The newest edition to the Stormrider family is also its narrowest, but don’t get the idea in your head that the 83 is Stormrider Lite: it still built with 2 ½ layers of Titanal and is heavy enough to knock down castle walls.
In Stöckli-World, the frontside of the mountain is Laser country; Stormriders belong off-trail or somewhere out in the backcountry. That the Stormrider 83 performs so admirably on groomed runs is testament to Super G genes; Stöcklis always seem to ski like every run is being timed.
Crisp turn entry, clear snow sensations shining through the turn midsection and confident finishing power are traits any Frontside ski would be proud to possess. Salomon’s X-Drive 8.0 FS is built on these principles and it lives up to them every day it’s allowed out to ski.
The X-Drive 8.0 FS gets its gumption from a blend of three dampening elements. Like it’s big bro, the 8.8 FS, it uses basalt as a base layer, then adds a sheet of Titanal and an X-shaped structure over the rocker zones to keep them from acting up. This creates “a great combination of edge grip (torsional stiffness) and off-piste versatility,” pens Sturtevant’s Olin Glenne, placing it on his personal podium in the Frontside category.
If you’re in a quandary over which X-Drive to chose, the 8.3 or 8.0 FS (reviewed above), relax. It’s a simple matter of structure and shape.
The 8.3 is wider in the waist, but it’s wider still at tip and tail, so despite having more surface area, it actually scribes a shorter radius arc than the X-Drive 8.0. This doesn’t change its off-trail competence as much as it snugs up its natural turn radius, controlling speed by issuing more arcs.
It’s considered axiomatic that a ski that bends more easily is best suited to lower skill skiers who need the help. While it’s probably true that the new, softer i.Titan is more accessible to the average punter, don’t imagine for one second that it isn’t also an ecstatic epiphany for the expert.
For here’s the truly brilliant element of the new design: when Head engineers added Graphene to the i.Supershape construction, they didn’t reduce the amount of metal in the ski, they increased it. A lot, as in wall-to-wall, tip-to-tail thicker sheets. There’s your power plant, the reason that once the i.Titan is tipped on edge, there’s not a trace of shimmy in its soul.
If you don’t instantly fall in love with the i.Titan, it might be because you also want to date her equally attractive sister, the i.Rally. In skiing as in real life, you’re asking for trouble, for once you’ve gone out with both you won’t be able to chose.
Forced to chose on penalty of agonizing death or never skiing again, we’d probably pick the i.Rally. The deciding factor would be the i.Rally’s slightly more automatic response to turn initiation; it’s shovel connects earlier to the snow, augmenting the sensation of never-ending contact and imparting confidence in the ski’s imperturbable predictability. As noted by one of Peter Glenn’s stalwarts, “This ski turns itself on groomed slopes.”
