Ski length vs price

Thats not good Joe. How could they possibly justify even suggesting a pair of 177's for somebody your size? sounds like they are trying to sell skis not get loyal customers. It's surprising as they have (had) an excellent reputation . Hopefully they'll retrain their salespeople .

Voelkl Nanuq sizing?

www.skinet.com/skiing/gear/volkl/volkl-nanuq-2010 seems to indicate that Voelkl thinks the ski should be chosen much shorter than one might choose for other brands and styles?

Marmot has a great crew who personally ski their talk, and their suppliers provide them training to appropriate size skis for their customers. I think they have a big selection of rental skis to test, and the rental cost might be applied to a purchase.

Evo online seems to me to be a discount warehouse of leftovers, and their shop in Fremont aims at young freestylers mainly.

Martin also tries to give folks what they seem to want, even if his personal preference is more Euro trad, narrower and lighter.

Can TAY sprayers stick to what we are trained at, and leave ski sizing to the pros?

Voelkl Nanuq sizing?

www.skinet.com/skiing/gear/volkl/volkl-nanuq-2010   seems to indicate that Voelkl thinks the ski should be chosen much shorter than one might choose for other brands and styles?

Marmot has a great crew who personally ski their talk, and  their suppliers provide them training to appropriate size skis for their customers.  I think they have a big selection of rental skis to test, and the rental cost might be applied to a purchase.

Evo online seems to me to be a discount warehouse of leftovers, and their shop in Fremont aims at young freestylers mainly.

Martin also tries to give folks what they seem to want, even if his personal preference is more Euro trad, narrower and lighter.

Can TAY sprayers stick to what we are trained at, and leave ski sizing to the pros?

I didn't see what you saw in the link, Silas; I saw complaints about the tested ski being too short.

IMHO, after looking at all the mfr's ski charts I could, is that few skis are made for those weighing over 195 (like me). The longest lengths are often listed for body weights of 185 lbs+, but the intermediate lengths go in 10-20 lb increments and many store charts concentrate on skiing experience and style. I think it should be quite obvious that both skiing weight (take a tip from motorcycle suspension specialists and do not use body weight--add the boots, clothes, poles, pack, etc. normally used for the ski activity) and style (relaxed, controlled speeds vs. hi-speed freestyle) interact. Most ski review testers I have read have run 145-170 lbs and often describe long skis as needing big boots, aggressive skiing, etc. I remember ordering one of the first few pairs of Tua Exalibur Mitos Limited Edition that were available and the rep asking my store if they were sure I could handle it in 192 cm; I skied it with T-3s and it was soft and pliant as butter with my skiing weight. Similarly, my Atomic R:EX in 184 seem too short even with blue T-2s; I wish I had purchased the 191. I bought the Volkl Snowwolf in the longest weight, after enquiring of Volkl, and the 184 is great but, of course, not at all possible of floating me the same way my 187 (longest available) Dynafit Manaslus (also soft as butter) do when I keep the weight on both skis; my 178 (the longest length available) 7 summits, of course, do great in corn, but dive in thigh deep powder. Unfortunately I'm retired, too lazy too work, and planning on buying new TLT 5s (and now what do I do with the brown t-3s, black t-3s, blue t-2s, orange Zzero 3s, red Zero 4s) or I would be buying the Dynafit Stoke--Moutain Gear is listing a 191 cm length. Why my emphasis on Dynafit--when you are climbing with all that body weight, minimizing gear weight seems more important, and flexing big boots with big ankles is really tiring; too bad losing weight is so much more difficult and so much less fun than buying new skis--it would be cheaper, more efficient, and more effective. DISCLAIMER: my comments reply to backcountry skiing only where one encounters all sorts of snow conditions and degrees of slope even in a single day. I think a lot of emphasis on shorter skis has to do with frontcountry and sidecountry skiing where choice of slope steepness is always available and snow deepness can rapidly deteriorate with thousands of skiers; I know a lot of people who have bought short skis for less weight in the bc, but then they ski lift-served much more often than not. YMMV

My original plan was to get the Wayback 174 and ski like my grandmother, but I must say I'm now inspired to go with a little longer ski and have more room to grow in my abilities.

As much as it might have seemed like an insulting comment, my point was that if you aren't going to push your own performance on the descent, then there isn't any real difference in ski's performance if you are linking a series of traverses to descend.

I may have found the solution in the Karhu Spire BC in 184cm. It's a very similar spec and even less expensive than the year-old Wayback I originally chose. Best of both worlds!

Although, I don't work for a ski shop :, You considered a 174 rockered tip, then you switched to a 184 conventional camber ski. You are all over the map with your choices.

If you go with a conventional camber ski, 180 would be a good fit. If you went to a rockered tip ski, the 184 wouldn't be out of the question since the rockered tip reduces the skis edge contact to make the ski more manuverable. (like a shorter ski)  You would get long ski performance in soft deep snow and shorter ski handling on hardpack.

The unrockered 184 Karhu spire will be more challenging in the powder and the hardpack than a rockered tip ski of the same length. Do you follow the logic there?

We're all just talking here, Silas. Probably hard to argue that the collective experience here won't make for some good advice and some bad advice.

Herofish, it's not clear how much experience you have with modern ski designs, but the introduction of the early-rise tips and/or rockered tip/tail is a really important distinction to make, when picking your length, as tele.skier says.

Actually I didn't get the same read as Silas either.
It says the big testers liked the ski but wanted a longer one.
On these ski tests, they ski what skis are given for testing which sometimes has limited length options.

The fact remains that there are two documented experiences in this thread alone of Marmot suggesting a ski length that was marginal and on the cusp for one and clearly too short for a 6'4" guy like Joedabaker. The ski length suggested corresponded to the length they had available for sale????? That is clearly worrying.

Evo in Freemont is a great store and their customer support excellent. Like Marmot they hire people who use the products and walk the walk not just talk the talk. I have received good advice there from their salespeople and even" old farts" shouldn't be put off from visiting there just because it has a" young vibe." Just because they are young freestylers doesn't mean they don't know what they are talking about and to discount it without actually visiting it seems a bit unfair. They also have great prices and an art gallery for local artists and the whole experience is great. It was also founded by a local skier called Bryce Philips and his entrepreneurial story is very interesting it one care to find out about it and not just diss the place because it has a young vibe.

Some TAY sprayers should do their research before advising other TAY sprayers not to spray.