Testing a new generation of alpine all

mountain ski
Testing ski preferences
My skiing always has been centered on, nature, sensations, pleasure but also
performance.
For many years I went with my son who gradually became much more moveable
and quicker than me everywhere on the mountain. He used snowboard which at
that time was much different from skis.
I realized that the difference in buoyancy must be of big importance. This was
most evident in weak crust and heavy snow, believe it or not! You immediately
realize the difference between the ski of that time and a snowboard when you
compare the flotation in deep and loose snow. At the same time it sensed that
the snowboards were not easy to use on a hard surface partly because of its
extreme width. The properties of ice were still not as bad as you'd think. The ski
trend has undoubtedly been stimulated in recent years from the snowboard
development.
During the last 10 years much have happened in the ski development
consequently! My own skiing now days is only about alpine backcountry and offpiste, hunting powder and beautiful descents, always remembering that the
mountains also contain hard and icy passages.
So last year I started to investigate upgrading my gears.

Old gear
The gear is not bad and it is hard to outshine, having the following performance:

Weight
One boot
One binding
One ski
One skin
Each foot
Salomon
Diamir Fritchi
Atomic Sugar
Black
Weight in kg
Equip
diamond
1,85
0,85
1,9
0,3
4,9
This combination is easy to turn, good on wind packed and icy snow. It had a
tendency for diving in powder until I moved the bindings 4 cm backwards against
recommendation.
The ski is stiff all over its length which makes it more difficult to turn in deep
snow.
The binding is not good being rather old in design. When the ski is flexing under
the heel, the support moves angle ways creating oscillation and bad grip when
carving.
The gear is a bit heavy which has become more and more important for me now
days. Being older not having people in once own age for company, it seems
intelligent to compensate by lighter weight on each foot!

Ski shape
The shape is old fashion with camber and side cut all over its length, stiffness is
distributed all over the length as well. Only new thing ten years ago was the fat
design. See the comparison table below.

En uppsats skriven 2012-11-16

Lars Snsterd

Testing a new generation of alpine all

mountain ski

Modern skis for comparison

The new skis have their ice grip concentrated in a stiff mid camber section which
does not need to be extremely fat. Compare modern slalom skis. The buoyancy
areas are placed in the front and the rear parts, tip and tail. But tip and tail is
rather weak, having a small rocker which makes the skis extremely light to turn.
A good turning radius is 14-17 m, side cut.

Comparison

En uppsats skriven 2012-11-16

Lars Snsterd

Testing a new generation of alpine all

mountain ski

The tested binding

En uppsats skriven 2012-11-16

Lars Snsterd

Testing a new generation of alpine all

mountain ski

Skis rented during one day. Each ski was

used up and down 300 vertical meters on
the same slope

Pictures, testing ground Kebnekajse, some

eqipment performance are shown.

Conclusion
The tested skis had the same weight on boot, binding and skin so when just 0,2
kg felt important in the difference between Bond and Sho Oyo it is due to the low
weight 1,1 kg of the latter. On the other hand Sho Oyo was nervous which I think
is due to the difference in shape.

En uppsats skriven 2012-11-16

Lars Snsterd

Testing a new generation of alpine all

mountain ski

So when I find a ski very similar to the Movement Bond, Movement Response-X
with weight 1.1 kg, it seems perfect. With the data for the Movement Response-X
ski from the specifications above put in to the Geometry of ski 2014 above we
get:

En uppsats skriven 2012-11-16

Lars Snsterd