The Head Monster 83 Ti has lived a sheltered existence, at least in the U.S., where it overlapped with the Power Instinct Ti Pro and was overshadowed in its own family by the popular Monster 88. Now is its moment to shine. How the 2019 Monster 83 Ti is built hasn’t changed, but how it’s shaped has. The tip is blunt, rounded, tapered and most of all, wider (by .8cm). The tip taper mellows out Head’s usual fast-twitch turn entry, while the added shape in the forebody enables a tighter turn radius behind the rockered shovel. The Monster 83 Ti is a narrow all-mountain ski that knows how to carve.
The only Frontside ski with a more scalloped sidecut than Head’s Supershape i.Titan is its near twin, the Supershape i.Rally. As their names announce, these skis take the concept of carving on a continuous edge as far as technology will take it. The i.Titan’s trifling concession to contemporary tastes is a soupçon of early rise; otherwise, it’s is designed to hook into a turn early and hang on to the last possible microsecond. The 80mm i.Titan is the widest of the Supershape series, but it doesn’t ski wide. What the skier notices about the fattest shovel in its class isn’t its girth per se, but how it pulls the skier into the turn with the inevitability of a whirlpool. The i.Titan’s turbo-charged tail sends the skier through the turn transition with such energy and accuracy, entry to the next turn is a fait accompli.
The Head Supershape i.Rally has The Right Stuff. (Farewell, Tom Wolfe, we’ll miss you!) It uses Graphene, carbon in a matrix one atom thick, in the ski center so it can make the core thinner in this area and easier to press into an arc. Any other ski maker in the golden age of Lighter Is Better would pocket the weight savings Graphene allows, but Head instead invested them in adding more Titanal to the mix, giving the i.Rally the stability and intensity of a battering ram. In a cage match with crud or crisp groomage, the contest is over in the first round. The i.Rally is better than whatever snow you throw under its gently rockered tip, and it imbues its pilot with its self-confidence.
The Supershape series is an unmatched collection of carving machines, and the i.Magnum is the shapeliest of them all, with a 59mm drop between its tip and waist dimensions, creating a turn radius (13.1m @ 170cm) tighter than that of a World Cup slalom. The slight early rise in its shovel is shallower than the same feature on the i.Rally or i.Titan, so the i.Magnum behaves more like a fully cambered ski than a rockered one. It doesn’t just like to carve; it insists on it. If you want to moderate its mongoose-quick reflexes, consider getting it in a longer length; if you’d prefer to accentuate its short-turn expertise, stick with the shorter length you’d normally use for a Technical ski.
The i.Speed’s receptivity to arcing with a light rein masks a thoroughbred’s temperament that longs to charge the fall line. Only speed reveals its special skill: it responds to loading by slinging the ski forward, rather than popping off the snow and – perish the thought – losing continuous snow contact. The extra energy comes from piezoelectric fibers that stiffen the tail when stimulated by high-velocity vibrations. Matt Finnegan from Footloose cautions, “This ski isn’t for everyone. It’s very technical, but that being said, it’s technically rewarding.” The i.Speed makes a better mogul manipulator than you might expect for ski with so much shape: the tip conforms to sudden terrain changes and the tail won’t wilt under any circumstances.
