OVERVIEW
Today’s Kästle has adopted one of skiing’s venerable names, but behaviorally the skis they are crafting in the present share zero DNA with the skis the brand made in the past. We know whereof we speak because we skied the Austrian Kästles of thirty years ago and they were beastly things to bend. (Kästle also formerly concocted all kinds of cockamamie skis, too numerous to mention here, including the hilarious, hollow-core B-52. But we digress.) Where their flagship skis of yore demanded total commitment from a well-conditioned athlete, today’s Kästles couldn’t be more amenable. Okay, the fattest BMX models do take some persuading to tip and turn, but there’s nothing in the past to compare them to as such Powder skis were non-existent twenty years ago.
Kästle isn’t embarrassed to charge a premium for their sticks, nor should they be. They invest a premium in assuring an exquisite finish, a vital ingredient many so-called boutique brands overlook. Their exceptional on-hill comportment is attributable to far more than just a well-polished edge, however; they flow downhill like a molten, slippery liquid, clinging to terrain. Like parting lovers, each passionate embrace ends suddenly, only to be repeated in the next moment. They impart a sense of security as dependable as a mother’s love, always supporting and encouraging their charges to excel. They’re able to deliver these sensual sensations because Kästle don’t skimp on construction quality and they’ve figured out how to marry a fairly forgiving longitudinal flex – the better to adapt to terrain – to sufficient torsional rigidity to hold on granite. To which we say, bravo.
The 2017 Season
Change is inevitable. Even a ski as brilliant as the MX83 isn’t immune to the product evolution cycle that incessantly rotates through a brand’s families so there’s something new to sell each season. The 2016 season was the last hurrah for the legendary MX83 and MX88, but Kästle was careful not to meddle too much with its cornerstone collection. The MX84 and MX89 are still fully cambered, with .5mm Titanal laminates surrounding an ash/silver fir core.
The new feature that slightly alters their on-hill comportment is an extension of Kästle’s signature Hollowtech tip insert that dampens shock and lowers swing weight. Fortunately, Hollowtech 2.0 only modestly magnifies these properties, leaving the essential character of the MX series mercifully intact.
Two other new MX models appear alongside the MX84 and MX89 among our 2017 Recommended skis, the MX74 and MX Limited. The MX74 falls into our Technical category where its tidy turn radius (13.1m @ 164cm) and bombproof construction earn it a spot among the best in a very competitive genre. The MX Limited – so limited it didn’t make the catalog – took the MX84 as a starting point and gave it an all-carbon jacket, producing such a mellow ride this dark horse ended atop our Frontside Finesse rankings.
The unannounced arrival of the MX Limited marks a special moment in Kästle’s history, as it’s the first Kästle to be built in the Hohenems factory where the brand was born in 1924. Kästle will use their ancestral home for small batch production such as the MX Limited, more rapid prototype development than is possible working in someone else’s factory, and warehousing for all finished products.