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Comment by KineticLensman | Hacker News Reader

I used to ski religiously for 20 years but stopped for health reasons 10 years ago. I found the debate fascinating rather than maddening to see how the tech has continued to evolve. When I started (1986) it was still expected that you would use thin straight skis that were much taller than you were. Carving skis simply weren’t available, at least not at my beginning level

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And if you sharpened your edges on straight skis, you would often intentionally blunt the front and back and only keep it sharp around the foot/middle, in order to have grip when going diagonally but have it easy to twist around turns.

Everything old is new again. Only today the effect is achieved by constructing the ski with tip & tail rocker.

Now that you mention it I suspect this may be a big reason some people have had different experiences.

I also started with long straight skis and they are a lot less forgiving than the carving skis that followed. Nowadays I see a lot more freestyle skis which are again a different thing, but I don't have much experience with those. So maybe that's where people are coming from.

I'll admit the discussion has gotten a lot better by now, I guess I was just too early.

>> great n-gate bait

I also miss n-gate. One of the great concepts from it was concerned HN'ers 'incorrecting each other', which I thought was a superb expression, and now use more widely.

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