Overview

Blizzard’s fortunes began to turn around several years ago when the Tecnica Group acquired the brand and factory in Mittersill, Austria, and pumped a few million euros into an overhaul. It’s often the case in the world of industry that he who builds the last factory wins, as it will have the most modern machinery and latest technical capacities. Tecnica management backed up their bet with the movement of some top design talent from Völkl to Blizzard, and the stage was set for a rejuvenated Blizzard to show what it could do.

Blizzard probably would have done just fine if they never signed Arne Backstrom to ski on their brand, but the world-class big mountain skier did more than just represent the company, he helped transform it. It was Backstrom who first conceived the idea of rockering a ski by simply flipping the core over, so the tip and tail naturally curved up instead of down. The recently anointed Blizzard engineers figured out how to execute the idea and presto, Flipcore was born.

The short history lesson matters because this flipping-the-core business makes a ski with a remarkably large behavioral envelope.   In category after category, the Flipcore skis deliver elite performance with all the rough edges removed. Most skis with a limitless top end don’t suffer fools gladly – in our jargon, most great Power skis don’t exhibit many Finesse properties – but the Flipcore skis aren’t finicky. Many models with pronounced front rocker don’t ever feel connected in the forebody, but the rocker on a Flipcore ski blends with the midsection when flexed, so the edge feels engaged tip-to-tail. This intoxicating blend of behaviors has seduced countless ski testers, thrusting models like the Bonafide, Cochise, Black Pearl and Brahma into the first rank in their respective genres.

Flipcore’s most impressive validation came from an unexpected source. A few seasons ago, Blizzard decided to treat its women’s line more seriously, moving away from mimicking men’s construction and developing women-specific lay-ups. Blizzard fostered women’s focus groups to gather feedback and clarify its design objectives. While it continued to use unisex tooling, it switched to Woman Specific Design and the once unthinkable happened: a women’s ski sold more units than any other model in the American market.

The emergence of the Black Pearl as a sales star, when put in historical context, is a case study in brand resurrection that defies probability. Before the Tecnica Group acquisition, Blizzard was flat on its back in the U.S. market and invisible on the women’s front. Women’s skis did not matter, period. The brand was deaf to market input, among other liabilities. Racing was very important, carving the key to the consumer market and freeride was for loonies like the French and Americans.

The ascension of a woman’s freeride ski that leads an insular Austrian brand to prominence and profitability is a less likely scenario than the story of Joan of Arc. Right behind the Black Pearl 88 in popularity is a pair of perpetual star products, the men’s Bonafide and Brahma. The recently introduced Rustler/Sheeva series of freeride models is earning its own small army of adherents, securing Blizzard’s reputation as the current king of the All-Mountain models.

It’s tough to bat 1.000 across all genres, and Blizzard is working to strengthen its presence in the carving categories that are important in the central European market Blizzard calls home. Its Firebird series of race skis enhance a traditional, woodcore/dual Ti laminate sandwich with vertical carbon laminates that boost acceleration through the bottom of the turn. Both the Non-FIS Race Firebird WRC and SRC are fantastic, no-nonsense race skis that are a gas to ski even if they never clip a start wand. The new Firebird HRC (126/75/107) applies the same race-caliber construction to a Frontside version for those who want a little more versatility in a high-velocity package.

The 2021 Blizzard Season

For the past few seasons, Blizzard has faced the enviable task of improving on excellence, specifically how to keep its franchise Flipcore collection firing on all cylinders. Last year, it extended the brand-within-a-brand franchise down to the 82mm-waisted Brahma 82, pushing its off-trail design down into the Frontside genre. It also created yet another Black Pearl, also an 82, squeezed in between the dowager Black Pearl 88 and the BP 78.   For 20/21, the brand would have to find some way other than model proliferation to keep growing their core business. 

 

In order to change as little as possible, Blizzard changed nearly everything. In other words, Blizzard didn’t want to lose the high-end performance that had fueled its phenomenal growth, but he who fails to innovate perishes. So Blizzard tweaked a lot of its basic elements, changing length, baseline and sidecut in every size. The trigger for all these tweaks is the debut of TrueBlend, a precise reconfiguration of dense beech stringers among a stack of softer poplar laminates. The result is a rounder, more even flex that maintains snow contact in unruly terrain.

 

For the coming season, TrueBlend will be applied to the Bonafide 87, Brahma 88, Black Pearl 87 and Black Pearl 88, which means model selection for these new beauties is more important than ever. In the Bonafide 97, for example, the 189cm isn’t just a bigger 183cm: each is its own ski. The net effect of scaling performance along with length is it opens up the ability range for a given model.   A less skilled man can now handle a size-appropriate Bonafide, just as a more high-powered lass can push the new Black Pearl 97 in a 177cm.

 

Elsewhere in Blizzard’s freeride world, something close to Arne Backstrom’s original Cochise returns as the Cochise 106 (without TrueBlend). The 20/21 Spur is also a completely different beast, with a new shape, construction and sizes.