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 Phoenix R13 Ti exemplifies a stratum of women’s Technical skis that are by and large absent from the U.S. market but are alive and well in Europe. An interesting aspect of these all-too-rare skis is that they tend to undergo the most modifications meant to improve performance for women. In addition to lighter cores and shifted mounting points, these women’s system skis also may tinker standheight, ramp angle and tail dimensions, applying more taper so the rear of the ski releases more easily.