The Stance 84’s most stunning achievement isn’t its podium finish among our Finesse Favorites, or even its elite, on-trail performance; the headline story about Salomon’s new Stance 84 is its off-the-charts value. The Stance 84 is slotted to sell at $499; there’s a slew of models slated to retail at $699 or more that can’t hold a candle to it.
There’s always a reason why a modestly priced model punches above its weight. In the case of the Stance 84, it’s because Salomon trimmed its most expensive elements without eliminating them altogether. The Stance 84 retains a single topsheet of Titanal, with the distinctive Stance cut-out in its forebody filled with carbon instead of Salomon’s signature super-fiber, C/FX. It turns out to be more than enough to keep the Stance 84 calm on edge when it’s rocking the groomed terrain it prefers.
Unlike most hard-snow oriented carvers, the Stance 84 doesn’t have a built-in bias for a complete, cross-hill turn finish. Instead, its comparatively narrow tail relaxes its grip right after the turn transition, maintaining the momentum that makes cruising groomers effortless. The forebody remains supple and easy to curl into a series of short turns that cross-cross the fall line.
The 21/22 version of the 4×4 is attached to the Speed family, but it’s actually a separate breed. In keeping with the overall trend to lighter skis, the 4×4 963 uses a multi-material core with laminated beech providing the primary structure and a band of polyurethane (PU) between the wood and the outer sidewall. The PU adds a dampening element as well as being lighter than the wood it replaces. To preserve stability on edge, a section of Titanal anchors the midsection.
For a ski with a race lineage, the 4×4 963 is oddly more in its element off-trail than on, as it transitions from a carve to a scrubbed turn without a hitch. Peter Glenn’s Steve Parnell was impressed by its versatility as he navigated through a melee of spring conditions at Squaw Valley. “Went from groomed to crust to powder today. This one will make your day. Made it all easy.”
The Speed 4×4 963 is a system ski, meaning it comes with its own Look SPX 12 binding. A well-balanced ski with nearly equal scores for all performance criteria, it should have a broad appeal across all ages and abilities. As this generous age bracket includes those with an AARP card, we again award the 4×4 963 a Silver Skier Selection.
With Graphene in its arsenal, Head has embraced lightweight design with the fervor it once brought to the early carving craze. The unapologetic objective of the V-Shape series is to create the lightest on-piste design possible. There are still traditional elements in the V-Shape 10, such as carbon, fiberglass and ash alongside Karuba in its wood core, but it’s Graphene that makes its LYT Tech construction possible.
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, a Supershape e-Titan.
Compared to an alternative carving set-up, with a fat, shock-sucking plate and a metal-laden make-up, the V-Shape 10 feels like nothing at all. Says one of our veteran testers, “I wasn’t even sure they were still on my feet. Impressive performance for its weight. Floats on powder and carves on ice.” Once you get past its crazy weightlessness, you’ll find the V-Shape 10 is a smooth operator with an innate desire to lay down dual tracks on groomers of any pitch.
Kästle’s current MX83, reprised from last season, is both typical of a current trend and atypical in a way all its own. The trend it’s party to is how a series of modest modifications amount to a significant change, especially in Finesse qualities. It’s unique among such upgraded models in that the name it’s re-assuming happens to be the legendary MX83, inarguably one of the greatest Frontside models ever made.
The reason the revival of the MX83 ought to interest experts everywhere is because it responds so intuitively to technical commands. Its fully cambered baseline feels super-glued to the snow, inviting speeds that would cause lesser lights to shake loose. Most skis this torsionally rigid don’t flow over and around moguls too well, but the MX83 has an almost liquid flow bred into its bones.
One of the best indicators of a great ski is how well it performs in conditions for which it wasn’t made. Of course the MX83 is a hoot trenching corduroy at speeds that on another ski would be terrifying, but the MX83 adopts the same attitude towards all terrain. It doesn’t care where you point it because it’s confident in its abilities, a self-assurance that invariably rubs off on its pilot. The MX83’s size range is skewed short so that lighter or less talented skiers can experience perfection without necessarily being able to exemplify it.
The Kore 99 epitomizes what makes Head’s unique Kore construction so well adapted to irregular, off-trail conditions without compromising its capacity for holding on hard snow. The All-Mountain West category resides on the boundary line between hard-snow carvers and Big Mountain drifters. The Kore 99 is definitely from the latter camp of looser skis, but its thoughtful design never forgets that is has to meet a certain hard snow performance standard or Head won’t put its name on it.
Kore’s paramount intention is to make a lightweight construction that can be applied to wide skis without extra weight accompanying with the extra width. In the Kore series, Graphene is moved to the tip and tail where it adds structure but almost no weight, thereby lowering swingweight and making these wide skis easy to swivel.
Three other features contribute to the Kore 99’s shocking ease at negotiating battered crud fields and tight tree lines. One, the shoulders on the new Kore series have been rounded off, so the ski slips sideways almost without resistance, a huge plus when a wide ski has to be tossed around an obstacle. Two, the center section of sidecut is essentially straight, facilitating a swiveled turn finish that is the norm in deep snow. And three, a flex pattern that promotes playfulness and rebound, which reduces the effort required to make turns in tough terrain. Less effort means more fun and a longer ski day.
