It’s unlikely that the new Atomic Redster X9 will instantly make you a better skier; it’s a certainty it’ll make you feel like one. The Redster X9 is built to turn speed into more speed by maintaining edge contact no matter how hard you try to make it fly. It’s signature technology, Servotec, is meant to impart the impression of power steering by making it easy to find an early edge and holding it for as little or as long as you like.

“Noticeably lighter than the old [Redster Doubledeck 3.0] XT, but still powerful and playful,” says Jan’s Stephanie Humes. “Playful” isn’t an adjective often applied to a full-bore race ski, but the X9, while cut from race-ski cloth, is fashioned in a far more shapely silhouette, resulting in a 15.4m radius (@175cm). This gives the X9 it’s “combi” attitude, able to dice short turns with the rapidity and accuracy of a Veg-O-Matic or lay into arcs 6-lanes wide with the confidence of a Ferrari F-1 car.

Once upon a time, racing was skiing’s only paradigm of excellence. The best non-racers still sought to simulate racing technique and chose as their everyday ride a ski like the Redster X9. Wishing for a revival of those days is as futile as hoping for a revival of civility in public discourse, but at least we have skis like the X9 to remind us of how extraordinary and exhilarating a “race clone” can be.