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New Ski Company?!?

Horton

By Horton
in Skis Fins Bindings

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Cayman2 Contributor

Cayman2

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Well, now I feel like a real horse's ass after all that stuff I said about gatormod. What's a couple of cut off fish poles compared to a half ton of analog instrumentation bolted to the front of your ski? @Wish maybe you ought to consider the tech approach to getting your head past your ankle injury.
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Wish Grand Master

Wish

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I do not think strapping pressure gauges to my ankle will help...

 

But I'd love to see that in backpack form with pressure tubes running up the legs of a skier. Must take video. At least that's what I'm picturing if that's correct @adamhcaldwell

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mwetskier Mentor

mwetskier

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random thoughts -i'm envisioning a scenario where one of the adams goes otf and after binding release the ski is dragging along behind adam (or adam) by a bunch of poly tubing. which leads me to wonder why they're not calling it 'adams skis '. which leads me ponder that ' denali ' is pronounced ' denial ' in dyslexic . . .
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DW Grand Master

DW

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@the Adams: I assume you looked in to a data aq. box? Something like a used AIM system could be pretty cheap and simply stick it in an underwater camera box to keep it dry. That should drop the weight dramatically. And you could easily transfer reams of data to an excel sheet!
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Adam Caldwell Apprentice

Adam Caldwell

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@skibug:

Total weight was not more then 2-3lbs. The fact that the mass was mounted above the top deck of the ski a few inches gave it enough of a moment that the edge change was scary. I immediately stopped trying to take "angle" through the middle. The tip mass did want to make the tip drop harder into the turn, and also, with the moment arm, helped roll the ski into a higher bank angle.

For the record, I have skied many test skis that weighed (no bindings) over 10lbs, surprisingly, bondo, carbon, and epoxy can add up... Skis like that ride amazingly well in rough water. I had a tournament PB on a 9-lb ski last fall. (2.25 @ 41). Weight that is very close to the center-line of the ski is not "as" noticeable crossing the wakes at all. It all becomes an issue when the mount is elevated off the top surface. Anyone who has skied with a go-pro mounted on the tip will know what I am referring to.

I have no intention of building a "ultra-light" ski. Controlling the balance of mass from tip to tail is something I do want to optimize as we move forward. It does make a difference.

 

@Wish:

You are exactly right. Plan is to gather the 8-10 pressure lines and run them up the back of my front leg.

 

@mwetsker:

Its been a very long time since I've gone OTF. Lets put it like this....of all the things Cord and I have tested on skis, and in the manner in which we tested them, this ranks like a 2 on the scale of "1-to-Hazardous".

In Seattle, and on several occasions, Cord used to make me put him on a whip coming out of the slalom course at the north end of Lake Sammamish, with boat running 36mph and literally throw himself OTF to validate the effectiveness of the binding release system he was working on. That would rank about an 8. Some days went better then others :smiley:

 

@DW:

We did consider something like that, however, I still would need to overcome the instrumentation hurdle. I was not able to find a low cost pressure transducer that would easily fit between boot plates and adjacent to the fin block. The analog method was an easy, and inexpensive way to go. Should disaster strike, there wouldn't be a need to dive to bottom of lake to pull up destroyed electronics. I used shark bite connectors to hold in the 1/8 line. Next time ill ditch those and just glue the hose in place, using a rubber connector as a "quick disconnect" mechanism for emergency situations. I would like to research the options again over the winter.

 

@Horton:

I was a Nuclear Test engineer in a previous life. "Atom Skis" was definitely a consideration.

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AdamCord Mentor

AdamCord

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I'm getting some questions about why the rocker looks the way it does so I'll see if I can explain:

 

Our rocker is designed to allow you to roll up further in the turn if you need to (think running late/fast and you slam a turn) without causing the ski to dump you and kill the speed (watch Caldwell's 4 ball in the video on page 1 to see this in action). The goal is to convert the downcourse speed that you have pre-apex into cross course speed as you drop into the turn as efficiently as possible. Most skis just slide and suck down, which kills your down course speed and keeps the line tight, but it results in converting most of your energy into spray and you have very little cross course speed when you go to load on the line, which results in you either taking a big hit or at least having to do a ton of work to get going again. If we can get you moving to center with a tight line with even 20 or 30 percent more energy it makes a massive difference in how fast you get to center, how much less load you feel in your hands/feet, and therefore how much easier it is to stay connected on the way out to the next buoy. It's tough to see without a side by side comparison but in the videos of Cale and Adam they are getting to center much earlier than on other skis.

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Adam Caldwell Apprentice

Adam Caldwell

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@Cord - Too follow up on rocker questions on this ski....

 

The relationship of geometry between rocker & profile shape is designed with the objective to create a seamless transition from center-line to pre-turn. The "unloaded" shape of the ski was selected based on what we believe the ski needs to do from the center-line & second wake out into apex. Our true rocker shape is then defined by the flex and torsion characteristics as the ski is loaded through the turn and into the first wake. I'm almost embarrassed about how much time we spent figuring this out.

 

As the ski transitions from cutting edge - to flat - to turning edge, the skier's position over the top of the ski will not be disrupted. Many other skis on the market have a tendency to shift the skier to the backseat through this transition phase; one of the issues we have aimed to overcome with our rocker, profile, and flex dynamics.

 

Static profile shape and rocker geometry is only a fraction of the equation. A tremendous amount of work went into optimizing the relationship between all aspects of the ski to create as much synergy as possible through each phase of the slalom course. Information collected from the "pressure gauge ski" was used to comprehend more about this dynamic, along with hundreds of different torsional and longitudinal flex combinations that were tested, measured, and evaluated.

 

Our curiosity to better understand the highly dynamic relationships and situations in the slalom course led us on a path that exposed the importance of governing the balance between each independent variable to create a new synergy on the water.

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Than_Bogan Grand Master

Than_Bogan

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@adamhcaldwell Holy sheet that is freakin' awesome.

 

Not sure you can comment publicly, but did you or are you in the future considering lateral flex ala the FlexTail? For me personally, that was the first time I ever heard anybody trying to optimize the dynamic shape of the ski -- i.e. purposely taking advantage of the ski changing it's shape under specific loads that occur in the slalom course.

 

Of course, that's always been the case to some extent, or nobody would have cared much about flex at all other than to try to get rid of it. But it seems like "suddenly" we're aware that we can use flex intelligently to change the ski's shape dynamically in a helpful way. At the least, this is a new idea this year TO ME.

 

Meanwhile, somehow there MUST be an awesome name for this new company from the Yoda and Brain icons you guys are using. Pretty sure it's not Brainyoda, which of course would end up being pronounced brainy-o-da...

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CaleBurdick Contributor

CaleBurdick

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@MISkier you are right about little mountain. But I only ran 2@41 at worlds. So today I tied my PB on a ski that I've had 6 sets on. The 3@41 in July on the predecessor to this final version was great for me, but today's 4@41 felt like I gave the pass away at 3 ball. It felt way better than just a buoy better. The way this ski decreases the amount of slack without compromising any other aspect of the course is such a genuine feeing to me.
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