The SCX, for "SideCut eXtreme" (or "eXperiment"), was an alpineski introduced by Elan in the winter of 1993/4. Skis before the SCX had almost always used a shape that was slightly curved inward on the sides, typically by 7 millimetres (0.28in) compared to a straight line running from tip to tail. The SCX was designed with over 22 millimetres (0.87in) "sidecut", producing a wasp-waisted ski unlike anything on the market.
The SCX proved to dramatically improve turn performance and made it much easier to perform the efficient carve turn. This led to higher speeds in giant slalom, and the ski started winning race after race when it was introduced. It also made skiing easier in general, and revolutionized ski schools, especially in the US where the design first caught on. By 1996 every major ski company was racing to introduce similar designs, and traditional designs were being sold off for pennies on the dollar.
As the first successful "shaped" or "parabolic" ski, the SCX is considered one of the most important advances in the history of the sport.[1][2][3]
Early ski designs
The first true downhill skis, made in Telemark, Norway by Sondre Norheim,[4] were handmade from single pieces of hardwood and featured a relatively modest sidecut of about 4 to 5mm.[5] Alpine ski development after this seminal introduction proceeded in a series of stepwise improvements; laminate woods, metal edges, metal laminates (see the article on the Head Standard) and finally the fibreglass torsion box design were introduced over a period of 100 years. Throughout, little engineering effort had been spent on considering the ski shape, as other issues like torsional stiffness and "chattering" were problems that needed to be solved. Skis of the 1970s were largely identical in shape to those of the 1800s.[5]
Skis with narrower waist profiles had been experimented with, but had never become widely used. In 1939, Dick Durrance ordered a custom ski from Thor Groswold's factory in Denver with a 7mm sidecut, and this became a new standard for slalom skis.[5] During the winter of 1948/49, Jerry Hiatt and Thor's son Jerry decided to experiment with even bigger sidecuts. Taking a pair of the company's standard hickory Rocket skis, they cut away wood until they produced a 15 millimetres (0.59in) sidecut. When they tried them out, they found they turned quite easily in a series of rounded turns. Ironically, this was considered poor form in the era of the stem Christie, where good form was a series of sharp J-shaped turns. The two abandoned the design, speculating that they ended up as firewood.[6]
In any event, wooden skis of this era did not offer much torsional stiffness; when rolled on-edge by the skier's boots, the tips and tails of the ski would tend to twist in the opposite direction in order to lie flatter on the snow, reducing the sidecut's performance improvement. Hiatt and Groswold's experiment required such a deep sidecut that the waist had little vertical stiffness, another problem for the design.[6]
Snowboards arrive
A radical change in design did not occur until the mid-1970s introduction of the first modern snowboards. With no previous designs to set the mould, snowboard designers had to experiment to find the right layout. The 1975 Burton Backhill had a 17 millimetres (0.67in) sidecut, giving the board a very short turning radius.[7] The Backhill was extremely low-tech in comparison to contemporary ski designs, consisting largely of a sheet of plywood. A contemporary ski's torsion box design greatly improved torsional stiffness and would allow even greater sidecut to be effective. But in spite of the snowboard demonstrating that modern skis could carry much wider sidecuts, and that such a sidecut resulted in excellent turn performance, little came of this development. The snowboard market was ignored by the major ski companies through the 1970s and 80s.[8]
Experiments with slightly greater sidecut on skis did appear during this period, including the Head Yahoo and especially the Atomic Powder Plus.[7] Further developments followed due to changes in competitive giant slalom, as the gates were moved further apart and resulted in much more turning. K2 responded with the GS Race with a 10 millimetres (0.39in) sidecut, and several similar designs followed. Despite reports that these skis were easier to turn, they were considered specialty items and the designs offered only to the race and performance markets.[7]
One particularly notable experiment was made at Olin. In 1984, one of the Olin executives asked ski designer Frank Meatto if it were possible to make a beginners ski that would make skiing easier to learn. Meatto and co-designer Ed Pilpel decided to experiment with a radical sidecut as a way of improving turns. They designed a ski with a 31 millimetres (1.2in) sidecut, but it had tips that were 128 millimetres (5.0in) wide and they wouldn't fit into their presses. They solved this by cutting the ski in half longitudinally, leaving the curve only on the inside edge, which powers the turn. The ski was so narrow underfoot that additional platforms had to be added to mount the bindings. The result was effectively one-half of the parabolic designs that would follow. The company produced 150 pairs to demonstrate at the SIA trade show in 1986, but no one purchased the odd-looking asymmetrical "Albert" design.[9]
