My favorite story about how Head engineers went about optimizing Graphene – carbon in its most elemental form, a matrix of the hexagonal atom a mere one atom thick, or deep, or wide or however you want to measure something so infinitesimal – in their Supershape series of carving skis. Having already made a collection of women’s skis from scratch using the new material, the Head R&D team knew they could use Graphene to tinker with flex distribution with minimal effect on mass distribution. The logical thing to do, particularly as skis like the i.Rally weren’t famous for being light, was to trim down the core and thin out the metal laminates to make a more accessible carver for the masses.
So what did Head do? Just the opposite: it thickened the i.Rally’s top and bottom sheets of Titanal and widened them all the way to the edge, then built up the core profile for good measure. I remind you that the i.Rally Head enhanced was already the de facto standard setter in the genre, not some weak reed in dire need of a power boost. Like all the Supershapes, the i.Rally already had piezos in its tail section that when vibrated produce an electric pulse used to power a microchip which in turn tells the ski’s tail feathers to stiffen up. Point being, the i.Rally was a wickedly powerful machine before its most recent upgrades; the 19/20 edition generates enough power to illuminate the Vegas Strip.
Last year 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 for years 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.
It seems like almost every ski made for this mixed-condition category prioritizes facility in ungroomed conditions, willingly sacrificing a measure of steering accuracy on hard snow to obtain leniency on unmanicured trails. This trade-off benefits the less frequent and/or less talented skier, but what if you’re already more than capable of taking care of yourself off-trail and don’t care to surrender any edging power and snow contact that you could put to good use when roaring down groomers?
You turn to the Head Monster 88 Ti. It’s not a stepping stone ski, or a crutch to lean on for backside neophytes. Perhaps the best way to think about what sort of ski it is would be to not classify it at all. It’s not a groomer ski, or a sidecountry ski or some kind of hybrid; it’s just a ski. A damn good ski that you can take anywhere you fancy and it will never let you down.
The obvious point about the V-Shape 10’s LYT Tech design is it’s much lighter than the norm among men’s Frontside models. But the big trick in LYT Tech’s bag is how it uses Graphene to change one of a ski’s most fundamental features, its core profile.
Through all the disruptive design changes that have roiled the ski world in the past 30 years – shaped skis, fat skis, rockered baselines – you could always count on a ski being thicker in the middle and thinner at the ends. But Graphene’s ability to affect stiffness without affecting mass allows Head to toy with flex distribution in unique ways. The V-Shape 10 is made thinner through the middle so it can be loaded with less exertion, a major differentiator between it and, say, an i.Supershape Titan.
The V-Shape 10 is a system ski, meaning it comes with its own binding, but there’s an optional component that isn’t included in the price but is certainly part of the package: Head’s LYT Tech boots, the Nexo series. While not strictly speaking an integrated system, Head’s ultralight boot/ski combo is the first of its kind. If you like the idea of a luxury carving kit that weighs no more than a whisper, consider going all-in and matching the V-Shape 10 with a Nexo Lyt boot.
Many lifelong skiers are familiar with the decidedly mixed history of lightweight skis. Anyone who wants to re-visit the dubious joys of a stripped-down ski can always hop on a $399 package ski. Suffice it to say, you’ll learn quickly to keep your speed in check.
So I suspect most veteran testers who try a Head Kore model for the first time carry with them a hint of suspicion. You can tell in the hand that they’re lighter than the typical wood-and-metal make-up usually found at the top of this popular genre. Will a noticeably lighter ski like the Kore 99 measure up to the standard set by powerful skis like the Bonafide, MX99, M5 Mantra and Enforcer 100?
Yes, indeed. The Kore 99 annihilates every negative ever associated with lightweight skis. Lightness doesn’t’ affect its grip or stability, which is nearly on a par with the metal-laden i.Rally. It holds a medium-radius turn without a hitch, delivering effortless power usually associated with a more traditionally built ski.
For the Kore 99 is anything but traditional and a significant departure from Head’s customary wood and metal constructions. The Kore’s principal components are Graphene, Koroyd and Karuba, a lightweight wood often found in backcountry models. The Graphene does the heavy lifting in terms of distributing pressure along a flex pattern that provides the feedback experts expect from a high performance ski.
