If you wish to remain content with your current skis, we strongly advise that you not take a run on the Kästle MX88.  It will ruin your life, unless until you acquire the courage to tell your significant other that you plan to spend part of the college fund on your next pair of skis.

Just look at those test scores.  They reveal a ski that is more connected to the earth than topsoil.  In an era when many performance skis are so rockered they retain only a sliver of contact underfoot, the MX88’s traditional camber line grabs the turn at the top and won’t let go.  Okay, short-radius turns aren’t so quick to snap off, but with the Buddha-like calm the MX88 exhibits at speed, why would you want to make short-radius turns?

A note of caution about the 88’s off-the-charts rating for Finesse.  The scores that have elevated the MX88 to the top of the All-Mountain East rankings for 3 seasons in a row are turned in by talented skiers who are as comfortable at speed as the skis are.  Note that we don’t list the MX88 among the Finesse winners even though it tallied the highest aggregate Finesse score; it is first and forever a Power ski that rewards the expert skier for having developed the talent needed to turn it loose.

One amusing quality of the MX88 that it takes an expert to appreciate is its approach to off-trail conditions. Forget trying to float; the MX88 doesn’t try to skim over crud but contemptuously, defiantly smashes through it.  If as a kid you liked blowing things up, you’ll love the way the MX88 seems to detonate every snowdrift it encounters.