by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
To grok the essence of the Fischer RC One 86 GT, think of it as a carving ski with wanderlust. As an Austrian brand, Fischer’s collective mind rarely meanders far from the racecourse, so it’s natural that the RC One 86 GT is a carving machine first and an off-trail implement second. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. All a ski this wide really needs to navigate most off-trail conditions is a dash of tip rocker, aka, early rise.
The tip-off that Fischer envisions the RC One 86 GT in frontside environs is that it’s the head of a mostly Frontside (75mm-84mm underfoot) family. Furthermore, its construction is all about maintaining snow connection, a classic Frontside obsession. The tip and tail are outfitted with Bafatex®, a synthetic compound meant to muffle shock and keep every cm of the 86 GT’s fully cambered baseline plastered on the snow. Not to mention .8mm’s of shaped Titanal to further cow hard snow into silence.
For a ski with all-terrain dimensions, the RC One 86 GT showed a decided preference for carving over drifting and hard snow, technical skiing versus flotation. If your everyday snow surface is groomed, but when powder appears you want to pounce on it without restraint, Fischer’s latest spin on a Frontside ski with off-trail pursuits deserves your attention.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
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by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Let the record show that no ski made as giant a leap forward in 2020 as the Salomon QST 92. In its two earlier incarnations it barely met our Recommended minimum standards, barely hanging on the tail end of the Finesse ski standings. Now it resides near the top of our Finesse rankings, and the result is no fluke. The current QST has more of everything you want – edging power on trail, a better shape for off-trail, a more solid platform – and less of what you don’t want: tip chatter, indifferent grip, overall looseness. Salomon pulled off this coup by reconfiguring how it used its primary components, flax, basalt and, of course, carbon. The basalt and carbon are woven together in an end-to-end matrix, while the flax gets its own mat directly underfoot. An all-poplar core is reinforced by a patch of Titanal in the mid-section and finished with new cork inserts in the tip and tail.
The cork by itself is a major contributor to the QST 92’s calmness, as it’s reputed to be 16 times more shock absorbing than the Koroyd honeycomb it replaces. What’s truly amazing is that the 2020, more torsionally rigid QST 92 comes in over 200g lighter than the 2019 version. Its strength to weight ratio has to be among the leaders, not in the AME genre, but across all categories.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Members get so much more content! Please sign-up today and experience all the Realskiers.com has to...
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Members get so much more content! Please sign-up today and experience all the Realskiers.com has to...
