2022 Salomon QST 92

Let the record show that no ski made as giant a leap forward last year as the Salomon QST 92. In its two earlier incarnations it barely met our Recommended minimum standards, hanging by a thread on the tail end of the Finesse ski standings. Now it resides near the top of our Finesse rankings, and the result is no fluke. When Salomon introduced the QST line, it needed to hit multiple price points, so the wider skis got the best tech while the lower-priced QST 92 was built less expensively. In 2020, the QST 92 got the same treatment as its wider mates, the QST 99 and QST 106, and the difference was evident from the first edge set. The current QST 92 has more of everything you want – edging power on trail, a better shape for off-trail, a more solid platform – and less of what you don’t want: tip chatter, indifferent grip, overall looseness. Salomon pulled off this coup by reconfiguring how it used its primary components, flax, basalt and, of course, carbon. The basalt and carbon are woven together in an end-to-end matrix, while the flax gets its own mat directly underfoot. An all-poplar core is reinforced by a patch of Titanal in the mid-section and finished with new cork inserts in the tip and tail.