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Former junior and Masters racer here. Glad to see there's some very qualified voices in these comments, including a few who are currently involved (as racing p

Former junior and Masters racer here. Glad to see there's some very qualified voices in these comments, including a few who are currently involved (as racing parents). I very much appreciate the level of technical detail and accuracy in those comments. I'll talk base bevels all day. Pretty much agree with everything those folks have written. Most definitely sharp edges, and your bevels, matter when you are really pushing it, especially if you are racing, and most especially if you are on extremely hard or even water-injected snow. Outside of that type of skiing, the ski tech on the lift was, I think, making a point that is true enough for most "normie" skiers, and inadvertently the blog author validated it with the microscope experiment. The short version is that once your edge angles are set, "polishing" them with a diamond stone should, generally, mostly, be all that is necessary to restore the edge shape after use. No filing should be necessary. If the edge get damaged with rocks or rust, this is no longer true. All caveats apply. The ski tech is just trying to say "don't pay a shop to run your skis through the machine when all you need is to rub your edges with a diamond stone for a minute." Now, just how practical this is, again depends on who you are. You'd have to be: - A regular enough skier to own your own equipment - Good enough to benefit from a tuned edge - Technical and handy enough to buy a diamond stone and learn to use it - It has to not be impractical to go through this ritual after skiing (try doing this with two or three young, tired kids in tow) Anyway I just enjoyed having this be on the front page of HN today. I'm good at like 2 things and this is one of them.

