a good ski for learning pmts on

[john heath]

this december I'm skiing with a mate of mine who is keen to get to grips with the pmts approach. he's only had three weeks of skiing before, is comfortable on all groomed terrain, has been introduced to the phantom move. so before we start helping each other as observers as he works through the books, my job is to make sure he gets kitted out well at the rental. he has good knee tracking so the boot bit shouldn't be too much of a problem, no lange or technica, we're after lateral boots. so my question is:

is there any particular ski that is a good introduction to pmts carving? obviously we want head's flex, but is there any particular model and anything you'd recommend if they don't stock head?

[Ken]

My suggestion is to find a rental shop at the mountain that will let him try several. I'd get a mid-range ski, not beginner and not expert. Length makes a big difference in skiabililty, so he should try two or three different lengths as well as different ski models and brands.


Ken

[John Mason]

Being a recent beginner this is all fresh in my mind.

Most ski rental shops will rent you a "beginners" ski which you can translate to:

A ski that will flop around and will not edge but works great with a wedge.

But, if your friend is serious about a PMTS approach you need some edging ability right off the bat, but you still want a 'soft edge' at this stage.

I would present your friend as an intermediate skier rather than an outright beginner and go with a bit more lateral stiffness of the intermediate ski than the outright mush potato of what he'd get with a rental shop beginner ski.

Anyone on the forum know what solvista does for this? Is their beginner ski more of an intermediate ski? What about length? Go shorter for a beginner?

Oh, on my 3rd day of skiing Gart's was having a sale so I bought my son and I w90's (probably not remembering this right). Anyway - since I was a new skier garts made me rent a beginner ski and told me if I hated it I could apply the rental to the nordica. Boy, I hated it. No edge action at all. I liked the Nordica, but it was classed as an expert ski.

[wasmith]

PMTS tries to get you on your edges very quickly. The problem with this is learning the fore aft and port starboard balance. A stable high intermidiate or advanced ski may be what you are looking for. Look at what the magazines promote, what Pete has reviewed, and then demo a pair. Check out the forgiveness number in all of these as this number can be the difference in making it happen. Look for something you can grow into very quickly and has a great sweet spot. If you can still find them, a lot of the Volants were fantastic skis for this (My personal ride).

Sking well depends on a lot of factors. One of the biggest is making sure you have your ski boots set up correctly. I forgot mine once and will never do that again. A very misrable day. After you get a good pair of boots and have them custom fitted to your foot, you can move on to the skis. If you notice, PMTS camps deal a lot with technique and equipment being set up correctly.


Have fun!!!!!!

[Jim Ratliff]

I still like the Head iC160 (discontinued now, but prior years are still around) and the K2 Omni 5.5/Escape 5500 (but none of the lower numbers). Don't know about this years C260, should be close to the iC160. Volkl 4 Star would be another recommendation.

Not an exhaustive list, just a couple of thoughts.

[Tommi]

I agree on avoiding rental 'beginner' skis. They can be really bad.

IMHO, the second most important thing for a beginner is to get the edges working in slow speeds. That means you need small radius and usually also a short ski.

I know Atomic best, I would recommend C9 in 150/160cm or similar. Very balanced, easy to ski intermediate/advanced type with lots of performance. My daughter had a very good season last year when I bought her C9/150cm..

Have fun,

Tommi (T2)

[Heyoka]

John Heath,

I have a pair of 177 ic 160's w/bindings that I'll give your friend. I think all would agree here, it's a great learning ski.

Just pay for shipping. Got a UPS account?

Now, just make sure these skis are going to a good home. If your pal is really into learning PMTS and is psyched about it, it'd be my pleasure to give him a pair of my skis.

[Max_501]

Wow, what a great offer Heyoka!

[Heyoka]

Hey Max,

Thanks for the kind words. Just trying to spread the wealth. I hope the size is right. The skis have a few more miles in them.

[john heath]

wow thanks a lot! they do sound a bit long for him, he's not very tall or heavy. I'll ring him about his height tonight if you can hold on. if not, plenty of other pmts takers I'm sure.

re. the atommic c9 - we're certainly not after skidding around but do the atomic c9 (i'm sure the rental will have those, very commonplace over here) flex enough to carve at low speeds?

[Billy Dee NJ]

Don't make the mistake I did 3 years ago at my first Camp at SolVista.

It was only my second year attempting to ski and had no equipment of my own. Got the basic rental ski's and boots right there at the mountain.
What a mistake...by day 2, I started wondering why snow would pile up on one ski exclusively after every run.
Finally asked Harald about it on day 4, he took a close look and saw that one of the ski's were splitting apart between the base and topsheet (I think)...
We were at the top of the hill at that point and he asked what size my boots were, same as his fortunately, so he said lets swap skis for this run and I'll meet you at the shop. I finally got down there, damn his skis were fast, I really thought I was gonna go airborne!

He then proceeded to lets just say "counsel" the shop guys about the condition of my rentals and I promptly got another set.

I did get my own boots at that camp on day 3 and skis a few weeks later.

[HERB]

heyoka,
thanks for the skis. PAUL you rock. They work great . I can still tell when I'm in the backseat but I don't get rocketed out of the bumps like I did on my volkls. At the all mountain camp, Diana said they were good for me and I would do well with them for a long time. Funny thing is mine don"t seem to turn as well as Rob HinterMeister"s did, couldn"t be the pilot could it ?
My friends can"t believe someone I never met would send me a set of free skis. Thanks again