by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
In last year’s review of the Kendo 88 we predicted that it would be Ski of the Year and indeed it was, both for Realskiers and many other pundits. The quality that continues to distinguish the Kendo 88 from a very strong field is that it seems able to raise its game in every circumstance. No matter how or where the skilled pilot asks it to stretch its performance limits – go faster, react quicker, ride quieter, dice up bumps or cruise groomage – the Kendo 88 handles it all in stride.
The single most important quality an all-mountain ski can possess is total indifference to terrain selection. On this score, the Kendo 88 has no peer. It transitions from wind-affected crud to crisp corduroy as if those two conditions were the same. On hard snow, it’s so quick to the edge the skier can’t even tell it’s rockered and it’s so stable in crud you can relax, drop the reins and let the boys run.
The Kendo 88 uses a “3D Radius Sidecut” with a long radius forebody, a tight shape in the midsection and longest radius in the rear. This allows it to behave like a GS cruiser at relatively low edge angles and morph in a moment to a snappy SL when its tilted and pressured. An energetic turn finish isn’t unique to the Kendo 88, but it’s nonetheless a relatively rare commodity in today’s market.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Tester: Elaine Furtney
The Head Kore 87W is quite simply the most versatile ski I’ve ever skied. Light, playful and maneuverable, it boasts stability and edging performance that rival that of your typical “carving” skis.
Pairing a modern tapered tip and tail with a svelte 87mm waist allows heretofore unimagined playfulness and “surfability” in this category compared to anything out there. Suddenly a relatively narrow ski can rip up the groomers on that first corduroy lap, and show you refined and forgiving manners in the end of day slush and crud. The narrower waist gives the 87 edge to edge quickness that encourages snappy short turns and lets them dance through the moguls without fear of catching tip or tail.
On a bluebird 6-8” powder day with a fortuitous early up at 7:30, I skied spongy wind-buff, fluffy pockets of light snow, wind-scoured hard snow and groomers. Through it all, the Kore 87W behaved with impeccable manners and added joy to the day. It was literally great in everything!
This ski has such a huge sweet spot I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone from the aspiring advanced skier to the dedicated expert. I used to say “when you’re not sure which ski to bring, bring the Monster 88’s.” That has now changed to the Kore 87.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Tester: Robin Barnes
Hummina, hummina, hummina. This ski made my heart go pitter-patter! When I first picked it up, I wondered if the lightness of its construction could stand up to a variety of conditions and speeds. Shame on me for doubting. It dazzled me on groomers, sliced and diced through the crud, and perhaps most astonishing was the way it deftly handled frozen corral-head bumps covered in 10 inches of heavy pow.
The Kore 93 W shows great versatility in being gentle and easy to tip and carve at lower speeds, but throw it into gear and it rips robust trenches or massacres any ungroomed condition that you throw at it. The ski is equally stunning at high edge angles or low edge angle steering, pivoting, and shmearing. At 93mm underfoot, there is really no reason to fret about which ski to bring for the day. It does it all and makes you feel like a champ doing it.
The Kore W series was adopted from the non-gender-specific Kore line with very little modification for the women’s version. Since it was a already a winner as a light weight, supremely versatile ski, Head simply moved the recommended mounting point 1cm forward for the W series, to make the front of the ski even more accessible and let the rest of the technology speak for itself in the women’s market.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Two years ago we anointed the Head Kore 93 as our All-Mountain East Ski of the Year, a title it richly deserved. In the Era of Lighter is Better, almost all mainstream brands have sought a variety of ways to strip away any excess fat in their designs. When Head acquired a license to use Graphene in sporting equipment, the Austrian brand possessed a material advantage in the race to make the lightest ski that didn’t suck.
The reason the market hasn’t been awash in lightweight skis since the dawn of time is because mass is part of what makes a ski damp, or able to absorb vibration. Lighter weight formulae have been tried for decades, always with the lamentable downside that they couldn’t hold an edge any better than Florence Foster Jenkins could hold a note. Head spent several years working with Graphene before it applied the superlight material – carbon in a matrix one-atom thick – to its previously woeful collection of fat skis.
And lo and behold, it turned out that Head finally, as it trumpets in its slogan, got light right. Wisely, it didn’t try to make the lightest ski possible with its miracle matrix, or the Kore 93 wouldn’t stand up to the rigors of battering through set-up crud fields. But the Kore 93 is nonetheless noticeably lighter than 80% of its peers, which contributes to its elite Finesse score.
by Jackson Hogen | Aug 29, 2020
Head was selling freeride skis before it cooked up the Kore series, but I’ll bet you can’t name one of them as they barely sold a stick in the U.S. The 3-model launch of the Kore series changed all that overnight. The first vintage sold out immediately, so Head quadrupled production. And sold out again. Then along came the Kore 99 to fill the space between the wildly successful 93 and the series sweetspot, the 105, and it sold to the wall, too.
When you’re on a roll it’s hard to pass the dice, so this year Head pushed the boundary of its off-trail collection down to the Kore 87. Considering that initially the focal point of the Kore series was the 105, an 87 is a mighty skinny sibling. (BTW, this phenomenon, once a rarity, is now commonplace.)
But as the Kore concept has proven in its every iteration, when the name of the game is off-trail versatility, Kores come to play. The whole point of this genre is expanding the skier’s playing field, opening up access to the ungroomed mountain where its real magic lies. For off-piste playgrounds like moguls and trees, the Kore 87’s crazy-light construction and narrow silhouette allow it to slither through spaces where bigger boards flounder. Since the Kore 87 is in every way like its elder brothers save for its width, it retains their affinity for irregular terrain.