swader999 2y ago
Nice clarification about the polishing once you have it setup. This is fairly quick to do too.
- oldandboring 2y ago
  Believe it or not, as a junior I had the hardest time believing this. We'd be down in the waxroom filing our edges to death every other day and it would feel like I couldn't get an edge otherwise. The idea that the edge could be "polished" back to sharpness was alien to me. That being said, on skinny skis in the 90s, it took a lot of work to set an edge and little kids were at a disadvantage. I was basically skidding around and the sharp edges were just keeping it at bay.
  - swader999 2y ago
    For super G or WC downhill skis, they barely have enough edge. The techs at these levels probably don't file at all, maybe one time per pair.
datavirtue 2y ago
Same with cycling. When I lose enough weight and get so fast that I have to change my clothes to get faster, then I will clip in if I need to win a race.
- oldandboring 2y ago
  Interesting read about the science of how body hair slows you down: https://nautil.us/winning-by-a-hair-341059/ https://nautil.us/winning-by-a-hair-341059/
jcgrillo 2y ago
Another important tuning dimension is base structure. I never realized the impact of base structure until I got a GS board that had been ground with a very aggressive base. That thing absolutely flies on wet snow.
- swader999 2y ago
  Yes, structure adds more speed than wax does, especially on wet snow and in speed events. Wax makes the ski easier to turn though.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    The most important thing with wax is to brush it all out of the base structure, otherwise you basically just have a flat wax base. I went years (maybe 10?) before I learned that scraping alone wasn't enough. I used to think brushing was like a small optimization that you'd only do if you're racing, but it actually makes a tremendous difference.
- abakker 2y ago
  A fellow hardbooter? I feel like the base size on snowboards benefits even more from good tuning than a lot of narrow race skis. And, obviously, you only have 1 edge instead of two, so the load on the edge is bigger. apropos of this discussion, my main board probably never gets a serious tune now that I live in the rockies. back in VT, it was critical daily maintenance due to the amount of ice you actually encountered.
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    Yeah current setup is Tanker 201, Upz RC11s, and F2 race bindings. I also have an F2 GS board with these awesome big rubber riser plates and F2 bindings as well but I don't ride it very often as I can carve the Tanker much tighter and slower, which as you know is important on narrow, icy east coast trails
    - abakker 2y ago
stephencanon 2y ago
> It has to not be impractical to go through this ritual after skiing (try doing this with two or three young, tired kids in tow) Anecdotally I do all the routine waxing and edge maintenance on my family's (wife and two kids) skis, and it's not that big a deal. Slightly less of a hassle than bringing gear to the shop to do it would be for me, and the kids enjoy hanging out with some hot cocoa and helping a bit. Once you have everything in your workspace set up right, it goes pretty fast.
- anytime5704 2y ago
  > Once you have everything in your airspace set up… The great filter of self-maintaining ski equipment. I don’t have the space for a permanent setup and it’s just more convenient to drag the skis to the store once a year than buy the equipment, learn to use it, store it somewhere, remember where, etc. I imagine many others (most?) feel the same.
  - swader999 2y ago
    Yes, I only tune my U12 kids skis religiously. My own skis, wife's and my other retired ski racer kid get far less tuning attention. I'm at a resort that is mostly soft snow too.
  - burningChrome 2y ago
    >> it’s just more convenient to drag the skis to the store once a year I agree. I've been skiing and snowboarding for over 30 years. I used to tune my skis and board religiously myself. Once I got married and had a few kids, it got cumbersome to tune my board, then two to three additional pairs of skis. Then I went back to just tuning mine and realized how much of a mess it makes and how time consuming it can be. When I was younger, I loved doing it because it was a sort of a 'zen' process for me to lose myself for an hour or so and the idea of tuning my board like a pro and having to live with the results, for better or worse I always thought was cool. The idea of telling people you knew how to do this and you were really good at it also was apart of the mystique of being able to do it. Now? I just take my stuff to a shop where I know the guys and they do a bang up job for me. Saves me the time and the people I ride with don't give a hoot whether I can tune my board, they just want to know if I can still ride those double black D's with them.
SkyPuncher 2y ago
One thing the conversation seems to be missing is rocks and handling. Rocks are mostly an off-piste issue, but I have seen it happen on piste. Especially early and last season when cover can be low. Will occasionally also happen near the lift when a spot gets warn low. When I get rock gashes, it's always easier to just send them to the shop's machine. Handling also introduces a fair amount of nicks. In theory, the edges should never meet at an awkward angle, but it happens. Skis slide around on the rack, skis flip out a position while carrying them, things shift in the car, etc, etc.
- oldandboring 2y ago
  I addressed this when I wrote, > If the edge get damaged with rocks or rust, this is no longer true.
- erikpukinskis 2y ago
  > Rocks are mostly an off-piste issue *laughs in East Coast*
- FredFS456 2y ago
  Use ski straps, especially the type which has a rubber end that you can stick in between the skis. It prevents them from scissoring, which is harmful for both the edges and the base.
  - SkyPuncher 2y ago
    I tend to forget them. However, in my case, I'm basically skiing rocks every time I'm out. Tools, not jewels.
pmart123 2y ago
I'm no expert in this, but I think one common misconception among regular skiers is that a ski tune is "free" rather than each ski only gets so many full tunes as it wears down the base and edges. Obviously, if you get a core shot or something like that, it becomes more necessary. I always understood waxing skis as more protective though?
- emgeee 2y ago
  Could definitely be wrong but I always thought waxing was about reducing the friction between the ski and the snow by both creating a uniform surface and because the wax has a lower coefficient of friction than the plastic of the skis. edit: learned something new!
  - jcgrillo 2y ago
    A uniform surface is actually not ideal, as it causes a lot of suction between the base and the snow, that's why ski and snowboard bases have "structure" ground into them with a stone grinder--that's what getting a base grind does, it restores the base's structure. Hot waxing permeates the pores in the ptex with oils from the wax, but you really want to scrape and brush it all off--there shouldn't be any residual wax remaining after.
    - thereisnospork 2y ago
      >but you really want to scrape and brush it all off--there shouldn't be any residual wax remaining after. I for one have always been a proponent of the lazy-man approach of letting the mountain do the scraping. Avoids the messiest part of the job. Sure the first run or two will be a touch slower, but unless you are serious enough to have a dedicated pair of race skis to schlep to the start, you aren't going to have a pristine base anyway.
      - jcgrillo 2y ago
        I used to just scrape (no brushing) and let the first few runs do the work but then at some point I started brushing and realized that it made a big difference. I think what was happening (could be checked with the author's microscope) was the snow was wearing off the wax on the lands of the base structure but the grooves still had at least some wax--so it was essentially forming a less sharply structured base.
npsimons 2y ago
> Most definitely sharp edges, and your bevels, matter when you are really pushing it, especially if you are racing, and most especially if you are on extremely hard or even water-injected snow. I have to ask, as someone into alpine touring and ski mountaineering (but not racing), what difference would backcountry skiing make to this advice? I imagine you'd need sharpening more often, due to twin factors of A) more rock and hard ice and B) really wanting that control on ungroomed (ie, icy) slopes at high angles. I don't consider myself "really pushing it", but would like to have every ounce of control I can get when heading downhill. I'm enough of a beginner that I will often side-slip or even just hike completely down a slope I don't like the looks of.
- mthoms 2y ago
  A well sharpened edge can give better grip and precision but comes at the cost of forgiveness. So it’s a doubled edged…. edge? Your best bet is to get your skis tuned at a shop that is knowledgeable about backcountry skiing and be brutally honest with them about your ability and the type of terrain you ride. They should set you up appropriately. A full tune once or twice a year should be sufficient, unless you’re doing over 20 days or so. If you have significant rock damage to your base or edge you should get it addressed asap.

