The Fischer RC One 86 GT is to all intents and purposes a hard-snow carving specialist with a waist just plump enough to put it in the company of a bunch of all-terrain generalists. In an effort to blend in, the RC One 86 GT has a tiny splay of tip rocker, and a tail rocker so tiny it should be called a rockette.
This masquerade lasts only as long as it takes to get the ski on the snow, where there’s no disguising its tip-to-tail connection. A 175cm seems like plenty of ski even at the upper reaches of the recreational speed range, which its ultra-supportive edge invites one to inhabit. You can set it to reel off medium-radius turns with the unalterable precision of a metronome. “Solid and rhythmic,” enthused Jan’s Jack Walzer after taking the RC One 86 GT for a spin.
Mark Rafferty of Peter Glenn filed this report after skiing the 86 GT in spring conditions at Squaw Valley. “A fun, strong entry in Fischer’s carve-oriented family of skis. I could feel the strength of the ski’s construction as I angled it for fast, high-g turns. It held great in icy conditions early in the morning and sliced through slushy snow after conditions softened. Fast or slow, the ski kept me in control in a most invigorating fashion.”
One unabashedly contrarian trait of the RC One 86 GT is its weight. Its shaped Titanal laminates are .8mm thick, twice the norm in off-trail skis that use metal. This mass is a blessing on boilerplate, or wherever the RC One 86 GT has some room to maneuver. However, in tight trees or whenever you need to throw them around, they feel none too nimble.
Another tip-off that Fischer envisions the RC One 86 GT in frontside environs is that it’s the head of a mostly Frontside (75mm-84mm underfoot) product family. Furthermore, its construction is all about maintaining snow connection, a classic Frontside obsession. The tip and tail are outfitted with Bafatex®, a synthetic compound meant to muffle shock and keep every cm of the 86 GT’s cambered baseline plastered on the snow. Not to mention all that Titanal to further cow hard snow into silence.
The result is a ski that Mt. Rose Head Coach Chuck Harris pegs as a “very solid stable performer. The more technically adept the skier, the more it shines.” Cut loose in its own element, the 86 GT is a joy to ride with the throttle on cruise control. Its Triple Radius sidecut (short-long-short) was the brainchild of a trio of ex-racers who were intent on adapting race-room technology to recreational pursuits. The 86 GT is a direct descendant of the Curv series they concocted as the ultimate carvers. Its heritage helps explain the RC One 86 GT’s carve-centricity, tilting its on-trail/off-trail suitability ratio towards 70/30. If that’s a closer approximation of your reality than the 50/50 divide the AME genre aims to straddle, the 86 GT is your kind of ride.