You can tell a lot about a ski by its immediate family. Rossi’s Hero Elite Plus Ti is closely related to the Hero Elite LT Ti and ST Ti, both legit non-FIS Race models, even though the Plus Ti’s plus-sized shape (78mm) is many mm’s more ample than the 71mm waist of the LT Ti and 68mm midriff on the SL Ti. The Hero Elite Plus Ti not only uses the same construction as its gate-bashing sibs, its sidecut radius is the same as the ST’s in the167cm size preferred by slalom specialists.
Three years ago, Rossi converted all of the Hero Elite clan to a new damping system, Line Control Technology (LCT). Instead of using horizontal sheets of Titanal, as has been the case for decades among race models, LCT uses a vertical Ti laminate down the center of the ski so the forebody is more resistant to deflection. Torsional rigidity is softened a tad to allow the deep sidecut to engage gradually and progressively as the ski is tipped and pressured. “Stable and forgiving into the turn,” assures Scott Sahr from Aspen Ski and Board, “without compromising edge contact.”
I recently received a brief yet pithy email from an old friend and confrere, Tom Corlett, who posed a seemingly innocent question: “Is there now a real, definable difference in ski performance given the consolidated manufacturing?” Since finding some sort of...
If you own a pair of Alpine ski boots, you are skiing in a product whose origins can be traced directly back to one man, Sven Coomer. There are two dominant strains in Alpine boot DNA, the three-piece, open-throat design, and the two-piece shells that populate most...
Before delving into the nitty-gritty of today’s Revelation, allow me to apologize for having missed a couple of deadlines, but I have a couple of very good excuses: I had to attend the recent reunion of what remains of our national ski show in order to maintain...
One of the foundational elements of many misunderstandings is cemented in place when one side of a relationship presumes the other is operating at a level of knowledge, vocabulary and general awareness that they do not, in fact, possess. No one likes to be taken...
