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Yes, the edge does get blunt. And you can notice it in close up photos. However, does it get blunt enough to affect performance? After all, it's not like a kni

by troupo 2y ago

Yes, the edge does get blunt. And you can notice it in close up photos. However, does it get blunt enough to affect performance? After all, it's not like a knife trying to cut through a piece of meat

ReleaseCandidat 2y ago
> does it get blunt enough to affect performance Edges matter on ice. And yes, the difference is noticable (if the edga has been blunt "enough").
- vlovich123 2y ago
  How frequently do you need to tune? I usually only tune at the beginning of each season. Does tuning also prolong the longevity of the board? This article doesn’t seem to address that.
  - swader999 2y ago
    Filing edges and base grinding cuts material away so it shortens the life. Not a huge concern though. Racers typically wax and tune edges every 10-20 runs. Recreationally, if you are on a narrow groomer type ski on icy runs, every few days is great and will help you enjoy and improve faster. Well fitted ski boots are more critical though.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    I do edges every day (usually just a few passes with a fine stone and a light deburring with gummy stone), base wax as required by the conditions.
    - swader999 2y ago
      Yes, this kind of maintenance is quick to do and a best practice once you've setup the angles. Then you hit a rock and cry.
Xylakant 2y ago
On hard packed snow and ice, the difference is pretty stark. On softer snow or powder, the difference is substantially less noticeable.
- 0wis 2y ago
  As the author said, in icy conditions it changes the day from scary to fun
tw04 2y ago
Try taking a slice out of a block of ice with a butter knife. Try again with a sharp butchers blade. The difference is quite pronounced.
- creato 2y ago
  The question is whether this is a good model for an actual ski on ice. What you describe might be a good model for an absolutely perfect carve, but that basically never happens in reality. When it does, it’s on softer snow where the tuned corner of the edge is a negligible part of the overall interaction with the snow. I agree with the quoted skier in the post, tuning skis doesn’t matter. I am someone who puts 400+ days on one pair of skis before replacing them, I ski pretty rough terrain and hit my share of rocks, I’ve gotten maybe 3 ski tuneups in my life, I couldn’t tell the difference after any of them. The only things I did to care for them was to store them dry and wax them once per season.
  - djtango 2y ago
    Other people are reporting that they can feel it with ice. Do you ski much on ice?
    - creato 2y ago
      I’ve certainly skied ice and all kinds of crust. In my experience true ice isn’t that bad in terms of grip, it’s rarely so smooth that edges can’t easily grip on surface imperfections. It’s not fun to ski because it’s very high impact. I think what most people talk about as icy and slippery that seems to form on skied off groomers is actually some kind of crust that is hard to get edge hold in because the snow is somehow very firm but not well bonded to itself either, so what little edge penetration you get just scrapes off easily and doesn’t support the ski. When I try to picture what is going on in such snow, edge sharpness doesn’t matter, you might penetrate marginally deeper but that just means you’re scraping marginally more snow off.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
jval43 2y ago
It doesn't just affect performance, blunt edges make skiing down icy patches impossible. The effect is so pronounced that if you do enough skiing in a day you'll notice a difference even at the end of that day. The effect of a newly sharpened ski is noticeable immediately even if you're an absolute beginner. Even moreso if you're on a snowboard. Source: 30 years of skiing and snowboarding.
huskdigselv 2y ago
I have been an Austrian trained ski instructor since 2012 and I can tell you that a sharp ski is essential if you want to have carve in any conditions below where the snow isn't slushing or soft. I.e. any run that is either early day, windblown, mid-season (generally colder) or shadow side. HOWEVER 99% of the skiers on a mountain (and yes I mean 99%) do not actually ski on their edges, they do skidded turns (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hioJ4ThJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hioJ4ThJA). And the same 99% will typically just slide off of hard and icy parts of a slope as they aren't comfortably riding their edge. To these people sharp edges matter, but less than to the few who successfully carve. But if you are within that 1% of skiers that do ski mostly on the edge, then a sharp edge is extremely important; you see true carving technique is a delicate skill: In order to carve properly you need to need to get your skis in a steep angle with the snow, which means you need to get your feet in a steep angle, which can only be maintained if you move your center of gravity into a position that isn't above your feet. Which effectively means your body is in a position that is out of balance. Similarly to how sprinting essentially is just leaning forwards and playing "catch up" with our legs, carving technique tries to do the same. Exception being that we use the rhythmical centripetal forces of turns and the resistance of the snow to create the balancing force (https://d3t7modobimpp4.cloudfront.net/uploads/_1200xAUTO_fit_center-center_none/ted-forces.jpg https://d3t7modobimpp4.cloudfront.net/uploads/_1200xAUTO_fit...). And this is why edges matter; because if the centripetal force provided from the carving turn isn't generated because the skis blunt edges cause them to slip, then instead of generating movement towards the skiers body (reestablishing balance), the skis will drift away from the skiers body (removing balance) resulting in poor turns if not slipping down onto ones hip. TL;DR: Very good skiers NEED sharp edges to ski well. Most skiers will be fine. (As a matter of fact I think 99% of all skiers will do just fine on ANY ski, and make more significant improvement from 2 days of ski school than any equipment upgrade or tuning that money can buy).
- swader999 2y ago
  I aggre with this and boots are 90 percent the secret to progress. You could teach a beginner how to carve on a very flat slope though. The 99 percent that slide are just on too steep of a slope for their carving ability. Which is fine by the way. It's fun to go down steeper runs, even if you arent carving.

