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Compared to what is really the question. Skis are made from a variety of different woods (maple, aspen, ash, poplar, fir, birch, etc.) plus there is all the form crap.
Each one is going to contribute to the characteristics of the skis in a different way. Different density, different tensile and burst strength, different modulus of elasticity and ruputure.
Generally, ash is a much heavier, damper wood, It creats a smooth, deep flex (IE not poppy) and is fairly stiff. A lot of companies use ash stingers to help give the core a damper flex.
Aspen and maple, IMO, are the best two (non-bamboo) core materials. Both are medium weight, medium stiffness, both are durable, and decently poppy.
Poplar is light and poppy. It is a pretty soft wood too, so when using it in cores you need to make sure you have an additional binding mat or have hardwood stingers (such as ash) to hold the screws in.
I could talk about little quirks of each wood for awhile, but in regard to bamboo...
The first thing to mention about it is how strong it is. It is just solid. The janka test is a method to determine the hardness of the wood. Aspen runs about 400, maple around 1400....the bamboo I am using is 1939. So super high, which is why it is good when used as sidewalls. Solid bamboo is much stronger than both UHMW (p-tex) and ABS.
Tensile strength is the amount of force it will take to actually break the wood when in tension. Aspen has a score of 75, maple is at 82, ash is at 165, and bamboo is at 284. So it is a ton stronger, even than ash, with out the weight that comes with an ash-cored ski.
Weight wise: bamboo is about 340 grams per meter squared, ash is 690, aspen is 450, and maple is ~600.
Pop wise - the skis will have a lot more pop than any of the other woods. It is crazy cause even just flexing the cores I have no, I can feel it.
Weight wise, they won't be super super light, but will not be super heavy either. I hate super light skis, so this works for me.
Stiffness wise, bamboo is also one of the stiffest woods available. What is nice about this is that I will be able to use a slightly thinner core to keep weight down a bit and still he the same stiffness as a maple/aspen ski.
Because it is so strong, the bamboo should retain its flex for along time. None of that crap like on foam skis where the skis just get softer and softer and softer. I expect the skis to have a break in period, as they do, and then to retain their final flex.
It should hopefully be very resistence to breaking as well.
Hopefully when I can spend more time on bamboo next season I will be able to better describe all of the cool aspects of bamboo, but IMO it is one of the best core materials out there.
Hope that helped some....sort of rambling. if you have any specific questions shoot me a PM.
