Some carving-centric skis are built beefy, the better to handle the shocks of riding hard snow at speed. But the Total Joy feels sensationally light and responsive, thanks in large part to Graphene™, the only material measured by the atom. Graphene allows the Total Joy to be both super light and torsionally stiff so the edge stays calm in all but the roughest terrain.
Skiers looking for a skills-improvement pill in ski form should take two Total Joys and go skiing every morning. All a lightweight skier has to do is tip it and the Total Joy takes over. “Easy peasy,” purrs Kelli Gleason of Boot Doctors, “it’s forgiving and light yet maintains a big sweet spot for recovering from a backseat turn.”
Most ski manufacturers wouldn’t regard “fun” as a technical term, but it’s a precise appellation for Line, as it fits both the personality of the brand and the attitude of the more carve-y of its all-mountain collections, the Supernatural series.
The Supernatural 92 gets its unapologetically playful personality from a cambered baseline that gives its mostly glass structure a spring-like quality that pounces turn to turn. There’s just enough metal laid down the ski’s middle to give it more grip on hard snow without dulling its agility. This combination of shape and structure creates a ski that’s surprisingly comfortable whether driven with a feather-light touch or a lead foot.
If everyone in skiing is part of a family, then the Orb is for the young uncle who only gets out on weekends. He spends most of his precious ski time inside the resort boundary but prefers to get off-trail if conditions are decent. He’s a good skier and would be great if only he skied more.
If he gets a pair of Black Crow Orbs, he may chuck work all together. The tapered forebody and mildly rockered baseline are ready to party off-piste, but with two Titanal laminates on board, the Orb is so strong on edge it doesn’t really care where you send it. Its tip design obliges the Orb to be loose at the top of a laid-over turn, but once it settles into the arc it’s as solid as the Mont Blanc massif. The once rebellious boys of the Chamonix backcountry now are making perfectly balanced skis that any member of the ski culture can climb on and relate to immediately.
The new and improved Stormrider 88 would win top honors in “Switzerland’s Biggest Loser,” as it shed 570g from its 2016 frame. They say fat equates with happy, but getting lighter seems to have made the Stormrider 88 mellower and easier to handle at low speeds.
The Stormrider 88’s crash diet raised its scores for Finesse properties across the board, and its global Finesse grade from B+ to A+. That the 2017 model became so much easier to ski cautiously without paring away the high-octane performance with which Stöckli is synonymous, is a remarkable feat of ski engineering.
