No downhill skis are not an instrument, but they still need to be "tuned". Tuning your skis means keeping the edges sharp, the bottoms smooth and free of burrs, and waxing your skis. Basically you are keeping your skis in top shape so that they run faster down the ski slope because the goal in ski racing is to be the fastest. Sharpening the edges - You have sharp metal edges along the sides of your skis. The purpose of these edges is to allow your skis to cut into the snow otherwise known as "carving" a turn. If you didn't have edges you would slide all over the ice and snow and have trouble turning. You use an edge sharpener. Dull edges will cause your skis to slide out, especially on ice so you have to make sure they are sharp. The edges shouldn't cut you, but they should be sharp. Consult your local ski shop for proper technique. They can often do this for you. You should have it done at the beginning of each ski season if you ski every now and then.
Downhill skis should be about 10 cm lower than your body height.
no
In ski racing, downhill skis are the longest, but slalom skis are the widest.
Cross country skis are are much wider, intended to reduce ground pressure. Downhill skis are narrower, to reduced resistance, and intended more for packed snow.
over 100mph at least
Yes, skis WILL help you get downhill faster if there is snow. You need to know how steep the hill is to know how fast you will go. If you add some ski wax to the bottom of your skis, you will go extra fast.
if by regular skis you mean downhill skis, then longjump skis are similar, but they are nearly twice as long and twice as wide-- the greater surface area makes the ski jumper accelerate faster, thereby allowing him to travel farther off of the jump
The difference is that a downhill ski is much wider along with the binding, a cross country binding is only connected at the toe of a boot. when a downhill binding is connected at both the heel and the toe. hope this helped
Skis are smooth at the bottom, and snow will be soft ( or hard ). That will create less friction between your skis and the snow. If you don't know what friction is, it's the force when something is moving on a surface. Skiing downhill will show you a perfect example of it.
no Yes, but you do not have the same kind of control that you do with downhill skis partly due to the bindings only holding the toe of the cross country boots. The "Telemark" binding gives some better control.
Because (at least hopefully), when ski jumping you will never and up skiing backwards.
When you store downhill skis over a long period you should put a storage wax on. This is a special wax designed to keep the bases from drying out and cracking. A good place to store your skis would be a place that is cool and has a medium humidity. Too dry will dry out your skis. Dark is also good as bright sunlight can damage the graphics and will make the temperature rise and fall which will also damage your skis.