|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
Do Women-Specific Skis Matter? Ever wondered what's "women-specific" about a women-specific ski? Find out what some ski companies are doing to design and test gear specifically suited for women. By Carol Kauder
"Every major manufacturer now makes specific women's models. In the past -- five years ago --they would take a ski off the assembly line, maybe put some pastel graphics on it and give the name an "L" for 'ladies'," says Bill Clapper, a spokesman for SnowSports Industries America. "They can't get away with that anymore." Although women make up 42 percent of alpine skiers, women-specific skis comprise at most a quarter of ski-store racks. Even with the number of women's skis increasing each year, manufacturers have to overcome a perception problem in making women-specific skis a viable choice. "Some women don't want a women-specific product. They feel like they are being patronized," says Jeff Mechura, product manager for K2 Skis. "There is an opinion that the men's product is more thought-out than the women's product." Mechura claims that is not the case at K2, where one women's ski, the Power, does not even have a corresponding men's model. Women Test Teams
K2 has been making women's skis for 20 years, but Mechura concedes that the early models were "simply paint." Three years ago, the company expanded its test team by signing on three elite women skiers. At Rossignol, product manager George Couperthwait says his design team also recently added women skiers. "Before, we would go out and find women to test them," he says. "To have someone full-time developing the stuff is pretty special. It's not just a bunch of men designing skis." For several years, Volant made standard variations in unisex skis for their women's lines, and like Clapper says, added an "L" to the name. For their Vertex series -- four new women's skis -- they worked from the ground up. Says Peter Turner, engineering manager for Volant. "We wanted to expand the women's line. There was a significant number of women buyers who wanted something specific for them. The initial challenge or goal was to design women's skis tailored to them, with no preconceived notions about what they want." In developing the Vertex line, Volant formed an all-women test team with a range of abilities, from "green-run skiers" to pros. "We decided we would have women do all the testing. Men were only involved preparing the skis and collecting and interpreting the results," Turner says. The women skied a variety of models and filled out a questionnaire for each. "We asked them to rate the ease of turn initiation, stability of the ski in a turn, how it performed at high speed and low speed, and how it worked in the bumps," Turner says. He and his staff translated that information into what women would prefer as far as a ski's width, flex and weight. "They told us what they liked and we designed skis around that." Turner's group reported preferring a lighter-tipped ski for turn initiation, so he designed a new combination of wood and metal at the tip to accommodate that preference. It proved so popular among male ski testers that it will be used in future models of unisex skis, he says. Design Differences for Women Designers approach women's skis with a few basic premises. "You can speculate for a long time on the difference between men and women, but women are generally lighter," Volant's Turner says. Also, women typically are shorter and have a lower center of gravity. (Of course, these are generalizations. Manufacturers say women's skis also are appropriate for small men, while large women might prefer a unisex ski.) "First and foremost, we use a lighter-weight core," says K2's Mechura, describing how women's skis differ from men's. "The lighter the ski, the easier it is to negotiate." Other women-specific design factors are equally cut and dry. For example, since women are, on average, shorter than men, skis for women are available in shorter lengths. By contrast, ski engineers do all kinds of math problems based on weight distribution to figure out where the bindings should be placed on a women-specific ski. Ski manufacturers have generally found that women's bindings should be about two centimeters farther up than men's, and women's skis reflect this with a forward binding mark. Proportionally speaking, men tend to have more weight around their shoulders; therefore they shift weight with the upper body. Women's concentration of mass tends to be lower, around the hips. They rely more on the lower body to initiate weight transfer. On skis women's weight is concentrated more toward the tail. In ski instructor lingo, this puts women "in the backseat." Moving the binding up a little compensates for that. The center of gravity also makes a difference in turning the ski. Think of a body on skis as a lever. Having weight further from the ground provides more leverage, which means less effort is required to get skis up on an edge. With a woman's mid-centered weight, this action gets more difficult, as a result of less leverage. Skis can be designed with more sidecut -- the difference between the width at the ends of the ski and the width in the middle -- so that they are easier to get up on an edge. A ski must be flexed in order to turn, and a skier's ability to do this is again a factor of weight and weight distribution. To initiate and hold a turn, a skier forces the ski into an arc. Put a light, inexperienced skier on a super-stiff ski, and most likely she'll have lots of trouble making turns. Women's skis tend to have a softer flex. Exactly how soft the ski should be is a matter of individual skiing style, which is why it is best to test-drive skis before you buy. Some Progress -- But Not Perfect Despite the research and investment in women's skis, manufacturers still top out their product lines with a unisex ski. K2's only ski without a corresponding woman's model, the Merlin VI, was Ski Magazine's ski of the year. Mechura says that's not sexism. Expert women skiers already know how to keep their balance forward and hold an edge, and they have the strength to flex a stiffer ski, he says. Women's skis make the sport more accessible for women who have difficulty with these elements. High-end skiers -- male or female -- often want the same thing. "The biggest opportunity is in lower-end skiing, to get them hooked," he says. Veteran skiers might be put off by women-specific modifications, even if controlling a men's ski is more difficult, Mechura says. "If this is what you've been using, and you are skiing the hell out of it, that's fine. Don't change."
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
