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.
The simplicity of the Supernatural 100’s construction contributes to its playful attitude and easy-steering properties. As a cambered, all-glass ski, the Supernatural 100 pops out of the turn even in powder, giving it a lively but controlled rebound that carries the skier into the next turn. It seems like an odd adjective to apply to a ski, but the Supernatural 100 is more comfortable to ski than other skis of equal width. We attribute its ease of operation in part to its more torsionally soft lay-up, allowing a ski this wide to roll up on edge gradually and conform readily to irregular terrain.
If the Line Pandora 95 had a theme song, it would be “Surfer Girl.” When she isn’t surfing she’s swimming sideways, setting up for the next wave. Asking it to carve a clean arc on hard snow is like compelling an adolescent to stay after school and clean the erasers. It will do it, but only at her own pace and she will resent you forever for it.
You might expect Line to make cores from hemp stalks and use ayahuasca as a base treatment. But there’s nothing particularly avant-garde about how Line builds its skis. Yes, there are full-length carbon stringers in the new Sick Day 104, always a nice touch, but this hardly qualifies as cutting edge. The wood core is all aspen, a nod to the current obsession with lightness. Wood layered with glass and a dash of carbon is as traditional a recipe as pot roast. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just more mainstream than you may realize given Line’s anti-Establishment posturing.
Any ski called Sick Day sounds like a slacker, but the Sick Day 114 shows up for every turn. It may not execute each turn the way The Man would prefer, but whether by smearing the turn or sticking it, the Sick Day 114 gets it done. To keep its well-rockered tips and tails from flapping like pajamas on a clothesline, Line has stiffened them up and increased security attributable to a new core made of alternating stringers of maple and Paulownia.