There’s no way that Kästle can build a bad GS ski. In fact, it would almost be impossible for it to make anything less than a superb one. That’s because Kästle’s stock construction – vertically laminated poplar and beech core, prepreg fiberglass and top and bottom sheets of Titanal – starts race ready. Add a tip and tail design meant to wrench every last millimeter of edge contact possible and a cambered baseline that’s on the same page, swirl in Kästle’s signature Hollowtech to smooth out the forward suspension, and you have a winning formula.
When Kästle chose Head to be its partner in production, it was a wise investment that continues to reap dividends. Just imagine all the experience in Head’s Race Department, all the different iterations of a wood/fiberglass/Titanal construction it has concocted, just in the last few seasons, in order to service its international stable of stars. When Kästle elected to revitalize its RX12 series this year with new SL and GS models, the team with which it collaborated not only could build anything it wanted, it probably already had.
The Kästle BMX115 must be a Gemini, for it seems to be inhabited by two polar opposite personalities. If you’re railing it on a surface like corn snow, it handles like a Frontside ski, albeit one without short turns on its resume. When it has a chance to settle into soft stuff, it acts like it invented slarving, a controlled drift that uses banked bases to direct trajectory. This two-in-one character is really helpful in the trees, when it may be necessary to aim precisely and brake suddenly in the same instant.
It requires all of twenty feet of travel to realize the Enforcer Pro takes its name seriously. You may be out on the slopes for pleasure, but the Enforcer Pro is all business. It arrives ready to roll and attend to the first agenda item, getting up to speed. Once it hits about 30mph it spreads its wings and puts its momentum to work, leaning into medium to long arcs as if it owned them.
Any ski called Sick Day sounds like a slacker, but the Sick Day 114 shows up for every turn. It may not execute each turn the way The Man would prefer, but whether by smearing the turn or sticking it, the Sick Day 114 gets it done. To keep its well-rockered tips and tails from flapping like pajamas on a clothesline, Line has stiffened them up and increased security attributable to a new core made of alternating stringers of maple and Paulownia.
