When sliding on snow a standard ski frequently vibrates. When such vibrations become fairly strong they can not only be uncomfortable for the skier, but they can cause the ski to lose contact with the snow, causing a loss of stability and ability to hold and guide the skier on the snow.
Accordingly it is known from U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,522 to provide a ski with a longitudinally extending viscoelastic layer that effectively damps such vibrations, making the ski fairly dead. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,537,717 such a viscoelastic strip is mounted on the top surface of the ski all the way from the binding to the start of the upturned front end. Such an arrangement has been found ineffective because it suppresses all vibrations and makes the ski so dead and unresponsive that it is fairly difficult to use at all.
It has been learned that, although some vibrations are bad when they exceed a certain limit, certain other vibrations, so long as they stay within certain limits, are no problem at all and in fact impart a lively easy-to-control feel to the ski. Accordingly commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,405,149 and 4,438,946 describe skis into which are integrated strips of viscoelastic material whose positions and lengths are determined as a function of the particular vibrations to be damped. Thus the type of skiing or skier determines the type of vibration damper used, e.g. skis for a giant slalom or for a special are differently damped. Such an arrangement still fails to take into account the various types of skis, skiers, and skiing.