Tester: Robin Barnes
Hummina, hummina, hummina. This ski made my heart go pitter-patter! When I first picked it up, I wondered if the lightness of its construction could stand up to a variety of conditions and speeds. Shame on me for doubting. It dazzled me on groomers, sliced and diced through the crud, and perhaps most astonishing was the way it deftly handled frozen corral-head bumps covered in 10 inches of heavy pow.
The Kore 93 W shows great versatility in being gentle and easy to tip and carve at lower speeds, but throw it into gear and it rips robust trenches or massacres any ungroomed condition that you throw at it. The ski is equally stunning at high edge angles or low edge angle steering, pivoting, and shmearing. At 93mm underfoot, there is really no reason to fret about which ski to bring for the day. It does it all and makes you feel like a champ doing it.
The Kore W series was adopted from the non-gender-specific Kore line with very little modification for the women’s version. Since it was a already a winner as a light weight, supremely versatile ski, Head simply moved the recommended mounting point 1cm forward for the W series, to make the front of the ski even more accessible and let the rest of the technology speak for itself in the women’s market.
The Hero Elite LT Ti isn’t a watered-down race ski, just one that’s been domesticated. It still uses the race-room fabrication called Line Control Technology (LCT) comprised of a central rib of Ti wrapped in a viscoelastic shell that keeps the ski from counterflexing. The sense of contact throughout the turn is clean and accurate with a finish that focuses on maintaining its solid snow connection.
A close inspection of its tech specs reveals a tip that’s as wide across the beam as a race slalom, with a waist and tail that are also a tad plumper than the norm for a GS race ski. Its shape helps the Hero Elite LT Ti tuck into a tighter arc than it likes to finish, so it doesn’t lose momentum as it barrels downhill. Within the fraternity of Non-FIS Race GS skis, the Hero Elite LT Ti comes closest to being a recreational cruiser, and we don’t mean that in a dismissive way. As a freeskiing tool, it holds its own against all comers.
Two years ago we anointed the Head Kore 93 as our All-Mountain East Ski of the Year, a title it richly deserved. In the Era of Lighter is Better, almost all mainstream brands have sought a variety of ways to strip away any excess fat in their designs. When Head acquired a license to use Graphene in sporting equipment, the Austrian brand possessed a material advantage in the race to make the lightest ski that didn’t suck.
The reason the market hasn’t been awash in lightweight skis since the dawn of time is because mass is part of what makes a ski damp, or able to absorb vibration. Lighter weight formulae have been tried for decades, always with the lamentable downside that they couldn’t hold an edge any better than Florence Foster Jenkins could hold a note. Head spent several years working with Graphene before it applied the superlight material – carbon in a matrix one-atom thick – to its previously woeful collection of fat skis.
And lo and behold, it turned out that Head finally, as it trumpets in its slogan, got light right. Wisely, it didn’t try to make the lightest ski possible with its miracle matrix, or the Kore 93 wouldn’t stand up to the rigors of battering through set-up crud fields. But the Kore 93 is nonetheless noticeably lighter than 80% of its peers, which contributes to its elite Finesse score.
Tester: Jennifer Simpson
I’ve had the chance to ski the Dynastar Intense 4X4 in a variety of conditions and found it to be a versatile Frontside adventure ski. Face it, at most resorts the powder does not last all day and having a ski that performs well in a variety of conditions is key. These skis are great for days when you are likely to encounter a variety of snow conditions, or when you plan to ski a variety of terrain. In my experience, they’re nimble enough for moguls, stable at speed on the groomers, and provide enough float for forays into frontside powder stashes in the trees or beside the trail. This ski is fun, fun, fun on the groomers, and while they’re wider than my go-to carving skis, they’re quick edge-to-edge and will leave satisfying deep grooves in the corduroy. I’ve found it to be nimble enough for moguls, and especially enjoyable when there is powder or soft crud snow in the bumps. 82mm is a great width for light powder days, where this traditional feeling ski provides some extra float and smoothes out the ride compared to narrower Frontside skis. These skis perform very well up to medium-fast speeds in powder, bumps, and crud. If you like to go on the faster side, or are a more powerful skier, you might consider going up one size from your usual length to keep the tip stable and feel confident when plowing through piled up snow.
Head did an amazing job of positioning its Kore series as “light done right,” catching the “Lighter is Better” wave with the right message at the right time. The brand’s focus on the light part of the story was so effective it overshadowed the real point of the slogan, the “done right” bit. What makes the Kore 117 a star performer isn’t that it’s ultralight – it’s not close to being the lightest in the Powder genre – but that it’s freakishly powerful.
The deeply tapered tip acts more like a bumper than an avid turn initiator and the rounded tail is intended to release the turn as if it were a wounded sparrow. Right underfoot the sidecut is fairly straight, so the center section can be foot-steered more easily. What keeps the Kore 117 on track in choppy chunder is its overall stiffness. Thanks to Graphene’s absurd strength to weight ratio, the Kore 117 can be as resistant to twisting and bending as Head’s engineers want it to be.
