Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

No, you missed the points of my posts completely. My first point is that a good alpine carver on tele gear can out carve a tele carver because the tele is a relatively inefficient carving turn due to the mechanics involved. And because of that it is my belief that there is a lot of fun and pretty cool action to be gained by doing p-turns on tele gear when the groomers are ripe. Second point: I very knowingly tripped fandango on a subject that I thought would illicit more response. Why? Why would I instigate? Because there are a lot of Tele Tip voyeurs out there who never seem to engage and add to the point of this project. Over a thousand people have dipped in to this post but yet an overwhelming have nothing to say. I have completely failed to inspire. Next topic...

I think a lot of the "views" could be the bots that crawl over this thing.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the back and forth. I can't believe the A-Frame is pretty much gone. I getting old. I also didn't know the reason for going back to straighter GS skis.

Quiver of skis and a quiver of techniques make for a well rounded tele skier, practice my p-turns on the cat tracks and low angle groomers. Still made 5 pages of discussion. Thinking I need another ski day before summer, plenty of snow to be found.

Harris wrote: very knowingly tripped fandango on a subject that I thought would illicit more response. Why? Why would I instigate? Because there are a lot of Tele Tip voyeurs out there who never seem to engage and add to the point of this project. Over a thousand people have dipped in to this post but yet an overwhelming have nothing to say. I have completely failed to inspire. Next topic...

I was also surprised by the limited input. I know people must have opinions so why not contribute. We don't always have to agree on everything, that would be boring. I think the reason we tune in here is to find a thread that is interesting and makes us give a little more thought to our gear, technique, or places to go. Thanks for giving us something to think about Harris.

Well I appreciate everyone's input, even when I'm argumentative and opinionated concerning. It is just, well, I love this thing we do. I always have fun talking skiing. I have even more fun actually doing it. And then also talking about it. And then doing it again. And then drinking a beer. One thing is for certain though, I have yet to cross the soul who has a perfect turn every turn. I've been impressed a few times, but...

Tele turns always give the biggest grin! That said I would agree that on firm / hard snow at lower angles a P turn is better. It is very easy to catch an edge, not just my lack of skill - I even witnessed my instructor coming a cropper!
To me a T turn is a powerful turn, easier to weight both skis (especially with ScottyBobs) and it feels like a carve to me.

Tele turns on tele gear can have plenty of power to 'carve' turns. I p-turn on occasion on tele when tired, but really don't like p-turns on tele gear. It's not really very stable and plus, that's what alpine gear is for.

I love doing carved P-turns on tele gear. I also love doing T-turn carves too but have wondered in the past why my P-carves are deeper and cleaner than my T-carves (same gear). Harris may have answered my question, since I'm able to have a cleaner carve with all my weight on one ski, whereas in a teleturn you're approximating the kind of carve you can do on one weighted edge, ski or snowboard.

As a teen I learned alpine skiing and carving first and was a solid intermediate before switching completely to telegear. That was in the early 80s on skinny skis and floppy leather and it was a challenge to learn all over again. As a result, all the expert skiing I learned was on telegear doing teleturns: super steeps, deep powder, chutes, hop turns. So whereas some good teleskiers have to bail out to do P-turns when in hard terrain, I can only handle hard terrain with T-turns and have to enjoy P-turns where I won't need to bail to tele.

I don't know how I'd get through a day on the groomers if I couldn't play around with all three T-, P-, and M-turns.

Equipment can make a difference and Harris has described ski choices for carving. Makes me realize why I prize my old Atomic 8.20 for groomer days and ditch the wide all-mountain skis.

Bindings make a difference too as I find with NTN Freedoms after my first season using them. I'm a late adopter (was on SuperLoops and T2s up till this year with NTN and TXpro) but have skied a range of bindings on demo. I was amazed how much more solid the NTN Freedoms are for P-turns. They edge better for T-turns too, but the difference in P-turns is night and day. My gf has long skied on T1s and tele gear but does mostly P-turns, sometimes practicing low angle teles. Last year before upgrading to NTN I begged her to try AT gear since she mostly P-turns; I believed AT gear would make her Parallels a lot more fun. She declined, preferring to stay with telegear, and she got NTN Freedoms too. Once I skied the NTN, I realized her P-turns were in good hands and didn't worry about her missing out on locked down heels.

TeleWord wrote:

connyro wrote:Tele turns on tele gear can have plenty of power to 'carve' turns. I p-turn on occasion on tele when tired, but really don't like p-turns on tele gear. It's not really very stable and plus, that's what alpine gear is for.

In a word, explain?
In a word, mechanics?

Hi Ron!

Tele is more oriented for Nordic while parallel is kinda Alpine...Can do both anywhere but POWDER tele is boss...Head em down and make em round...GT