Village Ski & Snowboard

At VSS, buying a ski is easy and fun. We break down the numerous skis on our wall into five groupings. Group ONE skis are great for learning and real easy going recreation skiers. They are soft and forgiving. Group TWO skis have some torsional stiffness. We call these skis recreation skis. They are best suited for accomplished skiers who are not real aggressive. Group THREE skis have more torsional and longitudinal stiffness. These skis will stand up to aggressive recreational skiers. We call this group advanced recreation. Group FOUR skis are our expert level skis. These skis are stiff and hold up real well to skiers who ski hard and fast. Although we don’t have a lot of group FIVE skiers coming into the store, we offer skis in this group for skiers at the top of their game. These skis are as strong as race skis, just better suited for the whole mountain.

How about all those shapes? Easy again. All our skis have a data card on them. Look for the dimension of the ski’s waist. A narrow waist (70-72 mm) is a quick turning ski. Wider waists (74-80+ mm) give the ski more stability for big sweeping turns. The most popular waist dimension now-a-days is around 74 mm. These are well suited for all mountain skiing. The trend, however, is to go wider in the waist. We demoed skis with dimenstions in the 80s this past season which were actually pretty quick turning.

While skis continue to get shorter, sizing can also be broken down into understandable terms. The average woman is skiing on mid 150 cm skis today. Less aggressive ladies ski shorter, down to the 140’s and fast, aggressive ladies ski larger sizes around 160 cm. Just add 10cm for men. 170 cm is the average size for men today. The experts are skiing on 175’s and 177’s!!!

One bit of caution: If you're still skiing on the old traditional boards, look for a ski that has less shape overall and a narrower tail. Some of the new skis on the market have been designed for skiers that have already changed their skiing styles. Make no mistake about it: those skiers who have closely followed the shape revolution have changed their style of skiing, mainly to get the most out of their new skis.