Tester: Ingrid Backstrom
The first time I got on the Blaze 106 W, the off-piste conditions were borderline horrible (and I have low standards). I ventured slowly off the rock-hard, icy piste, expecting maximum teeth-shaking chatter. Instead, the Blazes held an edge. I could feel the hard ridges of frozen snow beneath the skis, but the edges were biting, and the skis felt soft enough. I could make hoppy, GS-style turns, and I loved how the Blazes made it almost effortless for me to finish the turn right under my foot, propelling me into the next turn.
On icy groomers, I could hold an edge and go for bigger turns without chatter. I was blown away by the playfulness in this softer ski. The Blaze 106 made fun skiing instantly accessible to me on tricky snow after many months of not skiing.
When I skied them for the first time in powder, they felt as light and nimble as they had been on the hard snow, while their shape and width gave them the perfect float. I was giggling with how playful they felt, and how much control I had with such minimal effort. When the sun came out and the snow got heavier, I could find my stable center position and power through the crud with a bit wider stance, the skis doing the work for me and enabling me to ski until the lifts closed—my favorite type of ski day.
There’s a trail of clues that would lead a ski behavioral therapist to believe that the new Völkl Deacon 80 is the inferior in the relationship with its bigger brother, the Deacon 84. For starters, there’s its price, which works out to $100 less at retail. Price is usually an indicator of the cost of goods, and sure enough the Deacon 80 uses glass for its 3-piece top laminate instead of the Titanal in the 84. And the Deacon 80 is, of course, narrower, which among carving skis can sometime indicate that it’s geared slightly lower.
While these indicators are all true enough, the reality on snow is that the Deacon 80 is definitely in its brother’s league but it offers a different bundle of sensations. It’s more of a step laterally than down the product quality ladder. It uses the same structure as the 84’s Titanal Frame, with glass in lieu of metal. The 80 copies the 3D.Ridge and 3D.Glass construction of the 84, it has exactly the same size splits (ranging from 162cm to 182cm) and while it’s slimmer, it’s thinner by the same 4mm everywhere, so its sidecut radius is also identical to the 84’s.
For two years, Rossignol treated its Black Ops models as if they were part of a clandestine operation known only to insiders. The problem with marketing a secret ski collection is you can be too successful at keeping it quiet. After serving as second fiddles behind the legendary 7 series, Black Ops models have now been thrust into the spotlight as their replacements.
The Holy Shred brings two distinctive elements to the party that its 7 Series predecessor, the Sky 7, lacked: Titanal in its lay-up and a full-on twin-tip baseline. Almost every ski in the All-Mountain West genre has tail rocker, but no other major brand produces an unabashed, directional twintip intended for all-mountain skiing. The addition of Titanal gives the Holy Shred the stability on edge that most Pipe & Park twintips lack.
Here’s another twist to the Holy Shred story: it’s unusually high camber line gives it spring-loaded rebound that propels the skier off the bottom of bottomless snow. While its dual-shovel baseline suggests it might smear easier than mayonnaise, when in powder – its preferred terrain if you can find it – its 45-degree braid of synthetic fiber loads up as it finds the belly of the turn; as it recoils, the rising Holy Shred helps the skier unweight as he (or she) crosses the fall line, as Old School a move as camber itself.
The 20/21 Cochise represents a return to its traditional values by cutting back on some of its beefier elements without scrimping on the 2 ½ layers of Titanal that give the Cochise its indomitable determination to teach crud a lesson it won’t soon forget. The new Cochise whittles away at the tip and waist width and plumps up the tail, reducing the sidecut radius by 3m in a 185cm. While this encourages the rejuvenated Cochise to finish its big, banked turns, quick, little arcs are still not part of its repertoire.
To get the 20/21 Cochise to feel more like the original, Blizzard tinkered with several possible core changes. Bear in mind this re-design comes after several years of Rustlers, Blizzard’s softer, gentler Big Mountain collection that uses Paulownia, balsa and ISO-core alongside the poplar and beech laminates that have been used in the Cochise’s clan forever. Blizzard attempted to modify its new TrueBlend core for the Cochise, but its added width meant more mass, inhibiting the maneuverability the R&D team was trying augment. So the 2021 Cochise core added Paulownia to its matrix, lightening the load and improving its responsiveness.
The cumulative changes to the Cochise 106 contribute to a general improvement to its on-trail comportment so it’s truly an all-terrain ski, as it was conceived to be. Even though it has changed, it hasn’t contorted into something its not: it’s still the same Power ski it always was.
The previous occupant of this slot in Rossignol’s lineup, the Soul 7, might well have been the biggest seller in the short history of the Big Mountain genre. A mostly glass ski that was light, springy and sinfully simple to ski in the soft conditions it was meant for, the Soul 7 HD left behind big tracks to fill.
The new Blackops Sender Ti could probably follow a Soul 7 track as they share a similar sidecut, but in almost every other respect the two skis are decidedly different.
The biggest differences between the two Rossis are in baseline and construction, with the Sender Ti favoring more continuous snow connection and a damper ride able to suck up the vibrations that come with higher speeds. The Sender Ti doesn’t just toss Titanal at the problem; it adds supplementary damping systems on both the horizontal and vertical planes. An elastomer layer Rossi calls Damp Tech smoothes out the ride in the forebody while twin ABS struts running the length of the ski resist every effort to knock it off line. A weave of carbon alloy incases its poplar core, just for good measure.
Brilliantly balanced between Power and Finesse behaviors, the Blackops Sender Ti belongs in the first rank of Big Mountain skis. While it shares few of its forebear’s behavioral traits, the Soul 7 and the Sender Ti do have one thing in common: they both may wear the mantle of Ski of the Year.
