Sizing Up With Rockered Skis

As more and more manufacturers are producing skis with rockered tips, it’s important to keep proper sizing in mind. In effect, the rockered tip or tip/tail reduces the overall running length to deliver a more maneuverable ski on the groomers, but still have that extra tip girth in the powder.

Reading the Black Diamond blog, I found a great article about this very topic. It goes through all the different rockered skis in the BD lineup and advises on fit–definitely something to consider as you purchase new rockered skis from Liberty, DPS,  Bluehouse, Surface, Black Diamond, Volkl, K2, Salomon or others.

Here’s a snippet from the full post:

Before choosing a rockered ski size, an understanding of how this technology works is key. Rocker basically creates a pre-bent ski. BD skis use this technology in the forebody of the ski, where it sets the ski into an ideal shape for soft-snow flotation. The resulting early-rise tip allows you to float easily over powder and crud, and drive the ski more aggressively in soft snow conditions—much like you would on-piste—without worrying about over-flexing the tip. Rocker makes turn initiation smooth and effortless in soft snow, and allows the ski to change direction far more quickly than traditional camber designs.

The beauty of rocker is that it also can help on firm snow. Due to the early rise tip, the ski has a shorter contact length because the longer tip is raised off the ground. This gives you both the mobility and quickness of a shorter ski on hard snow and the soft snow stability of a longer ski. For example, the 188 Megawatt has a true contact length of 127.7 cm on hardpack—compared to a more traditional 170 cm Verdict that has even more contact length at 132 cm! This is what makes the longer Megawatt totally skiable by someone around 160 lb who normally wouldn’t ski anything longer than 180 cm.

More Info: Visit the BD Blog