INTRODUCTION: One of the most important factors affecting ski performance is the ski profile, which refers to the distance between the ski base and the contacting surface (snow or ice). Today, various methods are employed by manufacturers, professional racing teams, and amateurs to determine the best skis for specific conditions, based on factors such as the length and location of the glide zones, among others. This raises an important question: How accurate are the methods used to characterize these factors? METHODS: The ski profile was measured using three different methods: 1. SkiSelector: a profilometer with a stylus that recording the distance between the ski base and the surface it is pressed against as it slides along the ski. Both the left and right side of the ski is measured. 2. Sentax Ski Monitor: a system utilizing 56 load cells distributed along the length of the ski to quantify the pressure distribution over the glide zones, as well as 7 height gauges to measure the height within the ski camber. 3. TekScan 5630N: a pressure mapping sensor with 20 individual pressure sensitive regions per cm2 and a total 1936 on the entire sensor, the sensor was moved along the length of the ski and individual measurements was merged to map the entire ski. A number of skis was mapped at 30/60 kg. RESULTS/DISCUSSION: The results presented in the figure below show that the different methods can differ significantly. SkiSelector uses a 4 mm wide probe which capture a profile in a narrow section of the ski. When measuring the left and right profile (blue/yellow bands) the resulting profile look very different. Sentax seem to find larger pressure zones (red band) and narrower ski camber (green band) compared to the other two methods, this might be due to the distance between the load cells and relying on interpolation to fill in the gaps. TekScan provides a high-resolution pressure measurement, along the length and across the width of the ski and highlight the variation from left to right (blue/yellow histogram bars).
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