It totally depends on the type of skier and the type of skis you have. I worked in the ski industry and thus lived and worked in ski towns for 15 years. If you are a ski racer, tuning edges matter. If you aggressively ride groomers all day, then they will matter. Riding big fat powder skis everyday, inside and outside of the resort? More or less doesn't matter. Are you a park rat that only ever skis the park? Those folks will actually detune their edges on purpose.
If you are a beginner / intermediate skier (someone who never to rarely carves a ski), edges on the blunter side of things can actually help you out. Sure, it's a bit more sketchy on ice, however just doing a "slide turn" is going to be much easier. It will take less force to make your skis point where you want them too, making you much more confident. It's one of the reasons they put beginners on smaller skis. Less edge = easier turning.
I have skis that were kept dry and haven't been sharpened in years and ski perfectly fine and it's exactly how I want them.
"Riding big fat powder skis everyday, inside and outside of the resort? More or less doesn't matter."
Until you stop off at the bar on a Sunny day and ride home on dusk once everything has frozen again, then you'd be like "oh I wish I didn't tell everyone not to keep their edges in decent shape", as you fly off the cliff edge.
On the real however, getting down the mountain safely after dusk etc with dull vs. sharp edges will likely only affect intermediate skiers. Beginner skiers are going to crash no matter what they’re riding if on steep and icy terrain. Expert skiers know when and how to ride conservatively and can basically ride anything in any conditions “safely” (even if that means just sliding a firm patch rather than carving it), as long as they’re aware of the limitations of their gear. 90% of the year I ride pow skis in any conditions (including melt freeze etc)
with super dull edges - it’s totally fine. The other 10% is just to have a little more fun on very firm days.
Intermediates, on the other hand, will be overly aggressive beyond their capabilities. They’ll bounce their helmet off a melt-frozen knoll at first opportunity, similar to what you said!
What I didn't really like about he parents comment is that it seems kind of "lazy" not to do your edges. My wife broker her arm recently when a kid fell over in front of her and she couldn't stop quickly. On steep icy terrain this is a concern. That was my true "fly off a cliff edge" example.
The comment seemed like a "I don't wear a helmet because it's uncool" sort of thing...just do your edges occasionally, what's the issue?
Well I did as a racer and still do on my firm snow skis. But there is a slight performance trade off depending on what kind of skiing you like to do. I keep my edges on my pow skis dull because it’s slightly easier to slash and dash in crud and makes very little difference on icy terrain. For fully cambered directional skis being ridden very aggressively, it would make more of a difference. Every once in a while i’ll do the edges on my firm snow skis though if I’m bored, since a few years ago I bought a full diamond edge tuning kit and feel like I need to get some use out of it.
Point being, I’ve never found sharp edges matter much for most recreational riding. None of this has any relation to being uncool. Maybe in your wifes scenario, having razor sharp edges would have saved her from breaking her arm; almost certainly not.
It's easier on fat skis which haven't been waxed in a long time. They aren't as fast so I rarely have to really put them on the edge on ice. I do a slide turn while keeping as much contact with the surface as I can.
That's also the biggest downside, you can't really rip it with fat skis. Not even if you go down dead straight.
On most firm conditions, I absolutely think you can rip it on fat skis with awful edges. Especially on groomers. I do it every year on 120mm waist skis. It is highly dependent on skill level. For an example, watch freestylers carve switch down some rock-solid melt frozen 45deg park feature on detuned $200 skis they picked up at a swap meet 8 years ago. The result is much more dependent on the rider, not the equipment. I’ve watched pro dudes rip harder than 99.999% of skiers on joke trash skis from the 90s (rusting, holes in the base, chunks missing from edges) and broken snowblades.
On true ice, NO ONE is ripping it except racers or ex-racers with good equipment.
Fat skis put a lot of torque on the knees on ice if they are properly tuned and your carving in a high G turn. It's the wrong tool for that job, best to just slide around and chill like you mentioned.
Yeah but the whole way down you're saying to yourself "I shouldnta have that last drink" because you coulda made it home in time, instead of blaming your tools, unless you're a bad craftsman.
