2023 Rossignol Rossignol Sender 106 Ti+

It was only a couple of product generations ago that a Rossignol model dominated the Big Mountain genre like no other ski before or since. The Soul 7 was an almost perfect powder ski, its behavior dictated by its high and long camber line that ended, as all Big Mountain skis do, in a tapered and rockered tip and tail. Its high arch was primarily fiberglass, making it a coiled spring just begging to be compressed. The Soul 7’s only sin was to be too popular. Rossi refreshed their star regularly, most notably with Carbon Alloy Matrix when it earned its “HD” suffix, and Rossi kept refreshing its rack appeal, which attracted skier interest even among intermediates. Nothing kills a ski’s cachet among experts quite like universal adoption by the masses, and gradually the Soul 7 lost its luster. The Sender Ti was clearly made to win back experts disenchanted with its predecessor’s over-the-top popularity. Titanal was added to the construction formula, and the baseline was flattened out to improve snow connection. The Sender Ti was a Soul 7 with teeth, giving it a higher performance ceiling and much improved hard snow grip. But the Sender Ti had a small problem of its own: its star quality wasn’t so easy to spot in a Blackops collection that lacked coherence, so for 2023 Rossi completely overhauled its off-trail collection, re-building its mainstream, in-resort models around the Sender (and women’s Rallybird) name. To ensure that the new head of the family wouldn’t get lost in the mix, Rossi designated the top model as the Sender 106 Ti+, enhancing its allure with extra Titanal and bringing back Carbon Alloy Matrix as a keystone structural element. The primary character traits that derive from the “plus” features are smooth shock absorption all along the ski, largely attributable to Carbon Alloy Matrix, and firmer edge grip, a function of extending the Titanal underfoot sideways, all the way to the edge. These additions are what make the Sender 106 Ti+ a premium Power ski, while the rest of the Sender Ti clan are Finesse models more suited to slower or less skilled skiers.