For women on the brink of greatness, the Q-88 Lux is one of the last pieces to the puzzle. It’s light, it’s quick, it’s peppy and it doesn’t demand a lot of energy to extract all these qualities. It’s like a good friend who always wants to know what you want to do rather than insisting on her way or the highway. As one tester succinctly opined, “Skied like it was mine.”  That’s a lovely way of saying the Q-88 will meet an advancing skier’s expectations.

While some skis in this genre think of languid, short-radius turns as a sign of weakness, the Q-88 luxuriates at the anti-race, earning extraordinary marks for its comportment at a moderate pace. These traits play into the hands of the less-than-perfect skier who wants a ski that feels like its helping rather than one that likes to remind her of her deficiencies.  The gal who likes to red-line every run should look elsewhere, but the majority of womankind might find the Q-88 just about perfect.