Three seasons ago, the Joy family of women-specific carving skis underwent the same sort of across-the-board transformation that the Kore series experienced last year. Head’s justifiable focus on Graphene, carbon in a one-atom-thick matrix – that allows Head to tinker with flex in ways previously unimaginable – makes it sound as though the ultralight Total Joy were made of synthetics and pixie dust, but it’s actually grounded in an all-wood (Karuba and ash) core, with carbon, fiberglass and lighter-than-pixie-dust Graphene providing structural support.
Its ultralight insides aren’t all that’s unique about the Total Joy. It’s also the maven of a covey of carving skis, and it’s built more for on-piste edging than off-trail smearing. In this respect the Total Joy is the Kore 85 W’s polar opposite. Its mildly rockered, multi-radius forebody itches to find an edge, and its deep-dish sidecut wants to hold onto it like it like it was a long-lost child. It’s ideal for an accomplished frontside skier who occasionally dabbles in off-trail pursuits.
Head has so much confidence in the all-terrain capabilities of its off-trail Kore design that two years ago it discontinued its Monster series and chucked its classic, wood-and-Titanal construction, to make room for the Kore 87 in its collection. Last year, the entire Kore family, including the re-christened Kore 85 W, was redesigned in several subtle ways to raise the performance bar even higher.
From a global performance perspective, Head understands that not all Kores will be treated equally. The Kore 85 W, as the narrowest of the clan, is expected to spend a good deal of its life on groomed snow, so it’s stiffened up accordingly. Like all the Kores, the 85 W switched out the synthetic Koroyd in its innards for more Karuba and poplar laminates, improving overall feedback from the snow.
The Kore 85 W is nonetheless an off-trail ski by dint of its baseline and sidecut, so it has a special fondness for powder. A new (as of last year) Kore feature that makes it even more effortless to ski in deep snow is a chamfered top edge that lets the ski slice sideways with almost no resistance. Since all powder skiing entails some foot-swiveling, this seemingly minor change has a major impact.
The Power Joy is unlike the rest of Head’s extensive Joy family of women’s skis, all of which were built from scratch, without reference to any unisex template. The Power Joy has clearly paid a visit to the Race Department, coming away with the EMC shock-damping system, and purloined its sidecut from the men’s Supershape e-Speed. It may have been “feminized” in some fashion compared to the e-Speed, but I doubt very much it skis like a typical women’s ski.
Also in the Technical genre is the Epic Joy (122/65/100), a short-radius turn specialist built with the same women-specific construction found in Head’s other top Joy models.
