Concept Creation

Go behind the scenes and discover how a game-changing ski was created

At first glance the ideas behind the Concept Ski can be easily questioned, so let us explain more about how we created the design that has received so much praise.  Let’s start with a little background information; here at Praxis Skis we love our Powder Boards, which are full reverse- sidecut sks, mostly because the driving power of the ski is transferred to the underfoot area of the ski allowing the skier to surf the mountain in a new way but also gain edge hold and maintain the ability to kill speed faster. The combination of power with pivot underfoot and the lack of tip and tail catch or hang ups make the Powder Boards exceptional.

However, in wanting to create something different, we decided to kick around the idea of a hybrid reverse sidecut/ regular sidecut ski. The result is a ski with sidecut underfoot while the tip and tail maintain reverse sidecut, or early taper. Recently many ski manufactures have made these types of skis with varying degrees of success but the basic idea is a huge advancement in powder skiing designs. Our ProTest design is an example of a ski that fits into this category, and in our opinion it is one of the better designs offered on the market today. Click here for our Protest specifications.hang ups make the Powder Boards exceptional.

However, despite how much we enjoy the Protest, we still wanted to design the hybrid ski with reverse sidecut underfoot.

You see, over here at Praxis we love to slip our edges, yes, slarve. But when it came time to draw this “slarvable” ski we were unable to come up with a design we truly liked. That is until this year when it finally clicked! We’re not making a hybrid design, it’s truly something new altogether; what we needed was a 3-point sidecut! Finally, the answer. Many drawings later we had something that made sense and we were off to cut a full-size template on the CNC.

After completing the design and making the ski, we were more than excited to put this concept on the snow. The potential performance capabilities of this new idea seemed enormous. A rush to the ski shop, quick stone grind, edge wax, binding mount, a text to a buddy at Squaw about a night skiing pass, and we were on the snow! The culmination of time, brain power, and experimentation had consumed Praxis for weeks, and quite possibly years, and now the time had finally come to really see what these things could do.

Night skiing tends to be cold and icy and this night was no exception. Standing at the top of the MTN run at squaw I knew this would be a good testing ground. Would the ski carve? Or would it just get sketchy on edge? Would it even turn?!?! The excitement to ski it was quickly followed by anxiety and nerves. It’s extremely defeating to spend so much time and effort on a design only to have it perform poorly. Design failures tend to show themselves very quickly but after that first roll of the ankle, even at a slower speed, the ski was put on edge and it carved! Again and again, over and over, edge initiation was simple and easy…test one was a success.

Over the next month more testing was done and much was learned. Design modifications were made smiles were created. The concept ski for 2011 was created, and we quickly realized for so many reasons something great was created.