All serious ski testing for next season’s crop of new and returning skis is over by mid-March, as that is when final orders have to be submitted to the various manufacturers. For a ski maker, the sincerest form of flattery isn’t imitation but a thick sheaf of dealer orders they can show to the bank. Ski dealers have already picked their hoped-for stars from the nearly infinite firmament of models available. For better or for worse, most of what you’ll find on shop walls next fall have already been ordered by today.
Because the ski trade has fallen on hard times in recent seasons, continuing a 15-year trend, this is not a time of revolution but evolution. There are no giant shifts in market position, but there are signs of movement.
- Rossignol is definitely trending upward, with the new Super 7 and Soul 7 leading their resurgence.
- Blizzard’s Flip Core skis have earned a permanent place near the top of any serious ski test results, with the 88mm-waisted Brahma their latest category killer.
- Völkl probably has the largest die-hard following, who will once again make the category-creating Mantra a sales leader.
- K2 has cleaned up their line without changing their basic mission: build skis that make the general public feel like heroes.
- Dynastar has found a following for its Cham series in both the burly, run-for-the-barn original design and the more tractable High Mountain iterations.
- Nordica continues its hot streak with the 107mm El Capo, in case one finds the sublime Helldorado a bit too chubby.
- Head has always favored the technical skier; when it comes to precision on hard snow, Heads are hard to beat.
- Salomon has shrewdly opted to be a value leader: its Quest 98 is the king of the cost/value equation, proving it’s possible to find a great ski at $499.
- Among boutique brands (i.e., expensive, hard to find and sporting a prestigious umlaut), Kästle and Stöckli will delight the relatively few skiers capable of explaining to their wives why they had to have a $1,500 pair of skis. The Kästle’s MX models flow smoothly downhill on a ribbon of mercury and the Stöckli Stormrider 100 is ethereally calm going through battered crud at Super G speeds.
Any attempt at a list is certain to have entries at or near the bottom, with the whiff of the also-ran to them. None of these brands deserve such treatment as each produces some exemplary models, but such is the nature of lists…
- Atomic will always have its adherents, but the Crimson Ti has more competition than ever among 88-waisted carvers; ditto the Automatic in the forest of fatties.
- Fischer excels at race-caliber carvers like the Superior Pro; this race DNA is detectable in the Motive 86, an all-star ski that merits a better rep.
- Line specializes in softer-flexing rides like the Prophet 98 that will bow and deflect under lighter loads, making a brilliant alternative for the finesse skier.
- Armada has the good sense to make their skis at Atomic, where they’ve succeeded in adding metal to the venerable ARV; the resulting ARV Ti is easily the most comfortable Armada, stem to stern, when ripping western crud fields.
- Goode is definitely getting better with each passing season. Their Rahu is an easy-riding floater that takes the work out of play.
- I led the design team that created the first line of skis for Scott back in the dawn of carving skis; no Scott ski behaves much like a carver today. However, Scott has re-launched the ‘70’s-era The Ski, replete with bright color block cosmetics, so you gotta love ‘em for that.
I can’t sign off on this dispatch from the front without sharing my sentiments regarding a consumer demo day I attended yesterday at Mt. Rose, Reno, Nevada’s backyard resort. A dozen reps had their fleets in perfect tune, ready for America to give them a test ride. The pity was not one skier in a hundred had a clue how to load a ski, any ski, from anything other than a scarecrow stance. Their ability to evaluate a ski for any trait other than its capacity for being pushed sideways hovered demonstrably near zero. By noon, nearly every rep – and we’re talking battle-scarred veterans of many years’ service – was distraught, driven nuts by the inanity both of their clients’ commentaries and the purpose of the enterprise generally. The folks they’ve been trying to woo onto $700 skis say things like, “I like a ski that does best on the top side.” And this was one of the more intelligible comments.
Those of us who have engaged in trying to test the on-snow performance of skis on some sort of rational basis have devoted hours trying to extract nuances of behavior that will help consumers decide among the cascade of available models. We split hairs and worry about minute differences in scores when in fact any ski will serve if you don’t care how you use it. Ski testing tries to identify excellence – or at least sort out recognizable traits – which in the end is perhaps a self-referential and pointless exercise if none of these attributes are accessible to the end user. This is why instruction and equipment selection ought to be inextricably linked, although they never are. Instead, every ski sale begins with a discussion of ability that usually jumps the rails of reality as soon as it’s set in motion, ending with the purchase of yet another tool that the operator is blissfully incapable of operating.
If you think the inherent futility of trying to communicate ski behavior to the Unwashed is going to deter me for one minute, you don’t know me very well, Dear Reader. But you will, Dear Reader, you will.
– Jackson Hogen
