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Snowkite powder skis discussion

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canyagimmealaunch
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Snowkite powder skis discussion

Postby canyagimmealaunch » Sat Jan 16, 2021 11:45 pm

Hi,

Hope you all doing well.

I do snowkite in winter.

I actually have Line Sick Day 104 mm / 17.7 m sidecut radius / 179 cm length for hiking and snowkiting and they do the job very well. I think the radius is a bit high for our condition for touring (east Canadian, lots of trees)) but it's cool in powder / all around snowkiting.

Looking eventually for other powder skis and interested in which skis performs well in powder (construction (GS ?), material, length, profile ?).

Thanks all !

Regards !

JTKiter
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Re: Snowkite powder skis discussion

Postby JTKiter » Sun Jan 17, 2021 3:06 pm

Are you thinking of skis just for snowkiting? The fact that there are so many good powder skis now is great for snowkiters.

Wide, short and soft skis work for me. 115mm under foot is good. I weigh 160lbs, use skis around 175cm.

You probably know all this but here's my take:
The dynamics of snowkiting are different than regular sking. I feel like snowkite skis don't need to be nearly as stiff as "resort" skis. When kiting, I'm not driving my knees and body weight forward to carve turns on hardpack or ice, I'm neutral or leaning back more. (I'm almost never snowkiting on hardpack or ice or "crud". Hopefully you aren't either!) Also, I'm not going as fast as I would be on a groomed run at a resort. However, it can be difficult to determine how hard or soft a ski is before you try it. All you can do is grab it and flex it and go, "hmm, pretty soft...". There's no good index, as far as I know. I use relatively soft AT boots as well.

You can find deals on Black Diamond backcountry skis right now. I'm not trying to plug the brand, I just happen to have some that were cheap and work well for my weight for snowkiting. There are lots of others out there, of course.

What are your favorite snowkite spots in or near Quebec? Do you have good snow now? Chic Chocs?

Good luck!

canyagimmealaunch
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Joined: Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:08 pm
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Re: Snowkite powder skis discussion

Postby canyagimmealaunch » Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:42 pm

Hi JT,

I do 75 % snowkiting / 15 % touring / 5 % resort with the same skis.

I did not ever worry about the stiffness of a ski. I looked more about the radius side cut so that the ski do not turn by itself. Should look for that stiffness.

Since we do not have a lot of snow this time in Quebec (a little more then yesterday :)), i usually snowkite in lakes and field. We are getting something for now finally. I normally go to chic chocs every two years.

Windigo1
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Re: Snowkite powder skis discussion

Postby Windigo1 » Sun Jan 17, 2021 10:01 pm

I do a lot of Snowkiting with skis. For deep powder i use Ninthward Nick Greener they are 145 wide at the tip and 190 long these things are awesome they float on the powder and slush with no efforts and are very stable when going fast. For hard icy crust or ice I use old straight skis the longer the better normally around 200cm. In these conditions it's mostly about going fast in a straight line straight skis are great!


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