The new and improved Stormrider 88 would win top honors in “Switzerland’s Biggest Loser,” as it shed 570g from its 2016 frame. They say fat equates with happy, but getting lighter seems to have made the Stormrider 88 mellower and easier to handle at low speeds.

The Stormrider 88’s crash diet raised its scores for Finesse properties across the board, and its global Finesse grade from B+ to A+. That the 2017 model became so much easier to ski cautiously without paring away the high-octane performance with which Stöckli is synonymous, is a remarkable feat of ski engineering.

The new Stormrider 88 is so eager to please yet so secure and powerful on edge that we’ve awarded it a Silver Skier Selection, an accolade its autocratic ancestors would never have received.

Of course there’s every possibility that a skilled skier won’t care how well the Stormrider 88 can mosey downhill at a trot since it’s so much more fun to luxuriate in its tranquility at a full gallop. “I’ve never felt more confidence at 40+mph,” confessed Tyler from California Ski Company, concluding, “The best ski I’ve ever skied.” If that sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime epiphany, rest assured it’s more like a once-every-run experience on a Stormrider 88.