The Nordica Dobermann GSR isn’t interested in bolstering your self-esteem. Its attitude is, if you want to feel better about yourself, take a lesson. Or better yet, hire a coach. For the Dobermann GSR is like a street-legal race car: it’s been detuned for civilian use, but not by much. If you don’t take control of it, the GSR will most definitely take control of you.
When you look at the Non-FIS Race category as a whole, most models have been defanged to the point that they could serve an expert as an all-terrain ski. Not the Dobermann GSR, which could care less about pandering to non-racers. It’s built on the straightforward assumption that it’s as elite a race ski as any blessed by the FIS, it just doesn’t conform to the dimensional limitations imposed by racing’s sanctioning body.
Most powder skis are made for those who either don’t ski powder so well or those who ski it so well they need a crazy-wide ski to make their living. The Nordica Enforcer 115 Free leans towards those of elite ability who point their skis downhill a lot more than they turn them sideways. It takes an aggressive attitude to pilot this ski because its long turn radius and extra length (note it only comes in a 191cm) need speed to turn these traits from liabilities to assets. If you like to tiptoe through the trees or make tidy, little turns to control your speed, you are reading the wrong review.
The reason the Enforcer 115 Free skis like a GS race ski in a fat suit is because it’s still a wood and metal ski, with two sheets of .4mm Titanal to give this big board the power of plutonium. Were it to depend on fiberglass for its liveliness, it would weigh as much as the Queen Mary; the switch from glass to carbon is what enables Nordica to retain the Ti laminates and the special stability at speed that they confer.
When Nordica introduced the original Enforcer five years ago, it already had a 100mm-underfoot model in its line, the NRGy 100, and the more acutely rockered Enforcer could have been misconstrued as redundant. Yet the Enforcer immediately earned a name for itself as a new breed of all-terrain ski that disguised a fully cambered baseline – and all the power it entails – between rockered extremities. As the Enforcer family grew, first wider, then skinnier, the arrival of an Enforcer 88 became inevitable.
Now that the long and winding road between the first Enforcer and the last has reached its destination, one can only wonder, what took them so long? This ski is a marvel, stable enough to navigate scoured wind crust yet ready to pounce turn to turn on hardpack with barely a transition between the two contrary conditions. Its score for short-radius turns is off the charts, yet it can lay into a big-bellied arc as comfortably as a cat curling up on a sofa.
What distinguishes the Nordica Enforcer 100 from the other benchmark models in the All-Mountain West category isn’t its poplar/beech/balsa core nor its two sheets of .4mm Titanal; it’s the length and flex of its traditional camber line that instill it with power, precision and pop off the edge.
Most skis 100mm or more underfoot don’t have a lot of camber built into the baseline, so they’re easier to push around in soft snow. The Enforcer 100 isn’t drinking this Kool-Aid; it’s made for skiers who know how to stand on a ski and drive it. If you look at a pair base-to-base, you’ll notice that the while the tip and tail are amply rockered upward, they’re stubby in length, a shape Nordica aptly names Blunt Nose. The rest of the ski is arched considerably, assuring as long and secure an edge connection as you can find in a double-rockered baseline.
In its longer lengths, the Enforcer 100 is a strong skier’s salvation, able to respond forcefully to pressure. Jim Schaffner of Start Haus, a big man who skis with a racer’s innate aggression, hails the Enforcer 100 as “really, really fun and these conditions, which consist of 16 inches of slightly compact powder which is starting to get chopped up. Found this ski to be really versatile, moving smoothly from the chopped-up stuff into fresh pow. All in all, a very good ski for conditions today and I can see its versatility would extend to other conditions, as well.”
The Enforcer 110 is so good at motoring through crud that it jumped to the top position among Big Mountain models in its debut season. Its reign would have certainly continued had Nordica not fashioned an Enforcer 104 this year, which usurped the throne so briefly held by the model from which it was cloned.
Just because the narrower and lighter Enforcer 104 Free feels more maneuverable than its stouter big bro doesn’t mean the Enforcer 110 Free suddenly morphed into a lugubrious tanker. It’s still remarkably agile for its girth and its camber pocket delivers a lively turn finish that makes it ski lighter than it actually weighs. “This is the most versatile wide profile ski I have ever used!” gushed Boot Doctor Bob Gleason. “An uncanny blend of big ski float and directional fortitude, with a quickness and rebound that will have you tap dancing in the tight spots.”