Franko and Škofic
Jurij Franko[a] graduated from the University of Ljubljana in 1983 with a degree in engineering and in 1985[clarification needed] and took a position at Elan in 1987.[6] In 1988 Franko took up the idea of experimenting with deeper sidecuts and started the "Sidecut Extreme" project to test it. He was joined by Pavel Škofic, who calculated the stress loading on a ski with a wasp-waisted layout. Previous ski designs had so little sidecut that they could be treated with calculations based on a constant width.[10]
Their first prototype was 193 centimetres (76in) long and has been lost. The second one was 203 centimetres (80in) long, a typical length for men's skis in this era, and is still skiable. By 1991 these experiments had clearly suggested a new design that was 110 millimetres (4.3in) wide at the tip, 63 millimetres (2.5in) in the waist, and 105 millimetres (4.1in) at the tail. This produced a sidecut of 22.25 millimetres (0.876in), three times the conventional 7mm sidecut of the average race ski, and over double that of even the most radical designs in use.[6]
The ski was so prone to turning that racers did not have to angle their legs as much in order to generate the same turn, allowing them to stand more upright with less bend in the knee, and thereby apply much more force to the edges. The new design was an immediate hit on the local race market; in its first outing with the ski, the Elan team took the top eight of ten places.[6]
SCX emerges
In 1991, Elan used their research examples to produce a new commercial ski, the SCX.[11] The company sold it across Europe, but found it difficult to break into a market dominated by the large players, Salomon and Rossignol.
In the spring of 1993, a number of pre-production SCX skis were sent to instructors in the US for practical experimentation. They invariably reported dramatic results, with intermediate skiers able to produce carving turns easily, even in poor conditions that experts would normally find difficult. Realizing they had a winning design, the Elan team started designing a series aimed at the training market, including a 163cm long design for the instructors, and a 143cm long version for students and junior racers. This was much shorter than most skis of the era, further differentiating them from other skis on the market. These were being demonstrated across Europe and the US during December 1993.[6]
The change in length was not accidental. With most of the mass distributed at the ends of the skis, the rotational inertia was considerably higher and the skis were difficult to rotate under the foot.[6] Additionally, as was discovered by Groswold and Hiatt half a century earlier, with so much force being applied at the end of the skis, they had to be much stronger under the waist.[9] The solution was simply to make the ski considerably shorter,[6] reducing the moment arm and counteracting these effects. Skis quickly evolved to shorter lengths; 190 to 210cm were typical lengths for men's skis prior to the parabolics, and generally 160 to 170cm after.[11]
Other companies were aware of the SCX, and several had already been working on a radical sidecut designs of their own. In particular, Atomic had been developing a similar concept known as the S-Ski, and had shown it at US trade shows during the winter of 1993.[6] However, the market was already in the midst of a major change to the "cap ski" construction method, sparked off by the Salomon S9000 in 1990. All of the major manufacturers were introducing cap ski designs of their own, and had little interest in another radical change at the same time. This was not the only problem; the ideal design featured tips and tails that wouldn't fit in conventional presses, and the presses that were wide enough were busy producing snowboards. The concept was not only ignored, but actively dismissed as a fad or gimmick.[9][1]
Elan, however, had introduced a cap ski of their own shortly after the S9000. They built the SCX on these lines, thereby combining all of the latest features in a single ski. This left Elan in the undisputed lead introducing the new shape. When describing the turns the SCX produced, Franko used the term "parabolic". The term immediately caught on, and became so popular that every ski like it was soon called "a parabolic".[9] Every mention of the term led back to the SCX, providing excellent visibility for the company. When it hit the stores during the winter of 1993, it was named "ski of the year" in the trade press.[1]
Parabolic revolution
By 1994 a number of smaller companies had introduced parabolic skis of their own, including the Atomic S-Ski and similar Kneissl Ergo (which developed from Olin's earlier models). Fischer joined the fray with the 15mm sidecut Ice and there was a similar model from Head, the Cyber 24.[12][13] The large conglomerates, Salomon, Rossignol and K2, continued to ignore it.[14]
