There are two opposing archetypes for a wide, all-terrain ski: light and smeary or beefy and more connected. Salomon had the surfy side covered with the OST 99; its new Stance 96 is meant to wrestle with wood-and-metal powerhouses like the Blizzard Bonafide and Nordica Enforcer 100.
Salomon wasn’t going to win this battle with a cap construction, so the Stance 96 uses square sidewalls. To match up with metal you have to use Titanal, so the Stances are equipped with “Twin Frame” Ti laminates. You can’t get a wood core feel without a wood core, so all the unisex Stance models have an all-poplar center.
All that said, the Stance 96 doesn’t strictly imitate the benchmark skis that it presumes to supersede. Its rockered tip works better when buffering blows against loose snow; it feels a little loose on groomers and consequently a bit late into the top of the turn. But when it’s fully laid over it grips confidently regardless of the snow surface.
The Stance 96 handles speed well, which is a good thing, as it likes to hew closely to the fall line. Its long turn shape is the product of an narrow tail that helps keep the skier oriented downhill. A rectangular cutout in the Titanal topsheet pares off a few ounces so the Stance 96 feels more agile than its girth measures.
If you digest all the brochure copy expended on All-Mountain East models, you’ll find somewhere in every model description that it’s a “50/50” model, meaning it’s equally suited to skiing on-trail or off. What this seemingly innocuous shorthand term for a versatile ski masks is that no ski can ever truly be half-and-half, for every model is part of a design family that ‘s inherently biased to one side of the mountain or the other.
This prelude explains why Salomon felt compelled to create a second off-trail line, named Stance, when they already had a successful freeride series in the QST’s. The latter are unmistakably meant for the off-piste, while the Stance 90 tilts the 50/50 equation in favor of Frontside features, beginning with two sheets of Titanal and a shallower sidecut with a more slender silhouette that’s quicker edge to edge. Its square tail in particular is appreciably narrower than the norm in the AME genre, which keeps its orientation down the fall line. The impression of quickness off the edge is enhanced by its lightweight design that in fact weighs less than the QST 92 and far less than Salomon’s Frontside flagship, the S/Force Bold. Its lightweight structure certainly contributed to our testers giving it higher aggregate scores for Finesse properties versus Power attributes, the only one of our top eight Recommended models to do so.
How is it possible to make a better Technical ski than Atomic’s Redster X9? It has the stability of a sumo wrestler and the reflexes of a fencer. If there’s a speed at which the edge breaks loose, chances are you’ll never touch it. Its imperturbable hold is amplified by a feature called Servotec, a long, thin rod embedded in an elastomer under the binding at one end and attached on the other end at a point just behind the shovel. The interaction of the rod and the elastomer during flexion both absorbs shock and actively restores ski/snow contact.
Servotec’s effects are noticeable both in straight running and especially in energized turns, where the X9’s rebound qualities are off the charts. “Really great for a ‘beer league’ ski!” raves one of The Sport Loft faithful. “Lots of fun, if a little stout.” To this tester’s point, one has to be able to impart energy in order for Servotec to kick in, but any athletic expert should be up to this challenge. Once you try it, you’ll be hooked, like the tester who wrote, “Feels like an old friend right away. Ski begs for speed like a junkie. Nifty rebound carries skier to next turn It’s easy to lean into and trust.”
Against the backdrop of the other GS race skis in this genre, the Kästle RX12 GS stands out like a ballerina among lumberjacks. Some of its superior fluidity has to be attributable to its lack of a racing plate or binding interface of any kind. The skier is closer to the snow, giving the RX12 GS a living pulse when pressured, unfiltered by extra layers of elastomers and metal.
By elevating the skier on what amounts to a taller tower, a race plate takes the subtlety out of turning; once you tip the tower over, you’re committed to the ensuing high edge angle. The lower altitude of the RX12 GS makes it easier for the skier to feather the edge throughout the turn, rather than relying on the brusque, all-in style elevation encourages.
It’s this suppleness that makes the RX12 GS so versatile in terms of both turn shape and terrain adaptability, traits not usually found in a GS race ski. All of its attributes considered in toto, the RX12 GS behaves more like a luxury cruiser than a brute gate basher. It requires less energy to guide, less force to bend and a less aggro stance to engage.
Not since Alexander the Great has world conquest seemed so simple. All Michaela Shiffrin has to do is step into her magic Redster S9’s and a couple of minutes later she’s standing on top of a podium, wearing another gold medal.
It’s clear at this juncture in Shiffrin’s journey that she is likely to shatter every record for World Cup victories, leaving legendary talents like Stenmark and Hirscher and Vonn in her wake. The possibility that she’s dominating her sport solely because she uses the best skis is as remote as Tiger Woods’ supremacy is due primarily to his choice of golf ball.
Yet it’s precisely because of her incandescent talent that her choice of gear must be as meticulously managed as every other part of her skiing life. I’m not trying to suggest that you should cop a pair of S9’s just like Michaela’s, because for one thing, you can’t. Her skis are sui generis, their specs a more closely guarded secret than any dossier in Austria’s foreign ministry. But you can get the closest thing a civilian can find to Ms. Shiffrin’s S9’s, and they won’t disappoint.
