It wasn't long ago that the shape of skiing was in the turns, bumps and some skiers in the latest, tightest ski wear.
Then came those funny-looking skis with the swollen tips and tails and suddenly, almost overnight, the entire ski industry has been reshaped. New skis now have the lines of an hourglass, which is wider at the top and bottom and narrower at the waist.What this new shape has done is make skiing easier - bottom line. The theory being that the rounder the arc, the quicker the ski moves to edge, the easier the turn. And, shaped skis have more arc.
As a result, the straight-ski market has gone soft, while the shaped-ski market has become a runaway avalanche.
Industry figures show that 95 percent of the skis sold to retailers this year were shaped and 5 percent were the so-called straight or traditional skis. Three years ago these two figures were reversed. Within an individual manufacturer's line this year, 14 out of every 15 models will be shaped.
Three years ago, most of the ski makers were coming off the successful introduction of the "cap ski" and were ready to market the new skis, not remake them. The "cap ski" had replaced the "core ski," which simply meant that the performance of the ski was dictated by the shape of the outside covering, similar to the body of a car, as opposed to what went inside the ski, be it fiberglass, wood, plastic, rubber, foam or, as one ski maker used to joke, sagebrush. At the time, the cap ski was considered the latest, best and possibly the last great innovation in ski making.
Then, quite suddenly, came the shaped ski. Elan, credited with starting the evolution, came out with a parabolic that was shorter, had a fat nose and tail and a narrow waist. That same year K2 introduced a less radical shaped ski.
"There was a great deal of apprehension and skepticism from skier and retailers and even from other ski manufacturers," said Jim McHugh, the Elan representative. "The idea of the parabolic went against mainstream ski design."
What the industry found, however, was that the arclike design or sidecut of the ski made it possible for the skier to turn more easily. People were skiing longer, with less effort, and having more fun.
This sent ski manufacturers off in a new direction. Because the skis were wider they could be shorter and still be as stable. Because of the radical sidecut they would turn with the simple rotation of the knees and ankles as opposed to the more exaggerated upper and lower body swings and rotations.
"If you can carve a turn and have skis that are forgiving, you can ski faster and with more confidence," said Wayne Eggum, a representative for K2.
"On hard snow the (shaped) skis carve better. And, with the wider tips they ski better in soft snow. Some people called them cheater skis. If you can ski better and without as much work, I don't call that cheating, I call it fun."
One reason the skis are doing so well is they were designed for skiers and not ski racers. In the past, a lot of the technical advancements were designed into World Cup-racing skis and then passed down into lower models.
This year, every skier on the World Cup circuit uses a ski that is shorter and has some shape to it. The reason is because the shorter, shapelier skis turn quicker, easier and offer just as much stability to racers.
"What people look for in skiing," said Randy Graves, manager of alpine development for Rossignol, "is the hook at the top of the turn. To help them start this, with the more traditional skis, people moved their center of mass forward and back to get the ski to turn.
"You give more geometry to the turn if you stay more over the center of the ski and simply tip it on edge. You're driving the ski more from the middle. This is not a fad. This is something that's here to stay because it works. The neat thing about this whole shaped-ski phenomenon is that it's driven by the consumer at the beginning level."
The hardest skier to sell on the new shape is the young, aggressive American male who skis very well. Changing to a shorter, fatter ski goes against established tradition.
The rest of the ski market is looking long and hard at the new skis.
And what they're finding, said Eggum, "is that people on the older skis are wondering why everyone is skiing better. And what they see as the difference is the skis. It took a year for everyone to come to terms with the new shape, but they're here.
"What were seeing now is that the intermediate-level skis today are out-performing the high-performance skis of four or five years ago."
Ski resorts are now getting into the shaped revolution by offering special programs. And, what they're finding, said McHugh, is that the shaped ski has become a tool that has "greatly accelerated the learning curve. People are picking up skiing much more easily with the shaped skis."
And, because the shape ski does take a different teaching method, he recommends all those people buying new shaped skis take lessons. "This way they can maximize the value of the ski," he added.
What shape skis will take in the future, though, no one knows for certain. After all, no one expected skis to shape up into what they are today. But, for the most part, those skiing the shaped skis are loving 'em.