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The SCX, for "SideCut eXtreme" (or "eXperiment"), was an alpine ski introduced by Elan in the winter of 1993/4. Skis before the SCX had almost always used a shape that was slightly curved inward on the sides, typically by 7 mm compared to a straight line. The SCX was designed with over 22 mm "sidecut", producing a wasp-waisted ski unlike anything on the market. The SCX proved to dramatically improve turn performance and made it much easier to perform the efficient "carved" turn. This led to higher speeds in giant slalom, and the ski started winning race after race when it was introduced. It also made skiing easier in general, and revolutionized ski schools, especially in the US where the design first caught on. By 1996 every major ski company was racing to introduce similar designs, and traditional designs were being sold off for pennies on the dollar. As the first successful "shaped" or "parabolic" ski, the SCX is considered one of the most important advances in the history of the sport. ==Early ski designs== The first true downhill skis, made in Telemark, Norway by Sondre Norheim, were handmade from single pieces of hardwood and featured a relatively modest sidecut of about 4 to 5 mm. Alpine ski development after this seminal introduction proceeded in a series of stepwise improvements; laminate woods, metal edges, metal laminates (see the article on Howard Head) and finally the fibreglass torsion box design were introduced over a period of 100 years. Throughout, little engineering effort had been spent on considering the ski shape, as other issues like torsional stiffness and "chattering" were problems that needed to be solved. Skis of the 1970s were largely identical in shape to those of the 1800s. Skis with narrower waist profiles had been experimented with, but had never become widely used. In 1939, Dick Durrance ordered a custom ski from Thor Groswold's factory in Denver with a 7 mm sidecut, and this became a new standard for slalom skis. During the winter of 1948/49, Jerry Hiatt and Thor's son Jerry decided to experiment with even bigger sidecuts. Taking a pair of the company's standard hickory Rocket skis, they cut away wood until they produced a 15 mm sidecut. When they tried them out, they found they turned quite easily in a series of rounded turns. Ironically, this was considered poor form in the era of the stem Christie, where good form was a series of sharp J-shaped turns. The two abandoned the design, speculating that they ended up as firewood. In any event, wooden skis of this era did not offer much torsional stiffness; when rolled on-edge by the skier's boots, the tips and tails of the ski would tend to twist in the opposite direction in order to lay flatter on the snow. This reduced the amount of performance the sidecut would normally add. Hiatt and Groswold's experiment required such a deep sidecut that the waist had little vertical stiffness, another problem for the design. This article has significant inaccuracies - the standard sidecut for most skis in the 70's, 80's, and early 90's was 19-20mm for slalom skis (most of the skis made) and around 12-15mm for giant slalom skis. Snowboards featured much deeper sidecuts because the lack of independent leg action (both feet fixed in place on the same board) negated the hip, knee, and ankle angulation that allowed skiers to turn and control skis. Deeper sidecuts and shorter lengths did not arise before this period because they reduce glide speed and radical sidecuts increase the difficulty of skiing moguls and ungroomed terrain. The recreational ski market was primed for the introduction of deeper sidecuts in the mid 90's because mainstream skiing had transitioned to mostly groomed terrain. Also by the mid 90's the sport had begun the aging process that continues today - most skiers were becoming older and less athletic as the baby boomers aged, and less young skiers were coming into the sport due to higher costs. Shaped skis could be skied easily on groomed corduroy slopes by older, less skilled and less athletic skiers. Also during this time the youth market had collapsed for skis, with most younger skiers opting for cheaper snowboards. The ski companies were desperate to regain their market share over snowboards and thus the "revolution" was born. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elan SCX」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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