Fischer maintains that your skis don’t know your gender, and our ladies’ limited experience with the RC One 82 GT WS (for Women’s Series) tends to support this contention. Both Clare Martin from Peter Glenn and Lara Hughes Allen from the Mt. Rose Ski School raved about it, despite having very different ski bios. For Clare, who works retail in the southeast, the RC One 82 GT was a huge step up from her norm, liberating her to make turns for the first time that the Level-3 Lara could make in her sleep. Their verbatim reports indicate just how large a slice of the women’s ski population the RC One 82 GT might serve. (Note the humongous size range).
Lara Hughes Allen wrote, “This ski skied like a very tuned-down GS ski. It held the turn well, even on very firm conditions. This ski felt versatile in a variety of turn shapes and sizes as well as snow conditions. Its stiffness and edging mean that it will run away with you a bit if you’re not balanced and dynamic over the ski.”
Fischer doesn’t differentiate its Ranger series of off-trail skis according to gender, but according to attitude. Those Rangers with Ti in their name and Titanal laminates in their guts are all business, while the FR fold are all fun and games. No feature says, “let’s party!” as loud as twintip construction, and no other Big Mountain ski comes dressed to rock the joint like the shocking pink Ranger 102 FR WS.
Whether one prefers the more accurate carving of the Ranger Ti models or the looser steering of the FR camp isn’t about ability as much as it is flavor. There’s more than one way to attack a crud field, and the extra smear of the Ranger 102 FR just adds to the fun. It also makes for a more forgiving ride for those still getting the hang of skiing chopped-up snow. Note the depth of the size run: the woman who’s ready to wrangle a 191cm across the fall line certainly isn’t playing the same game as a relative neophyte timidly swiveling a 156cm.
The edge grip of RC One 82 GT is to die for. On a steep pitch where other Frontside specialists would flinch, it held with far less exertion. This is precisely the mission of the Frontside ski: to magnify the skier’s energy rather than drain it. The extra weight this ski hauls around helps a ton when it comes to sticking to a pencil-thin line on hardpack. Its sidecut and construction deliver an ultra-secure, short-radius turn; its shock-sucking mass and materials keep it quiet when you let it run.
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.”
What makes the RC One 82 GT rise above the mundane and into the “money” class is how well its carve-centric personality travels. When pointed down Broken Arrow at Squaw Valley late on a spring morning, the snow on its exposed flank had turned to a slurry that peeled off when pushed. The RC One 82 GT never asked for special treatment but kept it moving through heavy snow that would have submerged a more persnickety carver.
The Ranger 99 Ti seems to be a ski without bias. It could care less about snow conditions, has no qualms about long turns at high speeds or short arcs at a snail’s pace and can switch from a drift to a carve in mid-turn. Its monotonously good scores were above our Recommended cut line for every attribute we measure.
Another bias that the Ranger 99 Ti eschews is any trace of gender bias. The men’s and women’s versions are identical save for the decoration on the topsheet, and Fischer’s rationale for this homogeneity holds water. At this skill level, men and women tend to ski alike, so the need for a differentiated women’s product is little to none. Our female testers validated this approach, praising the 99 Ti in particular for its off-piste performance. Our male testers laud the Ranger 99 Ti’s agility for a ski of its girth, calling it “best short turns of the big mountain, soft snow skis.”
By tweaking everything – core, baseline, sidewalls – Fischer transformed this commercially important model from what was once 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. The Ranger 99 Ti deserves to be considered among the first rank of All-Mountain West models.
Fischer’s Ranger series of off-trail skis is split into two distinct camps. Those with a “Ti” suffix include two sheets of Titanal that deliver the enhanced edge grip and shock damping that are the hallmarks of the aluminum alloy. Those with “FR” in their name use fiberglass as the main structural component, with a dash of carbon in the tip to lower swingweight and buffer the forebody.
The Ranger 102 FR’s frisky attitude is perfect for the Finesse skier who doesn’t want to plow through pow on a metal-laden battleship but prefers to playfully pounce in and out of it. An outward sign of its inner desire to let its freak flag fly is a twin-tipped baseline that would rather drift over snow than drive through it. A big sweet spot that’s easy to balance on makes it simple for skiers of any skill set to keep up with Ranger 102 FR’s smooth moves.
When it has a little cushion of snow to push against, the skier can compress the camber pocket underfoot, loading its fiberglass laminates so they recoil off the edge with enough energy to carry the skier across the fall line. Deep snow fills the gaps under its double-rockered baseline, stabilizing the entire chassis. All the skier needs to do is initiate a mid-radius rhythm down the fall line and the Ranger 102 FR will take over from there.
