What a proud papa the Völkl Deacon 76 must be. When it slipped quietly into Völkl’s line two years ago to replace the creaky Code collection, all the ballyhoo was rightfully concentrated on the M5 Mantra. There was no hint at the time of the little Deacons in utero in R&D, gearing up to replace the redoubtable RTM 84 and RTM 81, veteran Frontside carvers that had come to the end of their dual-track lines. The new kids turned out to be real firecrackers, fulfilling every father’s dream of out-performing his expectations.
But as often seems to be the case with kids, they don’t want to do things Dad’s way. Where the Deacon 76 is quiet and unhurried, the Deacon 84 and 80 are bundles of energy. The Deacon 76 likes to luxuriate in a long turn that never loses snow contact; the kinder prefer a catch-and-release approach that involves pouncing across the fall line. The junior Deacons exude the tireless will to play of a Jack Russell terrier, while the Deacon 76 prides itself on energy conservation.
The new Völkl Secret 102 should not be mistaken for a set of training wheels. If you don’t have the requisite technical skiing skills, the Secret 102 can sense this shortcoming the way German shepherds can smell fear. As you digest the contents of Perry Schaffner’s critique of the Secret 102, cited below, please remember she’s fresh from a collegiate racing career and is an active coach who crushes every turn as if it owed her money.
“This is a great powder/off piste ski. Really carries speed well. I skied the top in the choppy powder [at Snow Basin, UT] and it cut through it fairly well. Additionally, it was surprisingly lively on the groomed snow. Obviously a little more challenging to ski it in groomers since it is fairly wide under foot. I think this is a great ski if you mainly ski powder with some random days of groomers thrown in there.”
Why do I bother to round up every Non-FIS Race model I can rustle, along with the talent required to rate them? Practically no one in America could give a damn about the category, much less what I have to say about it. In the modern world, there are myriad definitions of what constitutes an all-purpose ski, and not one of them fits the profile of a NFR model. Quite the opposite, in fact: race skis are used as the prime example of what an all-terrain ski isn’t.
The world has indeed gone mad. In the halcyon days of my youth, the best all-terrain skis were race skis because all the best skis were race skis. A lot has happened to race skis since I was wearing long thongs, but one thing hasn’t changed: the best of them are still miraculous all-terrain tools. The best of them, exemplified by the Völkl Racetiger SL, feel limitless.
Corty Lawrence, whose normal turn radius is on the long side, called the Racetiger SL “the most versatile of the genre, with a broad range of uses. It has a traditional Teutonic feel and demeanor, and alters turn shape/radius without a problem. Good at low speed and great at high speed,” said the son of skiing legend Andrea Mead Lawrence.