by troupo 2y ago

Yes, the edge does get blunt. And you can notice it in close up photos. However, does it get blunt enough to affect performance? After all, it's not like a knife trying to cut through a piece of meat

ReleaseCandidat 2y ago

> does it get blunt enough to affect performance Edges matter on ice. And yes, the difference is noticable (if the edga has been blunt "enough").

vlovich123 2y ago
How frequently do you need to tune? I usually only tune at the beginning of each season. Does tuning also prolong the longevity of the board? This article doesn’t seem to address that.
- swader999 2y ago
  Filing edges and base grinding cuts material away so it shortens the life. Not a huge concern though. Racers typically wax and tune edges every 10-20 runs. Recreationally, if you are on a narrow groomer type ski on icy runs, every few days is great and will help you enjoy and improve faster. Well fitted ski boots are more critical though.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  I do edges every day (usually just a few passes with a fine stone and a light deburring with gummy stone), base wax as required by the conditions.
  - swader999 2y ago
    Yes, this kind of maintenance is quick to do and a best practice once you've setup the angles. Then you hit a rock and cry.

Xylakant 2y ago

On hard packed snow and ice, the difference is pretty stark. On softer snow or powder, the difference is substantially less noticeable.

0wis 2y ago
As the author said, in icy conditions it changes the day from scary to fun

tw04 2y ago

Try taking a slice out of a block of ice with a butter knife. Try again with a sharp butchers blade. The difference is quite pronounced.

creato 2y ago
The question is whether this is a good model for an actual ski on ice. What you describe might be a good model for an absolutely perfect carve, but that basically never happens in reality. When it does, it’s on softer snow where the tuned corner of the edge is a negligible part of the overall interaction with the snow. I agree with the quoted skier in the post, tuning skis doesn’t matter. I am someone who puts 400+ days on one pair of skis before replacing them, I ski pretty rough terrain and hit my share of rocks, I’ve gotten maybe 3 ski tuneups in my life, I couldn’t tell the difference after any of them. The only things I did to care for them was to store them dry and wax them once per season.
- djtango 2y ago
  Other people are reporting that they can feel it with ice. Do you ski much on ice?
  - creato 2y ago
    I’ve certainly skied ice and all kinds of crust. In my experience true ice isn’t that bad in terms of grip, it’s rarely so smooth that edges can’t easily grip on surface imperfections. It’s not fun to ski because it’s very high impact. I think what most people talk about as icy and slippery that seems to form on skied off groomers is actually some kind of crust that is hard to get edge hold in because the snow is somehow very firm but not well bonded to itself either, so what little edge penetration you get just scrapes off easily and doesn’t support the ski. When I try to picture what is going on in such snow, edge sharpness doesn’t matter, you might penetrate marginally deeper but that just means you’re scraping marginally more snow off.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]

jval43 2y ago

It doesn't just affect performance, blunt edges make skiing down icy patches impossible. The effect is so pronounced that if you do enough skiing in a day you'll notice a difference even at the end of that day. The effect of a newly sharpened ski is noticeable immediately even if you're an absolute beginner. Even moreso if you're on a snowboard. Source: 30 years of skiing and snowboarding.

huskdigselv 2y ago

I have been an Austrian trained ski instructor since 2012 and I can tell you that a sharp ski is essential if you want to have carve in any conditions below where the snow isn't slushing or soft. I.e. any run that is either early day, windblown, mid-season (generally colder) or shadow side. HOWEVER 99% of the skiers on a mountain (and yes I mean 99%) do not actually ski on their edges, they do skidded turns (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hioJ4ThJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hioJ4ThJA). And the same 99% will typically just slide off of hard and icy parts of a slope as they aren't comfortably riding their edge. To these people sharp edges matter, but less than to the few who successfully carve. But if you are within that 1% of skiers that do ski mostly on the edge, then a sharp edge is extremely important; you see true carving technique is a delicate skill: In order to carve properly you need to need to get your skis in a steep angle with the snow, which means you need to get your feet in a steep angle, which can only be maintained if you move your center of gravity into a position that isn't above your feet. Which effectively means your body is in a position that is out of balance. Similarly to how sprinting essentially is just leaning forwards and playing "catch up" with our legs, carving technique tries to do the same. Exception being that we use the rhythmical centripetal forces of turns and the resistance of the snow to create the balancing force (https://d3t7modobimpp4.cloudfront.net/uploads/_1200xAUTO_fit_center-center_none/ted-forces.jpg https://d3t7modobimpp4.cloudfront.net/uploads/_1200xAUTO_fit...). And this is why edges matter; because if the centripetal force provided from the carving turn isn't generated because the skis blunt edges cause them to slip, then instead of generating movement towards the skiers body (reestablishing balance), the skis will drift away from the skiers body (removing balance) resulting in poor turns if not slipping down onto ones hip. TL;DR: Very good skiers NEED sharp edges to ski well. Most skiers will be fine. (As a matter of fact I think 99% of all skiers will do just fine on ANY ski, and make more significant improvement from 2 days of ski school than any equipment upgrade or tuning that money can buy).

swader999 2y ago
I aggre with this and boots are 90 percent the secret to progress. You could teach a beginner how to carve on a very flat slope though. The 99 percent that slide are just on too steep of a slope for their carving ability. Which is fine by the way. It's fun to go down steeper runs, even if you arent carving.