and shocks to the ski, making it easier to maintain your edge hold and even push the ski harder in each turn. It can make a real difference between a ski that is great and a ski that is all time great.
In this blog, I break down some of my favourite vibration dampening and shock absorption tech that you can find, the brands you can find them in, and the difference they make to your skiing.
Rubber & Metal Inlays
Two brands have embraced a rubber and metal inlay into the forward part of the ski to act as a vibration dampening mechanism: Rossignol and Nordica.
Nordica have gone for a pretty rogue approach, slicing the core of the ski horizontally, and inserting a full-width, full-length layer of metal, sandwich by rubber plates. The metal helps spread load all along the forward part of the ski, and the rubber acts as a pure shock absorbing material.
Between the two parts, the ski is able to absorb vibrations big and small. It is a really powerful mechanism, however, so you’ll only tend to find their Dual Core tech in their hardcore piste skis, like their Spitfire and Dobermann Spitfire range.
Rossignol, however, offer a more finessed approach. Rather than splitting the core in half horizontally, the French brand inlays a fine sliver of titanal along the length of the forward part of the ski, sandwich left and right by rubber. The same effect is achieved, but because you no longer have the firm, powerful metal plate like you do in Nordica skis, it offers far more control over the ski.
For this reason, you will find Rossignol’s Line Control Tech in a much wider range of skis, including all-mountain and off-piste. It was the real difference maker in their React series, that for a very long time held the crown of best on-piste ski from a huge range of review outlets – including Ski Club of Great Britain – creating a smooth ski in all conditions. It now features in their Arcade – new all-mountain – and Sender/Sender Soul – freeride – ranges.
The Sender Soul is 102mm underfoot; traditionally too big to really hold an edge properly, and with too much material to ever be really stable at high speed. Thanks to Line Control Tech, it does both of these things, setting a new standard for freeride skis and their on-piste performance.
I won’t hide this, I really love Line Control Tech; its such a simply thing to do but the finesse and control that comes with it is mind blowingly good. The sooner I can get it in my skis the better.
KERS
Yes, I’m serious, skis have KERS … sort of.
For those of you now familiar with Formula 1 motor racing, KERS is an energy recovery system that takes energy from braking, stores it in a battery, and is then released back into the engine to improve performance.
About 10 years ago, Head embraced KERS in their skis. They stopped using it a couple of years ago, but switched to their own brand of the same technology, Energy Management Circuit (EMC). EMC consists of a small chip inlaid into the ski that absorbs energy as you drive into the ski, and releases it do dampen small vibrations that are constantly experienced as you move over the snow.
Do I know the ins and outs of how it works? Not really. Have I drunk the EMC Kool-Aid and believe it to be a wonderful addition to the ski? Absolutely.
The best example of the good work EMC does is in Head’s old Supershape range. Their performance orientated headline, the Supershape Magnum, has long been one of my favourite skis. It’s the only ski I’ve ever skied that you can feel twisting beneath you when you skis; this makes it really really easy to crank it over and allows a skier missing confidence or a little bit of skill to really let rip with it, truly one of the most accessible performance skis I’ve ever tried. At the same time, the EMC locks in that edge, allowing high quality, high confidence skiers to really go hard.
This year, they’ve added a metal plate into the ski, but it remains just as accessible, awesome, and driveable, the same low floor but with a higher ceiling. The EMC remains the key to unlocking this, a perfect example of vibration dampening and shock absorption doing what it needs to do.
Flax Fibres and Carbon Rods
These two features fall into a sort of “sundry” category. They’re not the genre defining technologies that the other techs are, but they still play an important role in the performance of the ski.
You can find flax fibres in the forward part of, particularly, Elan’s Ripstick range. Carbon rods can be found in Black Diamond’s Impulse range. Both of these ranges are hugely important, genre defining skis for the all-mountain and freeride markets, that have sat at the top of many reviewer’s lists (including my own) since their launch.
It’s not the flax and carbon that makes these skis, but without them they would be a very different ski. Carbon works in a similar way to metal; it absorbs power as you drive into the ski, but unlike metal it does not feed that energy back to the skier. It will do the same with vibrations and feedback coming from the snow, not as obviously as KERS or rubber inlays, but still working away under the hood to keep your skiing smooth.
Flax does a similar thing, perhaps in an even subtler way. Sitting in the core of the ski it works much like rubber, simply absorbing shocks and vibration as they come along.
Final Thoughts
All the skis mentioned here are phenomenal, genre defining skis. The vibration dampening and shock absorption are key parts of this, and a key reason why high-performance skis can go even harder, finding that extra bit of oomph to turn from ten up to 11. Looking for a hardcore ski that can go even harder, but worried about accessibility, worried about if you are good enough for a ski? Look for shock absorption tech and unlock your skiing.
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