At 82mm underfoot, Elan’s new Interra 82 seems to occupy a no-man’s land between traditional carving skis, such as sister ski Insomnia, and the current focus of the women’s market, All-Mountain East models with a midriff between 88mm and 93mm. No doubt about it, the All-Mountain East genre, with its promise of all-terrain mastery, has charmed the market into believing that it’s the Promised Land of women-specific skis.
But as I argue in “82 is the new 88”, the gradual shift to narrower footprints has inspired several suppliers, including Elan, to lay a new stepping-stone in the path back to more realistic sidecuts. The reason the Women’s All-Mountain East genre assumed a dominant position in the U.S. market was its presumed superiority in off-trail conditions. But there are several reasons why many women would be even better off on a ski like the Interra 82.
The All-Mountain East genre is split into two camps: models that represent the top end of on-trail, Frontside families (think Head V-Shape 10, Salomon XDR 88 Ti, Liberty V92) and the narrowest versions of Big Mountain fatties (e.g., Enforcer 88, Rustler 9, Kore 93). The Elan Ripstick 88 falls into the camp populated by off-trail offspring, tilting its terrain predilections towards soft snow and its pilot preference to skiers still polishing their skills.
The 19/20 Ripstick 88 replaces an 86mm-waisted version that didn’t share the same guts as the rest of the Ripstick clan. This oversight has been corrected, so the 88 now incorporates every family feature, including Elan’s signature asymmetric design, Amphibio, that puts a longer edge on the inside and longer rocker on the outside. While Amphibio helps the Ripstick 88 cope with hardpack, every other important design element, from its lightweight carbon/glass structure to its tapered tips and tails, is biased towards off-trail conditions.
Enrobing a ski in a coating of carbon is like dosing it with Xanax; it calms the nerves and helps it focus on the task at hand. The inescapable comparative adjectives are “silkier” and “smoother.” With no metal underneath its ebony hide, Elan’s Ripstick 96 Black Edition needs something other than Titanal to give it the sangfroid required to batter crud aside. Its carbon sheath muffles the rough edges caused by crud-busting without hauling around the extra ounces Titanal entails.
In lighter, softer, generally more congenial off-road conditions, the Ripstick 96 Black raises its game. It doesn’t matter if the depth of the latest layer is 3 centimeters or 3 feet, put any kind of cushion under it and it will practically purr with gratitude. Because it skis narrow, it’s also easier to find a high edge angle, which helps keep its rockered tip from getting twitchy and makes negotiating tight gaps in trees dependent more on the science of technique and less on the power of prayer.
The Elan Ripstick 96 is in the vanguard of the Lighter is Better movement. The core combines vertical laminates of two lightweight woods, poplar and Paulownia, sandwiched between sheets of fiberglass. To dampen the ride and add energy out of the turn, two 3mm-diameter carbon rods run the length of the ski near the edge, tracing the path of the sidecut in CNC machined grooves near the base of the core. Inlays made from a synthetic dampening agent, called Vapor Tip inserts, are integrated into the shovel to boost the lightweight chassis’ ability to absorb shock.
Another major contributor to the Ripstick 96’s high scores for ease of operation is Elan’s unique asymmetric Amphibio design that abbreviates edge contact on the outside edge – i.e., adds rocker to it – while maximizing snow contact on the inside edge. For practitioners of continuous carving in which two edges are always riding on an unbroken, parallel path, the Amphibio design makes carving feel as natural as walking.
