The brand focus at Line is on youth and those a bit older with an I-don’t-wanna-grow-up attitude. Irreverence is its mother tone.

You might expect Line to make cores from hemp stalks and use ayahuasca as a base treatment. But there’s nothing particularly avant-garde about how Line builds its skis. Yes, there are full-length carbon stringers in the new Sick Day 104, always a nice touch, but this hardly qualifies as cutting edge. The wood core is all aspen, a nod to the current obsession with lightness. Wood layered with glass and a dash of carbon is as traditional a recipe as pot roast. Not that there’s anything wrong with that; it’s just more mainstream than you may realize given Line’s anti-Establishment posturing.

A tester with the colorful alias Han Solo is ecstatic over what carbon – Magic Finger Carbon Filaments in Line’s patois – did for the Big Mountain Sick Day. “Quite the upgrade from the 102,” he enthuses. “Added carbon stringers give this ski insane rebound and a ton of forgiveness. Surfy and playful all around the mountain, this is a true one-ski quiver.”

I’m not quite ready to double down on Solo’s final remark, although the rest of his evaluation is spot on. Short turns don’t come naturally to the Sick Day 104 – short turns are a lot of work, and the Sick Day ethos is all about skipping work –and the 12mm of rise in the tapered tip isn’t exactly built to dig into the top of the turn. If you have to make a sudden turn in a pinch, don’t even try to carve. The Sick Day 104 is better prepared to swivel sideways; its eagerness to drift in lieu of carving an arduous slalom is another manifestation of its rebellious, stick-it-to-the-Man attitude.