If you take a close look at the scores for the Power Instinct Ti Pro for all ten criteria (available on our members’ site), you’ll see above average scores for every criterion and a brilliant result for stability at speed, a benchmark of excellence. There’s only one area where it gets beaten up, literally and figuratively: off-piste performance.

Little wonder. The Power Instinct Ti Pro is totally dialed for on-trail heroics: a system ski, it comes with a fairly high plate, the binding bumps up the ramp angle and it has a well-scalloped sidecut. These features contribute to uncanny control on groomed runs – the Power Instinct can hold an edge at speed alongside the best in the genre – but it’s as manageable as a moody cat in knee-deep crud.

Big deal. It’s supposed to excel on hard snow and anything it can handle off-trail is bonus. If judged for what it’s trying to accomplish, it’s all aces. If it has a personality flaw, it’s that it prefers the company of technical skiers, people capable of tipping it over and gunning the throttle. It prefers its snow groomed, its focus on the fall line and its edges always engaged.

The Power Instinct Ti Pro is built on the same, spare-no-expense, wood/Titanal/Fiberglass/Graphene foundation as the Supershape series, distributing pressure along the base so the extremities are softer. This allows the skier to compress the center section with less resistance, making arcing more accessible.

Note that while both the Supershape i.Titan (80mm) and Power Instinct Ti Pro (82mm) have similar waist dimensions, the former has a significantly wider tip and tail. This is the modern incarnation of an old-timey Free Carver, with a cross-hill turn finish capable of steering right back uphill on the same arc if given a chance. The Power Instinct, on the other hand, is amenable to less radical angulation, hewing closer to the fall line. What speed it picks up along the way the Power Instinct is more than capable of handling.