While it’s possible to quibble over the MX89’s Finesse score, there’s no equivocating when it comes to its Power rating. It’s clearly the most carve-centric ski in its class, responding to a high edge angle by tearing a new aperture into whatever terrain it encounters on its bull-rush to the bottom. Skiers who can execute turns with a lot of upper/lower body separation will indeed find the MX89 relaxing because the ride is so secure the skier doesn’t have to work as hard to maintain a clean trajectory.
Rossi’s Famous 10 doesn’t fiddle around. It has carving on its mind, and doesn’t care who knows it. Set it up to turn and it’s going to deliver; as fast as you can tip it side to side, it’s ready to etch miniature parentheses in the snow. Unlike All-Mountain skis, whose dreams consist of endless prairies of powder, the Famous 10 maintains a laser focus on its métier, applying high edge angles to hard snow and letting its nervous-twitch-quick reflexes whip it in and out of simulated slalom turns.
Rossignol created the Hero Master for Masters’ racers who, as in their adolescence, have to economize and use one ski for two events. But the Hero Master could live a long life without ever seeing a start house or a finish gate and still pass on to the celestial podium fulfilled. For this sweetheart loves to open up the gas line and burn fuel by the barrel, flying down America’s groomed highways with its sirens on and lights blazing.
Paul Jacobs of California Ski Company waxes rhapsodic about the Laser SX: “Simply put, the best on-piste ski for the advanced skier. Quick, smooth and stable at any speed, with gobs of rebound energy. The harder the surface, the more remarkable this ski becomes. If you know how to carve a ski, it will put a smile on your face.” Note the emphasis on rebound energy, an oft-overlooked trait among shaped skis. Raw, unrefined power oozes from the Laser SX’s every pore.
The wheelhouse of this slalom are turns that dive in and out of every arc with the staccato speed a ZZ Top guitar solo. “This ski lives up to its name: SHORT TURN,” opined Zac Larsen. “Your legs run out of turns before you run out of mountain.” Brother Luke Larsen was on the same page, advising prospective ST skiers to “buckle up – it’s got a lot of rebound.”
