The Head Wild Joy was the first model to be added to the original Joy collection since Head unveiled the first skis – men’s or women’s – to use Graphene. Graphene has a direct impact on flex distribution, so by controlling where it’s concentrated Head can fine tune the flex to match the snow conditions the model is made for: for on-trail carving skis, more Graphene goes underfoot; for off-trail purposes, Graphene is moved to the extremities. However it works, the Wild Joy feels stable on the edge and snappy off it. Its sidecut has a lot of shape for an off-trail oriented ski, so it’s always up for carving.
No other ski in the All-Mountain East category remains as committed to carving as the Head Total Joy. If the Total Joy were a doctor, it would be a specialist rather than a general practitioner. Carving is it’s life’s work, as one glance at its deep-dish sidecut will tell you. Its turn radius is only 13.6 in a 163cm, and it descends to a size 148cm, which must be able to turn sitting still. The Total Joy earns its highest marks for Short-Radius Turns – third best in the entire genre – with an aggregate score will above the category average. Aside from its short-turn fetish, the Total Joy’s most tangible trait is its featherweight design, an amalgam of carbon fiber, Koroyd honeycomb and Graphene.
The Head Supershape i.Rally has The Right Stuff. (Farewell, Tom Wolfe, we’ll miss you!) It uses Graphene, carbon in a matrix one atom thick, in the ski center so it can make the core thinner in this area and easier to press into an arc. Any other ski maker in the golden age of Lighter Is Better would pocket the weight savings Graphene allows, but Head instead invested them in adding more Titanal to the mix, giving the i.Rally the stability and intensity of a battering ram. In a cage match with crud or crisp groomage, the contest is over in the first round. The i.Rally is better than whatever snow you throw under its gently rockered tip, and it imbues its pilot with its self-confidence.
The only Frontside ski with a more scalloped sidecut than Head’s Supershape i.Titan is its near twin, the Supershape i.Rally. As their names announce, these skis take the concept of carving on a continuous edge as far as technology will take it. The i.Titan’s trifling concession to contemporary tastes is a soupçon of early rise; otherwise, it’s is designed to hook into a turn early and hang on to the last possible microsecond. The 80mm i.Titan is the widest of the Supershape series, but it doesn’t ski wide. What the skier notices about the fattest shovel in its class isn’t its girth per se, but how it pulls the skier into the turn with the inevitability of a whirlpool. The i.Titan’s turbo-charged tail sends the skier through the turn transition with such energy and accuracy, entry to the next turn is a fait accompli.
The Head Monster 83 Ti has lived a sheltered existence, at least in the U.S., where it overlapped with the Power Instinct Ti Pro and was overshadowed in its own family by the popular Monster 88. Now is its moment to shine. How the 2019 Monster 83 Ti is built hasn’t changed, but how it’s shaped has. The tip is blunt, rounded, tapered and most of all, wider (by .8cm). The tip taper mellows out Head’s usual fast-twitch turn entry, while the added shape in the forebody enables a tighter turn radius behind the rockered shovel. The Monster 83 Ti is a narrow all-mountain ski that knows how to carve.
