Head and Graphene

[eaf]

There is a lot of buzz about this light yet stiff Head Kore 93 and graphene as apparently the main contributor to the ski's unique properties. Most test reports are borderline irrational, the reviewers are saying that this unusually light ski achieves the same crud performance as much heavier (30-50%) skis, and are admitting that it goes against common sense. For me it's an exciting tech thing, almost like skiing on nano tubes, way cooler than the usual couple of layers of titanal plus some "3D Glass". I'm itching to try this!

http://blistergearreview.com/gear-reviews/2017-2018-head-kore-93

http://www.skiessentials.com/2018-ski-test?skis=head-kore-93

 

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Johnny Law would know. He's a professional ski tester every year in Aspen Colorado. 

[RootDKJ]

My Monster88’s have this magic metal in them too. I’ll let you know how they ski next week. 

[mbike-ski]

head has been coming up with this stuff for years... my '07 iXRC's had the "chip"  -  when the vibration of the  ski got to a certain level (speed) the chip would send pulses to align the electrons in the metal layers to make it torsionsally stiffer 

http://www.headsnow.co.nz/technologies/skis/intelligence-™-technology

it made me a nastar master!

[eaf]

18 minutes ago, mbike-ski said:

head has been coming up with this stuff for years... my '07 iXRC's had the "chip"  -  when the vibration of the  ski got to a certain level (speed) the chip would send pulses to align the electrons in the metal layers to make it torsionsally stiffer 

http://www.headsnow.co.nz/technologies/skis/intelligence-™-technology

it made me a nastar master!

Oh wow. And I thought that Stockli with their turtle skin technology were the first to create something that's soft at slow speeds and stiff when you engage it. When I read your link I initially thought it was an april fool day article... Piezo electric fibers and auto-stiffening tails and tips. Passive graphene pales in comparison.

[Johnny Law]

It's slightly more modern v-werks katana.

So force is mass x acceleration right, so if you want a ski to truck at least theoretically the easiest way to get there is to give it mass. Now that mass can't be in a noodle, the really crazy heavy but super soft ski I'm not sure exists and up to know the sort of holy grail is a light ski that is super stiff and trucks.

Metal is obviously the material one first goes to, sheets of titanial, carbon stringers, more glass to some extent but metal by default makes a ski heavy so again if your trying for a the above ski you going to need a new material.

Goode/DPS some other all have experimented with carbon fiber, grahpene's pseudo cousin but traditionally light super stiff skis kinda sucked because they were a real jarring ride. All the energy is being put back into movement in the ski so on smooth snow it could carve as well as a more traditional race type construction but when it went to chop or crud it wasn't nearly as good as something like an OG LP or Belafonte.

The first ski I ever rode in this sort of category that could sort of do the dance was the V-Werks Katana but even then it wasn't ever going to be a straight up crud buster.

I didn't demo anything last year because I had two different boots and i honestly couldn't really hack it but graphene would make some sense. It's got redic tensile strength and should be superior to carbon fiber in terms of pure strength. The question is can it really handle a foot of Sierra Cement or super chop and my guess is better then other skis at the weight but you can't just replace mass with stiffness, it would probably be a great BC ski for EC peeps but who the fuck really knows until you ski it.