backcountry AT skis

[kioti]

Yeah, K2's Website is crap. It also looks like we might be recalling different specs. I don't remember last years (and def. not 1st Gen) having that wide of a shovel... They added a little bit of marketing FAT to the ski it sounds like. Interesting that McLean is designing skis for k2, when he's working with BD, I wonder if Atomic doesn't want an american in their factory or something?

[pbelitz]

The 2005/2006 Shuksan (with the Native American graphics) is the same as the 2004/2005 Shuksan (with the brown topsheet). The older Shuksan must have had a significantly larger turn radius, as the sidecut was something like 107/75/???.

 

McLean no longer works for BD, he's now a full-time avalanche forecaster in Utah.

 

Dammit! I just derived an expression for the sidecut radius of a ski, assuming that the sidecut is described by a circle. My result agrees with this page, but given this, my 184 R:EX has a sidecut radius of 14.47m, a 181 Shuksan would have a SR of about 11.61m. The old shuksan has a SR of around 14.22m.

 

Somehow the manufacturers use something weird when they calculate sidecut radius. Because my derivation is correct.

[counterfeitfake]

But... it's not a circle, it's a parabola, right?

[pbelitz]

Why should it be a parabola and not a circle? If it's a parabola, you can't talk about radii.

[cj001f]

I don't think it's neccessarily a parabola, circle or any conic section. I know the sidecuts of my skis aren't circular.

 

I believe the sidecut "radius" is calculated by assuming a circle of sidecut and using length of ski & width at tip, mid and tail - probably the equation you derived.