Carve Zone

Any ski has a limited range of turn shapes it can carve.  We call it the ski’s carve zone.  The radius of the circle a ski would produce if the curvature of its sidecut were projected into a full circle, represents the radius of the largest turn that ski can carve.  To produce that turn, the ski must be kept on an extremely low edge angle.

When a ski is tipped to the highest edge angle possible, it will carve the sharpest turn it’s capable of carving.   The more sidecut a ski has, the smaller it’s sidecut radius will be, and the sharper the turn it can carve. The compromise is, a small radius ski won’t be able to carve as large a turn as a larger radius ski will.  To execute turns of a radius that are outside of a ski’s carve zone, a skier has to steer.