2021 Blizzard Bonafide 97

Like all brands, Blizzard is under pressure to periodically renew every corner of its collection. The trick the brand has had to pull off several times is refreshing its successful designs without fundamentally changing them. To alter the Bonafide’s feel without sacrificing its identity is an intricate challenge that Blizzard attacked from the inside out. A great all-terrain ski begins with a well-balanced flex, which begins with the core. To obtain just the right pressure distribution, thin bands of dense beech are inlaid among poplar laminates, a design Blizzard calls TrueBlend. Each TrueBlend core is optimized not just by model, but by size, as well. In essence, the Bonafide 97 isn’t one new model, but six. Once Blizzard committed to the TrueBlend core, it reassessed all of its properties, including baseline (the length and severity of the tip and tail rockers) and sidecut. The cumulative effect is that the new Bonafide rolls to the edge compliantly, ready to grip according to the pilot’s dictates of edge angle and pressure. One of the complaints leveled against earlier editions of the Bonafide was that it favored expert skiers. While that’s still true of the longest length, the charge won’t hold water against the shorter sizes. The Bonafide 97 still favors experts, but only because any great ski is always best appreciated by those with the skills to extract its elite performance.