Why do I bother to round up every Non-FIS Race model I can rustle, along with the talent required to rate them? Practically no one in America could give a damn about the category, much less what I have to say about it. In the modern world, there are myriad definitions of what constitutes an all-purpose ski, and not one of them fits the profile of a NFR model. Quite the opposite, in fact: race skis are used as the prime example of what an all-terrain ski isn’t.
The world has indeed gone mad. In the halcyon days of my youth, the best all-terrain skis were race skis because all the best skis were race skis. A lot has happened to race skis since I was wearing long thongs, but one thing hasn’t changed: the best of them are still miraculous all-terrain tools. The best of them, exemplified by the Völkl Racetiger SL, feel limitless.
Corty Lawrence, whose normal turn radius is on the long side, called the Racetiger SL “the most versatile of the genre, with a broad range of uses. It has a traditional Teutonic feel and demeanor, and alters turn shape/radius without a problem. Good at low speed and great at high speed,” said the son of skiing legend Andrea Mead Lawrence.
The Fischer Ranger 115 FR is an interesting amalgam of suppressed carving tendencies and overt desires to drift around every corner. Like any decent Powder ski, it’s first duty is to drift, but its ultralight Air Tec Ti core is sheathed in a sliver of Titanal, generating the security underfoot necessary to stay on course in heavy, cut-up crud. Despite its inherent prejudice for smearing, it’s on its best behavior when mimicking giant slalom technique through an open snowfield.
The one move it can’t copy is a short-radius, carved turn, a virtual impossibility given its front and rear rocker. This limited liability is shared by all Powder models, and is readily overcome by simply swiveling one’s feet. The Ranger 115 FR’s facility as a power drifter is further assisted by its Carbon Nose, which lowers swingweight, and its domed, Aeroshape top surface that slips sideways with silken ease.
I posted a video in the spring of 2019 on the then-current state of the Powder ski genre. My principal argument was that despite being made for the same purposes, every ski in the category has its own distinct personality. Some beg to run hot, staying close to the fall line until they hit their tipping point. Others are loosely linked to the snow and are much better at smearing than carving.
The Salomon QST 118 resides somewhere in the middle, a Finesse ski that hides its power reserve in powder, where it drifts lazily through a mid-radius turn on its own volition. When the powder is kaput, so are a lot of made-for-powder models, but the QST 118 handles the transition to carving conditions as if it were a gentleman’s cruiser. It doesn’t take much edge angle or pressure to engage it, so there’s no need to exaggerate the degree of edge elevation in order to get it to hold.
The new RC One 82 GT doesn’t get quite as large a dose of Titanal as its running mate, the All-Mountain East RC One 86 GT, but it’s hardly a delicate flower. A Titanal sheath rolls over the top of its Air Carbon Ti core, and another TI laminate gives it race-caliber grip underfoot. In the shovel and tail, the Ti is replaced with Bafatex®, Fischer’s own shock-absorbing synthetic. The RC One 82 GT uses the same triple-radius (short-long-short) as The Curv, so the softer zones on the ski curl more easily while the middle delivers unshakeable support.
Given its origins and substantial construction, you’d expect the RC One 82 GT to be “a blast at speed as much as mellow cruising,” as Ward Pyles of Peter Glenn discovered. “Super quick edge to edge,” he adds. “Fast, quick, rips everything,” concurs a Jan’s tester, whose boss, Jack Walzer managed to be even more succinct. Walzer’s one-word review: “Money.”