swader999 2y ago

Nice clarification about the polishing once you have it setup. This is fairly quick to do too.

oldandboring 2y ago
Believe it or not, as a junior I had the hardest time believing this. We'd be down in the waxroom filing our edges to death every other day and it would feel like I couldn't get an edge otherwise. The idea that the edge could be "polished" back to sharpness was alien to me. That being said, on skinny skis in the 90s, it took a lot of work to set an edge and little kids were at a disadvantage. I was basically skidding around and the sharp edges were just keeping it at bay.
- swader999 2y ago
  For super G or WC downhill skis, they barely have enough edge. The techs at these levels probably don't file at all, maybe one time per pair.

datavirtue 2y ago

Same with cycling. When I lose enough weight and get so fast that I have to change my clothes to get faster, then I will clip in if I need to win a race.

oldandboring 2y ago
Interesting read about the science of how body hair slows you down: https://nautil.us/winning-by-a-hair-341059/ https://nautil.us/winning-by-a-hair-341059/

jcgrillo 2y ago

Another important tuning dimension is base structure. I never realized the impact of base structure until I got a GS board that had been ground with a very aggressive base. That thing absolutely flies on wet snow.

swader999 2y ago
Yes, structure adds more speed than wax does, especially on wet snow and in speed events. Wax makes the ski easier to turn though.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  The most important thing with wax is to brush it all out of the base structure, otherwise you basically just have a flat wax base. I went years (maybe 10?) before I learned that scraping alone wasn't enough. I used to think brushing was like a small optimization that you'd only do if you're racing, but it actually makes a tremendous difference.
abakker 2y ago
A fellow hardbooter? I feel like the base size on snowboards benefits even more from good tuning than a lot of narrow race skis. And, obviously, you only have 1 edge instead of two, so the load on the edge is bigger. apropos of this discussion, my main board probably never gets a serious tune now that I live in the rockies. back in VT, it was critical daily maintenance due to the amount of ice you actually encountered.
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  Yeah current setup is Tanker 201, Upz RC11s, and F2 race bindings. I also have an F2 GS board with these awesome big rubber riser plates and F2 bindings as well but I don't ride it very often as I can carve the Tanker much tighter and slower, which as you know is important on narrow, icy east coast trails
  - abakker 2y ago

stephencanon 2y ago

> It has to not be impractical to go through this ritual after skiing (try doing this with two or three young, tired kids in tow) Anecdotally I do all the routine waxing and edge maintenance on my family's (wife and two kids) skis, and it's not that big a deal. Slightly less of a hassle than bringing gear to the shop to do it would be for me, and the kids enjoy hanging out with some hot cocoa and helping a bit. Once you have everything in your workspace set up right, it goes pretty fast.

anytime5704 2y ago
> Once you have everything in your airspace set up… The great filter of self-maintaining ski equipment. I don’t have the space for a permanent setup and it’s just more convenient to drag the skis to the store once a year than buy the equipment, learn to use it, store it somewhere, remember where, etc. I imagine many others (most?) feel the same.
- swader999 2y ago
  Yes, I only tune my U12 kids skis religiously. My own skis, wife's and my other retired ski racer kid get far less tuning attention. I'm at a resort that is mostly soft snow too.
- burningChrome 2y ago
  >> it’s just more convenient to drag the skis to the store once a year I agree. I've been skiing and snowboarding for over 30 years. I used to tune my skis and board religiously myself. Once I got married and had a few kids, it got cumbersome to tune my board, then two to three additional pairs of skis. Then I went back to just tuning mine and realized how much of a mess it makes and how time consuming it can be. When I was younger, I loved doing it because it was a sort of a 'zen' process for me to lose myself for an hour or so and the idea of tuning my board like a pro and having to live with the results, for better or worse I always thought was cool. The idea of telling people you knew how to do this and you were really good at it also was apart of the mystique of being able to do it. Now? I just take my stuff to a shop where I know the guys and they do a bang up job for me. Saves me the time and the people I ride with don't give a hoot whether I can tune my board, they just want to know if I can still ride those double black D's with them.

