In reaction to the introduction of snowboards skiers found themselves playing catch-up in the carving game as was told by Rick Kahl in “Carve Your Heart Out,” Skiing, 1996:
‘February 1987…Geoff Bruce… eight years on U.S. Ski Team…beholds the most incredible set of tracks he has ever seen… “I realised it was a guy on a snowboard”…Today the Elan SCX prototypes [deep sidecut skis] arrive…I measure my tracks with my fist… My…path was four to five fists…theirs were one…[O]ne of the snowboarders explains-…we can get a far greater edge angle…Geoff…sets his boots for maximum cant. On the second run, the tracks look identical…By 11 A.M., Geoff has discarded his poles. He hasn’t used them since…Super-sidecuts are only a few years old, and already they are changing the way we ski…’ 27
1987 – Kahl, Rick, “Carve Your Heart Out,” Skiing, 48, 7 (Fall 1996), 62-64
1997 – Photos showing snowsportster on shaped skis, and on snowboard, carving turns (Elan SCX Skis and Burton Board) – no poles. L. Hart, The Snowboard, New York: W.W. Norton, 1997, 12