K2 was the first among the major manufacturers to follow Elan's lead. In 1994 they designed a prototype with a 98mm tip that would fit into their 100mm presses. They planned on producing a range of skis based on this design, the Four, Three and Two. The Four was a race ski, and as is typical in the industry, was the first to be produced. When Bode Miller started winning races on the K2 Four in the 1996 Junior Championships, the other large companies took note. Yet the European companies continued to view it as a curiosity, an American fad.[3] But when racers started buying them over any other design, these companies started frantic efforts to produce similar designs. In 1996, Salomon introduced the Axendo and Rossignol the Cut, their first shaped designs.[13]
For the 1995/6 season, the new designs accounted for only 3% of total sales. By the next year, with all the major players involved, they accounted for 50%.[11] By 1997 every manufacturer had a variety of skis with differing sidecuts, and older designs were derisively dismissed as "skinny skis". These older designs clogged the discount racks, and top-of-the-line models from the previous year could now be purchased for $29.95.[13] It became clear that skis should have always been shaped this way, and one designer later noted that "It turned out that everything we thought we knew for forty years was wrong."[9]
By the 1997/98 season every ski company was producing only parabolic designs. Despite fire-sale prices on older designs, parabolics accounted for 70% of all ski sales by 1999.[1] Over time they came to be known as carving skis, super-sidecuts, hourglass skis, and finally shaped skis.[11] Modern designs tend to have less radical sidecut than the SCX, and lengths have increased somewhat, but the SCX had revolutionary effects on design.[1][2][3]
Snowboards are boards where the user places both feet, usually secured, to the same board. The board itself is wider than most skis, with the ability to glide on snow. Snowboards widths are between 6 and 12 inches or 15 to 30 centimeters. Snowboards are differentiated from monoskis by the stance of the user. In monoskiing, the user stands with feet inline with direction of travel, whereas in snowboarding, users stand with feet transverse to the longitude of the board. Users of such equipment may be referred to as snowboarders. Commercial snowboards generally require extra equipment, such as bindings and special boots which help secure both feet of a snowboarder, who generally ride in an upright position. These types of boards are commonly used by people at ski hills, mountains, backcountry, or resorts for leisure, entertainment, and competitive purposes in the activity called snowboarding.
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow for basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS).
Skis are runners, attached to the user's feet, designed to glide over snow. Typically employed in pairs, skis are attached to ski boots with ski bindings, with either a free, lockable, or partially secured heel. For climbing slopes, ski skins can be affixed to the base of each ski to prevent them from sliding backwards. Originally used as a means of travel over snow, skis have become specialized for recreational and competitive alpine and cross-country skiing.
Skiing, or traveling over snow on skis, has a history of at least eight millennia. The earliest archaeological examples of skis were found in Karelia and date to 6000 BCE. Although skiing's origins were purely utilitarian, the modern sport evolved from beginnings in Scandinavia. In the mid-1800s skiing became a popular recreational activity and sport. In the 20th century it was practiced in snow-covered regions worldwide, providing a market for the development of ski resorts and their related communities.
A ski binding is a device that connects a ski boot to the ski. Before the 1933 invention of ski lifts, skiers went uphill and down and cross-country on the same gear. As ski lifts became more prevalent, skis—and their bindings—became increasingly specialized, differentiated between alpine (downhill) and Nordic styles of skiing. Until the point of divergence in the mid-20th century, bindings held the toe of a flexible, leather boot against the ski and allowed the heel to rise off the ski, typically with a form of strap or cable around the heel.
Ski boots are footwear used in skiing to provide a way to attach the skier to skis using ski bindings. The ski/boot/binding combination is used to effectively transmit control inputs from the skier's legs to the snow.
Elan is a sporting goods manufacturer in Begunje na Gorenjskem, Slovenia. It is best known for its skis and snowboards. Other products include sailboats from 30 to 50 ft length, motor yachts, apparel, and equipment for sports facilities. The brand became better known in the late 1970s, when Swedish alpine skiing ace Ingemar Stenmark won three consecutive World Cup overall titles on Elan skis.
A carved turn is a skiing and snowboarding term for the technique of turning by shifting the ski or snowboard onto its edges. When edged, the sidecut geometry causes the ski to bend into an arc, and the ski naturally follows this arc shape to produce a turning motion. The carve is efficient in allowing the skier to maintain speed because, unlike the older stem Christie and parallel turns, the skis do not create drag by sliding sideways.