SkyPuncher 2y ago

One thing the conversation seems to be missing is rocks and handling. Rocks are mostly an off-piste issue, but I have seen it happen on piste. Especially early and last season when cover can be low. Will occasionally also happen near the lift when a spot gets warn low. When I get rock gashes, it's always easier to just send them to the shop's machine. Handling also introduces a fair amount of nicks. In theory, the edges should never meet at an awkward angle, but it happens. Skis slide around on the rack, skis flip out a position while carrying them, things shift in the car, etc, etc.

oldandboring 2y ago
I addressed this when I wrote, > If the edge get damaged with rocks or rust, this is no longer true.
erikpukinskis 2y ago
> Rocks are mostly an off-piste issue *laughs in East Coast*
FredFS456 2y ago
Use ski straps, especially the type which has a rubber end that you can stick in between the skis. It prevents them from scissoring, which is harmful for both the edges and the base.
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  I tend to forget them. However, in my case, I'm basically skiing rocks every time I'm out. Tools, not jewels.

pmart123 2y ago

I'm no expert in this, but I think one common misconception among regular skiers is that a ski tune is "free" rather than each ski only gets so many full tunes as it wears down the base and edges. Obviously, if you get a core shot or something like that, it becomes more necessary. I always understood waxing skis as more protective though?

emgeee 2y ago
Could definitely be wrong but I always thought waxing was about reducing the friction between the ski and the snow by both creating a uniform surface and because the wax has a lower coefficient of friction than the plastic of the skis. edit: learned something new!
- jcgrillo 2y ago
  A uniform surface is actually not ideal, as it causes a lot of suction between the base and the snow, that's why ski and snowboard bases have "structure" ground into them with a stone grinder--that's what getting a base grind does, it restores the base's structure. Hot waxing permeates the pores in the ptex with oils from the wax, but you really want to scrape and brush it all off--there shouldn't be any residual wax remaining after.
  - thereisnospork 2y ago
    >but you really want to scrape and brush it all off--there shouldn't be any residual wax remaining after. I for one have always been a proponent of the lazy-man approach of letting the mountain do the scraping. Avoids the messiest part of the job. Sure the first run or two will be a touch slower, but unless you are serious enough to have a dedicated pair of race skis to schlep to the start, you aren't going to have a pristine base anyway.
    - jcgrillo 2y ago
      I used to just scrape (no brushing) and let the first few runs do the work but then at some point I started brushing and realized that it made a big difference. I think what was happening (could be checked with the author's microscope) was the snow was wearing off the wax on the lands of the base structure but the grooves still had at least some wax--so it was essentially forming a less sharply structured base.

npsimons 2y ago

> Most definitely sharp edges, and your bevels, matter when you are really pushing it, especially if you are racing, and most especially if you are on extremely hard or even water-injected snow. I have to ask, as someone into alpine touring and ski mountaineering (but not racing), what difference would backcountry skiing make to this advice? I imagine you'd need sharpening more often, due to twin factors of A) more rock and hard ice and B) really wanting that control on ungroomed (ie, icy) slopes at high angles. I don't consider myself "really pushing it", but would like to have every ounce of control I can get when heading downhill. I'm enough of a beginner that I will often side-slip or even just hike completely down a slope I don't like the looks of.

mthoms 2y ago
A well sharpened edge can give better grip and precision but comes at the cost of forgiveness. So it’s a doubled edged…. edge? Your best bet is to get your skis tuned at a shop that is knowledgeable about backcountry skiing and be brutally honest with them about your ability and the type of terrain you ride. They should set you up appropriately. A full tune once or twice a year should be sufficient, unless you’re doing over 20 days or so. If you have significant rock damage to your base or edge you should get it addressed asap.