When Nordica was first finding its footing as a ski brand, it struggled to find a toe hold until it earned a following for its Fire Arrow carving skis. Over the course of the last decade, the runaway success of Nordica’s Enforcer and Santa Ana series has stolen the spotlight, relegating Nordica’s superb Dobermann Spitfire series to relative obscurity. For the 23/24 season, Nordica has adapted the Dual Core design – first debuted in the women’s skills-improvement model, the Wild Belle DC 84 – to a new suite of Spitfires and a spin-off series that hits lower price points, dubbed Steadfast.
In a market that treats high-octane carving skis like pariahs, shoehorning a Spitfire DC 74 Pro into an American retailer’s ski rack is a daunting challenge, but a ski that demonstrates a similar passion for carved turns on a chassis roughly 11mm wider everywhere hits a sweet spot in the U.S. market. Its carving-centric sidecut is ideally suited to groomers, but it has the requisite surface area to handle boot-top powder and side-of-the-trail chop. At only $800, with a more than adequate binding included in the price, the new Steadfast 85 DC FTD meets the needs and expectations of a broad cross-section of skiers. It’s an ideal “step-up” ski for someone making the move from rental, relic or hand-me-down to ownership.
The Steadfast 85 DC manages to combine an easy-flexing camber line with a torsionally rigid lay-up that holds its line on hard snow. Its behavior is driven by a Double Core design that splits the wood core in half and inserts a Titanal laminate and a shock-damping polymer dubbed Pulse Core in the middle. As applied to the deep sidecut (51mm drop between tip and waist) and high taper angle (21mm drop from tip to tail) of the Steadfast 85, the Double Core design delivers a carving machine with a velvety flow from turn to turn.
The Enforcer Free 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 Free three years ago, 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.”
Five winters ago, I was able to saddle up an Enforcer 110 Free in the conditions for which it was made: lots of tracked-up pow on-trail and lush powder lines in the trees. It was a storm day with blustery winds, so if you weren’t in the woods you couldn’t see squat. The situation called for a ski that could absolutely care less about what lay ahead. The Enforcer 110 either rolled over or obliterated whatever dared cross its path. Its ability to plane over uneven surfaces allows it to ride high enough that it’s always easy to throw ‘em sideways to scrub speed or foot-swivel a short-radius turn.
If the crud ever turns confrontational and tries to toss you around, it’s a sign you’re not running them at high enough rpm’s. A 110mm-wide ski with two .4mm sheets of Titanal on board needs wind in its sails to become energized. You have to trust that if you aim it downhill it will reward your faith with rebound energy that will make it ten times easier to steer.
When I received Rossi’s first press release about the Essential, it sounded to me more like a publicity stunt than a product pitch. Demonstrating that the technology already exists to make a ski that is 77% recyclable sounds all eco-cuddly, but my jaded brain-filter filed the announcement under “Inflated Product Puffery” and turned its attention to concocting my next podcast.
My blithe assumption that Rossignol’s new ski was designed to distract attention from the absence of any real innovation in Rossi’s 2024 collection lasted until the moment I was heading downhill on a pair. Not only did the Essential immediately announce itself as the real deal, to celebrate its debut on snow it set off a string of firecracker slalom turns that were more accurate and responsive than any arcs issuing from any of the best all-mountain skis being made today.
Beneath its retro cosmetics, the Essential turns out to be a Non-FIS Slalom, with a sidecut and on-hill demeanor closely modeled on Rossi’s Hero Elite ST Ti (123/68/104). It’s a very interesting choice, given that presumably Rossi could have achieved a similar level of recyclability using any model in its line as the prototype. Surely, if any brand wanted to lure an American skier onto a recyclable ski, they’d be fishing with better bait if they used some sort of all-terrain model.
But Rossi’s intent with the Essential is multi-tiered. The choice of a race-caliber slalom ski makes sense if one of the goals is to show that recyclability doesn’t have to come at the cost of quality. (Like most European brands, Rossi places a premium on race-ski design.) One of the unique angles of the Essential program is that Rossignol has offered to open-source its construction particulars, so competitors can achieve a similar level of recyclability. Every major manufacturer has a slalom race ski template in its inventory, to which the Rossi formula could presumably be applied.
Rossi’s decision to use a slalom ski template for its groundbreaking design harkens back to pre-shaped, pre-fat days when the vast majority of all skis sold in the U.S. – when the American market was hundreds of thousands of pairs larger than it is today – were directly descended from a slalom archetype. The short, linked turns that such a design encourages aren’t much in vogue these days, at least not on this side of the pond. The tiny waist and exaggerated silhouette of the Essential generate short, dynamic turns that are strung as tightly together as pearls in a choker. It’s an athletic style that most weekend warriors aren’t well enough conditioned to emulate, not to mention the fact that its wasp-waisted shape doesn’t travel well off-trail, further limiting its inherent appeal.
The Essential’s wood veneer finish echoes an even earlier era when skis were made of wood and only wood. For those of you taking notes, wood accounts for 35% of the Essential’s composition, all of it beech – considered a heavy wood in today’s market – and all of it recyclable. The rest of the Essential’s components are comprised of 35% aluminum and 7% steel, both recyclable, plus 12% plastic, 5% fine wood and 6% waste that can’t be reused.
Making a ski from recycled materials addresses one end of a ski’s lifecycle; turning a used ski back into its elemental materials lies at the other end the recycling circle. Rossignol has a plan for that, too; working in collaboration with its retail network and MTB, a developer in recycling machinery and logistics, Rossi will collect used skis and either re-purpose them, if useable, or break them down into component elements if they’re past their useful life. The consumer surrendering his or her used skis will receive some sort of reward for doing so. Details are understandably a bit fuzzy at this stage in the project’s development.
The ultimate goal of the Essential – to spur industry-wide adoption of sourcing and recycling virtually everything that goes into a ski – is a long way off. No one ski or even one company can make much of an impact by itself. But the process of getting to that state of affairs has to begin somewhere, and Rossignol has taken an important first step in that direction.
As a lifelong product nerd, it’s particularly satisfying to see Rossi deploy as its role model an elite slalom ski, echoing a bygone era when skis like the teal-green 4S K were perennial top sellers. At the end of the day, buying a ski that supports a worthy cause provides salve for the soul, but no one is going to ski it very often if it isn’t also a great ski. By making its prototype a race ski, Rossi has assured top-tier performance, as its Race Department could build a recreational-level slalom ski with its eyes closed, so to speak. Sure enough, the Essential is stunning on snow. Old School slalom skiers will recognize its behavioral profile the moment they put it in motion, recycling sensations that may have lain dormant for decades.
Like any good race ski, the Essential doesn’t come cheap, but its $1049.95 price tag does include a Rossi SPX 12 binding.
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