Ski geometry is the shape of the ski. Described in the direction of travel, the front of the ski, typically pointed or rounded, is the tip, the middle is the waist and the rear is the tail. Skis have four aspects that define their basic performance: length, width, sidecut and camber. Skis also differ in more minor ways to address certain niche roles. For instance, skis for moguls are much softer to absorb shocks from the quick and sharp turns of the moguls and skis for powder are much wider to provide more "float" in deeper, softer snow.
Marker International is a German manufacturing company of equipment for winter sports established in 1952 and headquartered in Straubing, Lower Bavaria. Founded by Hannes Marker, the company is known for pioneering releasable binding technology. Marker's first model, the Duplex was followed in 1953 by the Simplex toe binding which was a huge success in the 1950s. New models introduced in the 1980s were major competitors on the alpine racing circuit.
Developed during the winter of 1996 by Martin and Erik Fey, the Teleboard consists of a long, narrow snowboard, or wide ski, with two free-heel telemark bindings arranged one in front of the other at a slight angle to the longitudinal axis. This is similar to a skwal which uses fixed-heel bindings mounted in line with each other.
4FRNT Skis is an independent brand of alpine ski equipment that helped to pioneer the development of the freeskiing movement. 4FRNT introduced the model of a skier-owned and operated ski company to the sport.
The Dual Edge Snowboard (DES) is a technical categorization of a general snowboard concept and technology, where a device or mechanism creates two simultaneously ridden edges for a snowsport equipment that allows the user to ride in a similar fashion to the basic (classic) snowboard.
The Head Standard was Howard Head's first successful ski design, and arguably the first modern downhill ski. The Standard used composite construction, with a plywood core sandwiched between aluminum outer skins, steel edges tapering into the core, and a hard plastic base, sidewalls and topsheet. The only major changes in ski materials since the Standard are the use of fibreglass structural layers in place of the aluminum layers, and substitution of expanded plastic foam for the wooden core.
Line Skis, commonly shortened to Line or stylized as LINE, is a new school ski company owned by K2 Sports. Line Skis was founded by Jason Levinthal in 1995 to produce short, twin-tipped skis for freestyle skiers, and has since moved to produce full-length free skis.
Hanson Industries invented and popularized the rear-entry ski boot. Formed by brothers Chris and Denny Hanson in 1969, the company became a huge success in the late 1970s. A series of missteps in the early 1980s led to a rapid death spiral and the company went bankrupt in 1984. It was purchased by Daiwa, a Japanese fishing tackle company that handled Hanson's distribution in Japan. Daiwa ended sales in North America and Europe. European products, notably the famous Salomon SX series, used Hanson's exit as a springboard to market domination during the second half of the 1980s. Denny Hanson later introduced the "Apex" design, which combines features of alpine and snowboarding boots.
Rosemount Ski Boots introduced one of the earliest all-plastic ski boots for the downhill skiing market, competing with Bob Lange for the title of "first". Rosemount's design was easily distinguished by its use of the uncommon "side-entry" method for putting the boot on, which was rare at the time and is no longer used.
Lange is a major producer of ski boots used in alpine (downhill) skiing, founded in 1948 in the USA. They introduced the world's first plastic ski boots in 1962, and a greatly improved model aimed at the racing market in 1965. After several World Cup and Olympics wins in 1967 and 1968 made them a must-have on the circuit, Lange has remained a force in the racing market ever since. Their boots have equipped five times as many World Cup medal winners as any other brand into the 2000s. The front-entry design introduced by Lange is used by almost every modern ski boot to this day. Lange remains a major brand worldwide.
The Flexon was a downhill ski boot introduced by Raichle in the winter of 1980/81. Based on designs by Sven Coomer, Al Gross and Erik Giese, the Flexon used a unique system to control forward flex in a predictable way, as well as making the boot more comfortable and easier to put on and remove. The basic layout was, and is, generally referred to as a "three-piece" design -- three-piece boots preceding the Flexon included the Henke Strato, Nordica Comp 3 and a dozen other designs from Italian bootmakers.
This glossary of skiing and snowboarding terms is a list of definitions of terms and jargon used in skiing, snowboarding, and related winter sports.
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