Over its relatively long lifespan, the Bonafide has found a few thorns in all the roses thrown its way. One criticism is that its brawny build is best managed by experts, and there’s something to this claim in that the Bonafide performs better with some energy flowing through it, meaning it likes to be ridden fast. Some find it boring and wonder what the big deal is. In the Bonafide’s defense, all high-performance skis perform better under an expert’s guidance and an affinity for speed is not, by itself, a demerit. Furthermore, if you want rebound energy out of a Bonafide you have to load it. If you just stand there looking cute, it won’t react because you haven’t told it to.
While there are worse problems to have, being known as an experts-only ski is a concern nonetheless, one Blizzard addressed last year with the introduction of the TrueBlend core. The objective of TrueBlend was a smooth, round flex adapted for every size, married to a flex pattern and baseline likewise adapted by length. The key to its execution was the precise location of denser strips of beech in a predominantly poplar core. Each size was treated like its own model, so the shorter skis were also softer and more accessible to lighter and lower skill skiers.
“There’s nothing this ski won’t do with ease,” comments Jim McGee of Peter Glenn. “It won’t overwhelm a strong intermediate but will really reward the expert,” he concludes.
In 19/20 Fischer re-designed the flagship of its Ranger Ti series, returning to a lay-up with twin Titanal laminates for stability and liberal use of carbon to make it responsive. Carbon inlays in the tip and tail help make the extremities thin and light, so the latest Ranger 107 Ti is easier to foot steer when necessary. “It’s user-friendly but still can be skied aggressively,” notes one admiring tester. “You can take your foot off the gas and it’s still responsive.”
Compared to the Ranger 108 Ti that preceded it, the Ranger 107 Ti has a slightly less shapely silhouette and a longer contact zone underfoot, giving it more directional stability and an overall calmer disposition in the sloppy seconds that prevail on so-called powder days. Its new sidecut favors the skier who can maintain momentum through a series of rhythmic, mid-radius turns that neither enter nor exit the turn too suddenly.
The Ranger 107 Ti is a Power ski that doesn’t take a lot of Power to handle. Its weight comes in handy both on hard snow, where its Ti laminates are of particular value, and in the kind of crud that bites back. After years of struggling to find the right formula for its off-trail collection, Fischer is showing promising signs of getting its Alpine, in-resort act together.
The M-Free 108 isn’t a twin-tip by accident, but by intent: it expects its pilot to break the bonds of gravity at every opportunity, and doesn’t want to limit his options. When one is taking off and landing in loose, uneven snow, the instinct to smear is essential to survival.
The M-Free 108 is able to stay calm while tearing through crud in high gear because it wraps its unusual PU and poplar core in a fiberglass torsion box, which is essentially a giant, coiled spring. Just because there’s just a touch of Titanal in it underfoot – a lesson learned in the Cham series history – doesn’t mean it’s some sort of dainty pixie. It has some heft to it, enabling it to stand up to crispy crud.
The 3 sizes of the M-Free 108 couldn’t be more different. If you want it to feel “extremely stable for the amount of tip and tail rocker,” as Sawyer X. from Bobo’s found it, you’d best be on the 192cm. Don’t worry about the M-Free 108 losing its capacity for short turns, as its progressive shape and short platform underfoot can always be twisted sideways.
As long as this son of Cham has a cushion of snow to push on, it’s a secure ride with “surprising hold on hard conditions,” according to Robbie from Footloose. America’s youth will probably gravitate towards the 192cm, but in its shorter sizes its suitable for designation as a Silver Skier Selection.
Blizzard applied its well-honed knack for morphing a unisex template into a genuine women’s model to its new Thunderbird/Phoenix series of mostly Frontside rides. The flagship Phoenix R13 Ti cuts a women’s specific (W.S.D.) TrueBlend core into a unique sidecut that shifts the entire shape forward 1cm, then moves the mount point to match it.
The Phoenix R13 Ti isn’t a watered-down design, but a brilliant, high-energy carver meant for women who know how to arc it and spark it. The international team of women who fined tuned its design are technical masters who log hundreds of test runs in pursuit of a better ski. When one of our female testers essayed the men’s Thunderbird R15 WB, she gave it perfect scores for technical merit; since the Phoenix R13 Ti is made along the same lines, it’s highly probable the women’s skis can rip just as well.
The Völkl Yumi 84 is what we in the retail trade refer to a “step-up” ski. It isn’t a top-of-the-line charger but neither is it as frail as fettuccine, like so many entry-level package skis. It’s called a step-up ski because it’s bound to be an improvement over whatever is serving this skier at the moment, be a rental ski, a hand-me-down, a buying mistake or something fished out of a bargain bin at a ski swap.
Equipped with an all-wood core and partial topsheet of Titanal, the Yumi 84 has the intestinal fortitude to cope with life on groomers, where its gift for short-radius turns encourages intermediates to get their act together. At 84mm underfoot, the Yumi 84 is fat for a Frontside ski, so it can manage its business in a foot of fluff without becoming verklemmt.
As befits a mid-market model, the Yumi prefers everything in moderation: speed that’s not too fast, groomers that aren’t too hard, loose snow that isn’t too heavy. Its 3D Radius sidecut is adept at any turn shape, but is biased towards short-radius turns.
The need to have a transitional ski as one’s skills develop isn’t restricted to youth. For its gentle demeanor and relatively soft flex, we award the Völkl Yumi a Silver Skier Selection.
