By: William Skipin
Submitted: 2009-09-17 18:02:45 | Word Count: 542
When a person is choosing a pair of skis, the question about how hard skis should be may pop up, and rightfully so. The stiffness of a pair of skis or how hard skis should be is an important factor when it comes to choosing skis to use or buy since the hardness of your skis will help determine your performance as well as your safety on the slopes. You should be aware of the flexibility and hardness of the kind of skis you will need and choose accordingly.
The Two Types of Ski Stiffness or Hardness
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When talking about how stiff or hard skis should be, there are actually two things to consider the torsional stiffness and the longitudinal stiffness of these boards. Here is a primer on what these things actually mean and why they are important to consider:
& #9642; Torsional Stiffness. This helps determine how resistant to twisting your skis are. You can actually test the torsional stiffness of your skis by twisting it yourself. Just hold the tail of your skis in between both your feet then take the other tip and hold it firmly with your hands. Try to twist the ski and you ll find out just how much torsion the skis has. Softer skis will twist slightly as compared to really skis that are hard.
& #9642; Longitudinal Stiffness. This stiffness of your ski refers to how hard skis are when bent or flexed lengthwise. A pair of really hard skis will not bend as easily as flexible skis. The harder a pair of skis is, the better it can support the weight of a heavier skier.
How a Ski Stiffness or Hardness Affects Performance
The stiffness of a ski often has a bearing on how it behaves or handles on the slopes. The usual comment when it comes to stiff skis in the past is that the rigidity of these hard skis often gave a person good stability. The downside to these stiff boards is that they were sometimes harder to get used to and were not that easy to use when turning. Softer skis were found to be good when it came to being easy to use and offered ease of turning as well but when faced with speed, these softer skis did not offer you the stability of their harder counterparts.
Combination Skis
These days, you can find skis that have the qualities and ease of use of soft skis in longitudinally soft but torsion ally hard skis. These skis that combine stability in the hardness of its torsional stiffness and flexibility when it comes to its longitudinal stiffness give users the advantages that both bring to a pair of skis. This means that these skis are more stable than those skis that are only soft and flexible but offers the user the same or similar ease of use and ease of turning that soft skis give. These combination skis can come in a variety of lengths that can suit each person s need and preference. There are now shorter skis that have the same kind of stiffness a longer pair of skis have for stability on the slopes and the same kind of flexibility that is needed for turning and easy usage.
