This article is reprinted from The Professional Skier.
All copyrights apply.
Please see our copyright and disclaimer notice page. After all, they expect you to know the tools of your trade. But that doesn't mean you have to take every ski on the market out for a test spin. Turn radius represents the skis' optimum carving arc, measured in meters and determined, largely, by the depth of the skis' sidecut. Taper refers to the relationship between the width of the tip and the width of the tail, i.e., a ski with a wide tip and a narrow tail will have a larger taper than a ski with little difference between tip and tail widths.