A Love Letter to All You Ski Flexers Out There.

Caution: Rant post. 

Let me start by saying,

WHAT THE ACTUAL F***CK?

WHY do you feel the need to seriously jeopardize the structural integrity of a brand new ski...?

...or any ski for that matter.

Ok, here's where the influencers and the wannabes say;

"Are you serious? it doesn't hurt the skis in the least. All it does is break in the layers a bit- it's nothing that your first run of skiing wouldn't do".

Allow me to answer your question with a question-

Are you telling me you flex a ski to the point where the tip and tail are pointing almost 90 degrees from the original centerline on your first run, or on ANY run?

FFS, world cup skiers don't get that much flex out of their skis, and they're the strongest skiers in the world.

Shoutout to NBC Sports for this Photo of Michaela Shiffren.  This ia n EPIC shot.

Ok, maybe you landed badly off a jump, or skied straight into the front of a mogul or a feature... or maybe you stand with your skis bridged between the tips of two moguls.

-Well, if you do that last one, youre a moron-

Anyway, that amount of flex is unnatural.

Maybe you're a park skier and you float mile long butters off the tips and tails.

...Even THAT isn't flexing a ski as much as the all-knowing ski-flexers.

On top of that, do you know which skis break the MOST?

You guessed it.  I see more broken park skis come through my shops than any other skis, by a factor of twenty.

Moving on...

Suggesting that bending the bejeezus out of a ski, waaaay beyond its design parameters, just to satisfy some oddly perverted need to hear it crack, isn't harming the ski, is hubris.

-likely with some ignorance blended in-

...but if you insist that hearing a ski crackling as you hyper flex it is ok, stay the f*ck away from my skis.

I'm not kidding.

I'll fight you,

...and Ill win.

Ok, for you non ski flexers...

Let me lay out this scenario for you-

You've just watched Joey Ski Flexer standing at the ski wall, flexing the snot out of the ski you walked into the store to buy...

Are you buying that ski, or are you grabbing the one behind it?

Even if we are captain extreme skier and we put that ski through the most evil stresses imaginable, do we think that doesn't shorten the life of a ski, potentially damaging it, even to the point of breaking it?

Let me point this out- ski cores aren't usually full length, single slabs of ancient growth tree wood any more- they haven't been for a really, REALLY long time.  Ski cores are different pieces of wood, like ash or poplar, cut thinly into strips, which are then laid on their sides and stuck together vertically like the wood in a bowling alley, then held together with glue .  Proper length is attained by joining sections of these with finger joints.

Yes...

You read that right.

Glued.

There are several pieces of different types of wood, pressed together with some heat and some glue to make full length cores. 
Then, other stuff is added (fiberglass, rubber, carbon, titanal, etc.) to get the desired performance out of the skis.

Are we really so naive to think that hyper-flexing these skis doesn't do ANYTHING to the skis?

Do you think the fiberglass isn't cracking?

-Or the wood?

-Or that the carbon isn't weakening?

-Or the glued seams?

-Or that the Titanal isn't being deformed or separated from the layers it's attached to?

It ain't rocket science.

Let's take that a step further...

Are you actually doing anything constructive by assaulting that poor, defenseless ski?

Please don't tell me you can interpret how that ski will perform by flexing it alone....
You can't.
I don't care if you've skied 20 previous versions of that ski and everything is the same except that it flexes differently.
You.
Cannot.
Read.
A.
Ski.
By.
Standing.
In.
A.
Shop.
And.
Flexing.
It.

Hard Stop.

Yes- some skis flex differently- a Park ski will be softer than an all mountain ski, which will be softer than a race ski.

But if you tell me you can get a legitimate read on a ski based upon its flex and a casual look at it on the ski wall, you're delusional.

Seek help.

Skis perform based off a combination of overall flex, including how it flexes over different sections of the ski (tip, tail, and midbody), sidecut, camber and sweet spot, what's in the core (be it carbon, fiberglass, pieces of wood or rubber, the types and blends of glue, etc.), which bindings we put on it, the size, skill, and style of the pilot, the pilots height, weight, and weight distribution, conditions, and a host of other things.

So, until you ski it, you're wrong.

Please, stop.

You look ridiculous.

...and you're commiting first degree assault and battery on a product you likely haven't paid for.

Just stop.