When Salomon launched the first edition of the Stance series in the 20/21 season, they were well aware that they were entering all-mountain categories already brimming with options. Most of the established image leaders in the pivotal All-Mountain West genre were Power models loaded stem to stern with dual Titanal laminates. To create some space for Stance in this crowd, Salomon had to both match what the category leaders were doing yet somehow be different from them. The solution was to replace swatches of Ti in the top sheet with its proprietary C/FX fibers, so the Stances would feel a bit less ponderous than the competition.
The changes instituted in the new Stance series took this effort at differentiation a step further, slightly disengaging the Ti top layer from the core, creating the sensation of a softer-flexing ski that’s still torsionally rigid enough to bite into boilerplate. Sally also lightened up the core by adding Karuba to what had been an all-poplar affair. The net effect is a high octane ski that is simplicity itself to steer. As incarnated in the Stance 102, the new changes transformed what had been a back-of-the-pack wannabe into one of the very best Finesse skis in the over-served Big Mountain market. Its nickname should be Crud Lite, for it excels in soft snow, where it maintains a mellow, fall-line orientation through thick and thin.
Among the traits that substantially boosted the Stance 102 in the Finesse rankings is its unusual ability to feel narrower than it measures at the waist. At least part of this sensation is due to a tail that is, in fact, narrower than the norm in the Big Mountain genre, so the ski has a tendency to gently release the turn after it crosses the fall line. The perception of being on a more tapered platform is accentuated by smooth, even flex that bows under modest pressure.
Jim Schaffner is an innately powerful technical skier with a penchant for speed. He found the Stance 102 to be “balanced and dreamy for my style and today’s packed powder conditions. Versatile and playful fun. Loved drifting into the soft stuff on the sides of the trail.” While it isn’t perturbed by hardpack, there’s no question that it’s in its bliss in soft snow. While some Big Mountain skis feel like battering rams that bludgeon crud into submission, the Stance 102’s svelte shape slices through tracked-up snow like a stiletto.
When Fischer made the decision to be gender neutral in its 2023 Ranger ski line – meaning men’s and women’s models would use the identical recipe and even the same names – it did so by blending the constructions (and consequent behaviors) of its existing Ti and FR designs.
The 2024 Ranger 102 is a product of this design union, retaining the loose and smeary extremities of the old 102 FR, with a patch of .5mm Titanal in the binding zone that palpably augments its gripping power. Of its two parents, it takes after its maternal (non-metal) side, limiting its displays of muscular power to the critical area underfoot. If you loved the retired FR for its surfy attitude, you’ll be at least as enamored of the 2024 Ranger 102.
Whether the Ranger 102 is a woman’s cup of tea depends on style and weight more than ability, although the Ranger 102’s soft flex is especially well suited to those making their first forays into sidecountry. The Titanal plate in its midsection sits astride a substantial beech and poplar core, so security underfoot shouldn’t be an issue for female skiers.
It was only a couple of product generations ago that a Rossignol model dominated the Big Mountain genre like no other ski before or since. The Soul 7 was an almost perfect powder ski, its behavior dictated by its high and long camber line that ended, as all Big Mountain skis do, in a tapered and rockered tip and tail. Its high arch was primarily fiberglass, making it a coiled spring just begging to be compressed.
The Soul 7’s only sin was to be too popular. Rossi refreshed their star regularly, most notably with Carbon Alloy Matrix when it earned its “HD” suffix, and Rossi kept refreshing its rack appeal, which attracted skier interest even among intermediates. Nothing kills a ski’s cachet among experts quite like universal adoption by the masses, and gradually the Soul 7 lost its luster.
The Sender Ti was clearly made to win back experts disenchanted with its predecessor’s over-the-top popularity. Titanal was added to the construction formula, and the baseline was flattened out to improve snow connection. The Sender Ti was a Soul 7 with teeth, giving it a higher performance ceiling and much improved hard snow grip.
But the Sender Ti had a small problem of its own: its star quality wasn’t so easy to spot in a Blackops collection that lacked coherence, so for 2023 Rossi completely overhauled its off-trail collection, re-building its mainstream, in-resort models around the Sender (and women’s Rallybird) name. To ensure that the new head of the family wouldn’t get lost in the mix, Rossi designated the top model as the Sender 106 Ti+, enhancing its allure with extra Titanal and bringing back Carbon Alloy Matrix as a keystone structural element.
The primary character traits that derive from the “plus” features are smooth shock absorption all along the ski, largely attributable to Carbon Alloy Matrix, and firmer edge grip, a function of extending the Titanal underfoot sideways, all the way to the edge. These additions are what make the Sender 106 Ti+ a premium Power ski, while the rest of the Sender Ti clan are Finesse models more suited to slower or less skilled skiers.
The last few years have seen several off-trail series that have adopted a less-is-more approach to metal in their female model families. Rossignol’s carefully allocated measure of metal in its Rallybird 104 Ti fits neatly in this popular trend.
When selecting the right metal dosage for the new Rallybird 104 Ti, Rossi elected to use the relatively shorter Ti plate of the new Sender 104 Ti, along with a bottom laminate of Carbon Alloy Matrix to even out the flex balance and smooth out the ride in rough conditions. The truncated Ti plate shared by the Sender 104 Ti and Rallybird 104 Ti deliberately doesn’t quite reach the edge, which loosens its grip, the better to glide sideways in slop.
By keeping most of the plate confined beneath the bindings, the extremities are lighter and looser so the skis swivel with less resistance, an essential trait off-trail. As we noticed on the Sender 104 Ti, concentrating the Titanal under the bindings keeps the swingweight down, for easier swiveling, and lowers the overall mass so the ski feels more nimble and easier to foot-steer, all desirable traits for off-trail skiing.
The Cochise 106 knows how it should be skied, even if you don’t. It’s well aware that it won’t be able to carve a short turn at minimal speed, so it keeps close to the fall line until it can shift into third. Once it reaches cruising speed, it dons its dancing shoes and shows just how indifferent to heinous crud a ski can be.
The Cochise 106 is one of the few Big Mountain models that doesn’t get the heebie-jeebies on hard pack. Its imperturbability where other skis literally tremble is due in part to its classic, wood and Titanal construction and in part to its Flipcore baseline.
The Cochise will always own a special place in Blizzard’s history as Arne Backstrom’s ski, for it was Backstrom who first conceived of Flipcore, the technology that would completely transform the Austrian brand, elevating it from obscurity to prominence in the American market. The Cochise was the first embodiment of his vision, and as such enjoys holy relic status in the halls of Blizzard’s R&D department.
The Cochise 106 represents a return to its traditional values by cutting back on some of the beefier elements in its previous incarnation without scrimping on the 2 ½ layers of Titanal that give the Cochise its indomitable determination to teach crud a lesson it won’t soon forget. The Cochise 106 whittled away at the tip and waist width and plumped up the tail, reducing the sidecut radius by 3m in a 185cm. While this encourages the rejuvenated Cochise to finish its big, banked turns, quick, little arcs are still not part of its repertoire.
To get the Cochise 106 to feel more like the original, Blizzard tinkered with several possible core changes. Blizzard attempted to modify its new TrueBlend core for the Cochise, but its added width meant more mass, inhibiting the maneuverability the R&D team was trying to augment. So, the current Cochise core added Paulownia to its matrix, lightening the load and improving its responsiveness.
