Völkl has a time-honored tradition of changing every thing they can think of about a ski but its name.  While the trade is obliged to follow these multiple mutations, how on earth is today’s distracted consumer expected to know that the ski he/she researched only last season is now another beast all together?  The freshly metamorphosed RTM 81 is a case in point.

Völkl didn’t just tweak the RTM 81’s make-up; they virtually reversed it.  A year ago this ski had broad shoulders rising up over the edge; now all the elevation is in the middle of the ski, the padded perimeter replaced with a thin sliver of ski.  A baseline that had been fully rockered when these pages issued last season has been sent back to camber school and returned with enough arch underfoot to give the new RTM 81 the sexy sensation of rebound to go along with its firm-handshake grip.

If the generally open-minded RTM 81 can be said to have a predisposition for one activity, it would be spooling precise, medium-radius arcs down an avenue of undulating white carpet without losing grip for a beat or once straying off course.