If you’re fortunate enough to catch first tracks, it almost doesn’t matter which All-Mountain West model you’re on. They all offer approximately the same flotation, and fresh snow is so consistent that skis sustain relatively little shock. It’s on runs 2 through 20 that you’ll be particularly pleased you’re on an Aura. Cut-up snow is utter bliss if you ski it right and pure hell if you don’t. Whether you spend the day upright and smiling or upside down looking for your goggles depends a great deal on the tool you use.
Brilliance on a high edge comes at the price of making a short arc, with the ever-accelerating speeds bigger turns engender. You’ll never get a ski with the 100 Eight’s sidecut to carve a tidy arc, but it has the solution on demand: a fully rockered baseline without a whisper of camber to interfere with a smudged slide. If you want to aim the other way RIGHT NOW, just turn your feet. No unpleasant contortions required.
Völkl has found the ideal upgrade for its 3D.Ridge construction, itself a relatively recent innovation that trimmed away significant swaths of ski core material to make several key models, like the RTM 81, lighter and more flexible. Called 3D.Glass, it’s essentially the bottom half of a torsion box. Just adding a glass laminate to a ski would probably have helped, but Völkl went a step further and therein lies the trick that makes the addition of 3D.Glass instantly evident: in the center, the glass layer runs up and over the top of the sidewall, essentially demi-capping the core from the bottom up.
3D.Glass is like a blend of ski Botox and blow: it makes everything about the RTM 84 smoother, with no visible sign of surgery, and the ski is preternaturally more energetic, ever ready to respond to athletic input. 3D.Glass is all the more effective because the RTM 84 baseline includes a cambered patch underfoot. Applying pressure on this glass arch is what has injected a few cc’s of pure energy into the RTM 84’s routine.
You expect a race slalom ski to be comet quick, and the Völkl Racetiger Speedwall SL UVO doesn’t disappoint in this signature department. What you don’t expect is the grace to accept longer turns when requested and a ride so polished it feels like the ski is doing all the heavy lifting. As nimble as teenage gymnasts, these Völkls nonetheless never act nervous. Their imperturbable calm is attributable to the UVO dampening element affixed to the forebody, allowing the skis to maintain snow contact through any turn shape.