For park or intermediate on ice, I would still give them a decent tune but use a one degree base bevel, that'll rarely hook but give a lot of confidence on ice.
I ski mostly in the Northeast and my old, unsharpened skis work just fine for me. I don't ski double blacks now (for the knees that feel it much more than 30 years ago) but I am doing just fine on single blacks and below.
Do I ever wish for a sharp edge when I occasionally end up on an icy plate scrubbed by snowboarders at the end of the day? Yes. But so rarely, that I never care enough to actually sharpen them.
I started skiing before there were ever snowboarders, and let me tell you that slopes were just as scraped out then as now. Probably worse as groomers and snowmaking weren't as competent.
I grew up in Maine skiing at Sunday River but spent my entire childhood in the park never once cared about my edges. Had I been in the pipe, maybe a different story.
Edges are not... what you want in the park. Hence Armada and others making literally edgeless skiers for park rats.
Making your way down free ride or even groomed terrain at Tremblant or Whiteface etc after a typical northeastern rain->refreeze cycle... Nice sharp metal edges are a godsend.
I detuned my edges under the boot area when I was younger and only focused on park skiing. Catching an edge on a box or rail was a fear I had. Never tuned the edges on any of my twin tips. I did wax them though!
There's times in a pipe where you'll want grip on the ice there. You'll use a one degree base bevel to prevent hooking. If you ride metal rails though, I give up trying to discuss tuning.
I grew up with skis too, and my dad and I would sharpen our GS skis together in the garage every Friday evening, for a weekend of racing. Used to finish them with a sealskin strop, literally as sharp as razors - for the first few runs.
Same. Kind of a nice ritual and I look back at that time spent together fondly. I also feel a bit sorry(/grateful) for all the time my parents spent on this. Driving me ungodly early so I could get to a race a few towns over, and then waiting there all day for me and my team mates to do our thing and then drive us home.
You really do notice the difference on well maintained edges. On groomed slopes I can ski anything, and it doesn't really matter. But I don't think most people realize how icy a race track can become.
They got to spend time with you, which is its own reward. I only realized this now when I got a kid (he's 3). Never thought about it that way before. Do you have kids?
And no, no kids. But if I do, I'm thinking I'd like them to do something not as expensive and time consuming. But with my own 50 days skiing this winter, it might just end up being skiing anyways, heh.
Skiing is a great family sport. You get to build cameraderie together exploring a big mountain. It's quite an undertaking for a parent and yes, expensive. Most other sports, the parents are typically just watching.
They do it in services centers for few bucks and in a few minutes. It actually does massive difference on icy slopes - it makes difference between being helpless and being able to control where you are going.
I was a scrub level skier, and had mine sharpened a few times a season. Slopes varied between powder and crusty, wind blown snow. Hitting crusty snow at mach 17 on dull skis, and you'd end up doing a high performance uncontrolled flight into terrain routine.
It’s a racing thing, mostly. Most shops offer a basic service for a machine wax + edge sharpening so that’s when most people get it done (even if they don’t really know what they’re paying for)
Hah, as a child I fractured my skull on a 7'th grade school trip to Brodie Mountain. Maybe somewhere around 1988? A quick check on Google Maps will show that Brodie Mountain is only 2600 feet high and very near Albany NY, therefore is unlikely to produce good skiing conditions. It turns out that a 15 minute lesson from your math teacher is insufficient to develop the skills necessary to stop on a completely iced over intermediate trail, so I did the snowplow directly into a rack of ski equipment going 30mph or so and wrecked myself.
I grew up in VT skiing and snowboarding 4 days/wk, edge tuning was a daily ritual and base prep was about once a week (although probably should have been twice)
If you are a beginner / intermediate skier (someone who never to rarely carves a ski), edges on the blunter side of things can actually help you out. Sure, it's a bit more sketchy on ice, however just doing a "slide turn" is going to be much easier. It will take less force to make your skis point where you want them too, making you much more confident. It's one of the reasons they put beginners on smaller skis. Less edge = easier turning.
I have skis that were kept dry and haven't been sharpened in years and ski perfectly fine and it's exactly how I want them.