With a name like X-Race, you’d think this ski wouldn’t want to wander too far away from the race course, but it’s unwise to assume that just because a ski has a tight turn radius and a metal-laden, race room construction, it can’t cope with the minor stress of off-piste conditions like wind slab and chalky crud.

If you never take the X-Race off the beaten path you’ll never discover how it can take its act off-road without stepping out of character.  It only has a pinch of tip rocker but it doesn’t take much to make a strong ski a crud-buster. And the Powerline Titanium dampening system works as well to buffer the shocks of off-piste terrain as it does to smooth out the ruts of a Masters’ race course.

Of Salomon’s troika of Technical models (the X-Max and X-Pro SW are the others), the X-Race exhibits the best edge grip at speed, a benchmark of A-team performance in this league.  It prefers to get to a fresh edge early and often, and you don’t have to get low like Ligety to bring the X-Race around.  (We said “like Ligety” in the spirit of generosity – you can’t go as low as Ted, and you know it.)