Tester: Kim Beekman
The evolv 90w is an all-mountain multi-tool designed to make your face hurt from smiling so hard. Designed with Liberty’s revolutionary Vertical Metal Technology—struts of metal sandwiched vertically between lightweight wood stringers, rather than two sheets of metal laid above and below the core—this ski has all the confidence-inspiring stability and edge-grip without the muscle-burning weight. It goads you to go faster, ski longer, explore further, and is always up for the challenge. The 90 waist is perfect for venturing all over, from arcing perfect turns on groomed to surfing boot-top fluff in the trees. It’s also remarkably forgiving when you want to back it off and slide it around; it readily welcomes your input.
It’s poppy, playful, responsive, and yet bites like hell when you want it to. If you’ve never skied a Liberty before, this is the one to try.
The Blizzard Firebird SRC feels like a GS ski trapped in an SL’s body. The slalom shape dictates a short-radius turn whenever it’s raked on edge, but its serenity at speed and willingness to open up its natural radius make it feel like a GS ski. Jim Schaffner’s staccato commentary reflects the SRC’s dual personality: “SL to GS to SL to GS, etc, etc, etc…” all those et ceteras plus an ellipsis to emphasize a string that never ends. “Best all-rounder SL,” Coach Schaffner concludes.
Two key features that Blizzard added last year to its traditional wood and Titanal construction contribute to the SRC’s Zen-like serenity on edge. Carbon Armor is an extra slab of bi-directional carbon under the binding that amplifies force in the heart of the arc. To keep the ski planted like it had roots in the snow, two vertical carbon struts, called Carbon Spine, tri-sect the laminated wood core. Carbon Spine kicks in at the bottom of the turn, sending the skier off into the next arc as if fired from a crossbow.
All carving skis are judged by how well they maintain edge connection on hard snow. Classically, the key to keeping a ski quiet all along its edge was to ladle on the Titanal, a proven method that achieves its damping objective in part by its mass. As a leader in lightweight design, V.Werks instead turned to its wheelhouse material, carbon, to make a damp, non-metal ski that would be light and responsive.
Several factors work together to make the Deacon V.Werks easy to steer into a tight-radius turn without a lot of encouragement from the pilot. The cambered center section of its 3D Radius Sidecut is slalom-turn tight (14m@172cm); all the skier has to do to activate it is raise the edge to a high angle, a normal move for anyone who knows how to carve. To make it easier to depress into a deep carve, the abbreviated camber line underfoot is fairly shallow and soft. The tip and tail rockers are long and gradual so the long-radius zones at front and rear don’t interfere with the ski’s quickness edge to edge. The absence of metal and low elevation of the Marker system give the Deacon V.Werks a clarity of snow feel and lively energy that’s relatively rare among elite carvers. In short, V.Werks hit its target: the Deacon is a high-energy carver that’s simplicity itself to steer for skiers with the requisite skills.
The most obvious reason why the Disruption 82 Ti comes across as easy to ski is its width; at 82mm underfoot, and with a less radical sidecut than most Frontside Power skis, it’s easier to throw into a drift and it won’t buck when introduced to ungroomed terrain.
The less transparent reason pertains to how it’s built: the Ti I-Beam that gives the Disruption 82 Ti its bite is only as wide as its midsection. This gives the edge elsewhere a subtle flexibility that’s ideal for anything but boilerplate or frozen ridges of spring corduroy. In softer snow, the less critical edge won’t try to dig its way to China the way a super-charged Power ski may. On mid-winter, early AM groomers, it’s delicious.
While it’s definitely a carver of the kinder, gentler variety, beneath its easy-going veneer it’s still a trench-digger at heart. The widest model in the Disruption clan, the 82 Ti is predisposed to a medium-radius arc that it can reel off without much effort on the pilot’s part. It stays connected in part because the Ti I-Beam runs tip to tail and in part because its baseline has only a teensy bit of tip rocker that doesn’t prevent the low-to-the-snow shovel from finding the edge at the top of the turn.
The Nordica Dobermann GSR isn’t interested in bolstering your self-esteem. Its attitude is, if you want to feel better about yourself, take a lesson. Or better yet, hire a coach. For the Dobermann GSR is like a street-legal race car: it’s been detuned for civilian use, but not by much. If you don’t take control of it, the GSR will most definitely take control of you.
When you look at the Non-FIS Race category as a whole, most models have been defanged to the point that they could serve an expert as an all-terrain ski. Not the Dobermann GSR, which could care less about pandering to non-racers. It’s built on the straightforward assumption that it’s as elite a race ski as any blessed by the FIS, it just doesn’t conform to the dimensional limitations imposed by racing’s sanctioning body.
