Thursday, April 10, 2014

Stopping ski chatter?

For years, and since the 60's, I've always held that ski chatter was a fact of (ski) life that could only be solved if you tuned your skis right or had the best possible pair of boards for hard snow. In more recent times, the advent of carving skis has shed a new light on this age-old question.

Chatter can be kept under control if you advance – let's say slide forward – your uphill ski in relation to the downhill one. This move was highly disapproved of in the mid-20th century French technique, but who cares today?
This forces you to shift your weight earlier and let go of the over-edging and lateral buttressing that creates the chatter in the first place. This requires more angulation, is more athletic but works perfectly. Try it!

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