Fischer has been tinkering with its off-trail Ranger collection over the span of several seasons, searching for the fine line between lightweight, with its attendant ease of operation, and elite carving capability that can handle the transition to hard snow. The Ranger 99 Ti tilts the scales in favor of stability, amping up the carving power by reverting to square, ABS sidewalls straddling a classic, wood-and-Titanal sandwich. A carbon inlay in the tip lowers swingweight and overall mass, which is substantial enough to keep it calm on corduroy, yet feels comparatively light when tearing through crud.
By tweaking everything – core, baseline, sidewalls – Fischer transformed this commercially important model from a lightweight who got beat up by mean conditions like hard snow or chunky crud into a lean machine that doesn’t take any crap from any kind of snow, no matter what the Eskimos call it.
Realskiers testers lauded the Ranger 99 Ti’s agility for a ski of its girth, calling it “nimble and quick to turn,” “light and playful,” and “best short turns of the big mountain, soft snow skis.” Its relatively zippy reflexes belie a sublime stability at speed that eluded the previous generation of Rangers but is inbred in the new 99 Ti. “It’s a solid edition to the Fischer family,” vows Jack Walzer of Jan’s, who has been an aficionado of Fischers for a generation.
The Fischer Ranger 102 FR is an interesting amalgam of Old School principles and New School attitude. At heart it’s a traditional, wood-core, glass laminate construction with square, ABS sidewalls, but on closer examination the wood laminates in the core are carved into a Chinese puzzle of latticework developed for Fischer’s market-dominating cross-country skis. To keep the lightweight Air Tec Ti core from being bounced around by stiff mounds of set-up crud, a thin sheath of Titanal covers the core underfoot.
Keeping the metal component to a minimum allows the Ranger 102 FR’s glass structure the freedom to flex under mild pressure and immediately pop back into its cambered position. Put this action/reaction pulse into motion and you have the makings of a very fun powder run.
In 19/20 Fischer re-designed the flagship of it Ranger Ti series, returning to a lay-up with twin Titanal laminates for stability and liberal use of carbon to make it responsive. Carbon inlays in the tip and tail help make the extremities thin and light, so the Ranger107 Ti is easier to foot steer when necessary. “It’s user-friendly but still can be skied aggressively,” notes one admiring tester. “You can take your foot off the gas and it’s still responsive.”
Compared to the Ranger 108 Ti that preceded it, the Ranger 107 Ti has a slightly less shapely silhouette and a longer contact zone underfoot, giving it more directional stability and an overall calmer disposition in the sloppy seconds that prevail on so-called powder days. Its new sidecut favors the skier who can maintain momentum through a series of rhythmic, mid-radius turns that neither enter nor exit the turn too suddenly.
Fischer is going through something of a renaissance of late, reinvigorating its Alpine ski and boot collections in tune with the market demand for lightweight constructions that deliver high performance. The latest redesign of the Ranger flagship is emblematic of a new emphasis on product at Fischer and a harbinger of good things to come.
The new RC One 82 GT doesn’t get quite as large a dose of Titanal as its running mate, the All-Mountain East RC One 86 GT, but it’s hardly a delicate flower. A Titanal sheath rolls over the top of its Air Carbon Ti core, and another TI laminate gives it race-caliber grip underfoot. In the shovel and tail, the Ti is replaced with Bafatex®, Fischer’s own shock-absorbing synthetic. The RC One 82 GT uses the same triple-radius (short-long-short) as The Curv, so the softer zones on the ski curl more easily while the middle delivers unshakeable support.
Given its origins and substantial construction, you’d expect the RC One 82 GT to be “a blast at speed as much as mellow cruising,” as Ward Pyles of Peter Glenn discovered. “Super quick edge to edge,” he adds. “Fast, quick, rips everything,” concurs a Jan’s tester, whose boss, Jack Walzer managed to be even more succinct. Walzer’s one-word review: “Money.”
