 Poster: A snowHead
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OK, here're my thoughts on what we had last week. FWIW I'm 181cm tall, weigh somewhere just above 90kg (and normall carry a 5-10kg pack  ), and normally ski moderately agressively. Up until now I've skied on Dynastar Legend 8000s in 184, which I love for their versatility, but I really need a bit more support than they can give me now in softer snow - so I've been looking in the 90mm underfoot range, the widest I've skied up to now has been 89mm.
The skis I tried/rented were, for one day each except where stated:
Stockli Stormrider DP Pros 184 (3 days)
Black Diamond Havoc 2008 183 / Freeride+ bindings
Black Diamond Kilowatt 2008 185 / BD demo/rental bindings
Black Diamond Verdict 2007 180 / Freeride+ bindings
Movement Pow Pow 193 / Vist bindings
Stockli Stormriders, same pair as above
Atomic Sweet Daddys 2006 181 / some type of rental binding
Stormriders
length 184, sidecut: 125-94-111, radius 29.4m, wt 4.2kg
Conditions were essentially powder through and through  , some steep, some not so, with some nice soft bumps, a few sections of track and trees for variety. Vis varyied from good to non-existent. When the rental guy pulled them out of the rack (after I'd turned my nose up at a few other skis) I was a little nervous as these have a legendary reputation as a balls out ski. From the moment I put these on though I knew they were a Stockli ski - with a fantastic edge grip on the hard windblown start of the run and they gave me total confindence in the ski's stability. Once I could relax into them (and the terrain) and allow myself to push them, the more fun I had. These are a truly great ski if you're willing to work them. I could stick them on any edge angle I felt like, push or float, rail or slide and they did just about exactly what I wanted. The only time they left me a bit stranded though was when really slowing down to accomodate zero vis, when it became pretty hard work to get them to turn with anything other than a jump. On the fourth day out with them we had a bit more piste to go at (in Serre Chevalier), and they worked pretty well there too. On the final run (a bit slushy, but nicely empty) I really let them go, and they railed long radius carves very nicely, and tighter ones pretty well provided you were going fast enough. Edging them one-footed on either inside or outside edges was quite feasible, but nowhere near as easy as on my Legends. One you got the balance point for that outside edge though they held it fine.
Havocs
length 183, sidecut: 122-88-114, radius about 23m, weight about 3.6kg
I'd tried these at the PSB on rock-hard piste and was pretty impressed. Now was the chance to try them in what they should be skied in. Unfortunately this day we didn't have the light and fluffy powder in Serre Che that we had had in LG, and had a fair bit of breakable crust, so I couldn't give them a direct comparison with the DP Pros. The piste preformance was still everything I'd remembered from the PSB, and while obviously not a race ski, I'd be more than happy taking these through a GS course on 'normal' piste conditions. I was a bit surprised though that I didn't get quite the support and stability I'd expected in the softer snow, even though we didn't find anything too fluffy - and I wasn't brilliantly happy on these in the breakable crust. They were light enough though to go for agressive punch runs through the crust and they felt pretty good in that - but I'm too old to keep that up for more than 100m now (and was never competent enough to try that when i was younger  ). One-footed carving on-piste though was a ball on these, and if anything they felt more versatile riding the outside edge than the DPs (I even managed to do a one footed outside edge tight carve into a hockey stop...not sure if I could repeat that though).
Kilowatts
length 185, sidecut: 127-95-116, radius 24.5m, wt 3.7kg
Ah ha....this is it baby! The skis were issued with a warning that there's a ding in one edge, and marked with L&R. After a bit of a clean up with my file and stone, and a bit of Notwax, though it's in not at all bad shape. We're once again at Serre Che, and still no light and fluffy powder, but a reasonable about of moderate weight deep fresh snow, with still a bit of crust but quite a bit softer than yesterday. This ski doesn't have quite the on-piste performance of the Havocs, and the wider underfoot makes it noticeably harder to get those outside edge carves going, but they still just about work. In the steep and deep though these are just a ball - back to the Stormrider confidence, but with more manouevrability at low speeds too - and they cut through the crust with superb stability. Shame about the deathly boring graphics - beige with some fiddly stuff on the tails that you can't see when you're skiing them (they may even blend into the snow when in whiteout conditions  ).
Verdicts
length 180, sidecut: 128-98-116, radius 26.6m, wt 3.9kg
Next one up, and very noticeably different to the Kilowatts. Today (in LDA) the visibility was pretty poor and flat light, but you could generally see at least 50-150m ahead, so not too bad - and we got oodles of genuine powder again (although nothing much above knee level). The ski is very poorly prepared though, and half way through the morning needs an emergency application of Notwax. That 2m on the ski radius is very noticeable when trying to carve on piste - you have to be going very fast to lean into the turn, but mostly you need a lot of angulation to avoid overbalancing. They also don't hold anything like the edge of any of the previous 3 skis, so lots of turns end up being rather skiddy, and carving the outside edge is almost impossible - get enough angle to hold the edge and you're on the point of overbalancing (at least at the speeds I was willing to let them go to). The edge grip was also almost non-existent when trying take them through 'normal' bumps (i.e. not ice hard, but not much loose snow) or the rain-crust concrete on the Valentin (but to be fair that was a pretty hard test). On the soft stuff they were great though: light enough for twisting around in jump turns and a great platform for landing on the steepest fluffiest stuff we could find. I was also a bit surprised that they did feel quite a bit shorter than their nominal 180cm - although I didn't compare them against any other skis to check that. Overall, seemed to me too much of a specialist deep snow/big mountain ski for most European conditions, whereas I got none of that feeling with the Kilowatts.
Pow Pows
length 193, 125-92-113, radius 26m, wt 4.1kg
Back to Serre Che, with a load of fresh snow (although still fairly wet) and blue skies for this one. But this is the agony after the ecstacy. I find it almost impossible to turn these skis and spend most of the day desperately trying to hang on to balance and any degree of confidence whatever when veering from the straight line - they're clearly way too much ski for me, or maybe I'm just not coping with the added length. This really surprises me as I've had no trouble with 29m radius skis before (Legend 8800s in 188 and the Stormriders above). The most galling thing is that JT and BernardC are clearly having a ball in all this soft snow (JT on the Mantras I for some unknown reason passed over to try these out) and I just want the day to end. By the end of the day I do just about work out how to ski these Fitzwilliams, but it's a tough job.
Sweet Daddies
length 183, 119-80-105, radius 21m, wt probably about 3.1kg
Just a morning on these at La Plagne. Conditions: bluebird day, lots of new snow the previous day and a half, but it was very wet when it fell, so it's very crusty now. Avalanches all around us too, so don't really go off piste too much. I've never really got on with Atomic skis much before (hated the R9/9.22 etc), but the Daddy series seems to get a lot of good press, so was interested in giving these a try (would actually have preferred trying the Snoops but the shop didn't have any of those). These clearly had more mainstream piste performance than most of those above, and although I hate to admit it, probably better than my (now dead ) 8000s. I wasn't nearly so convinced by their performance off piste though, where I think the 8000s do a much better job - I remember them feeling much more responsive and lively. But maybe it's just the pretty unforgiving conditions though, and I'm also starting to get a bit tired at the end of the week (and my knees are trying to tell me to slow down a bit  ).
So the conclusion of this is that I'm probably going to be looking for the Kilowatts when they come out (there are some pre-release ones out but a bit $$$$ atm) - I clearly took to them way more than did JT. I'd mount them with Freeride+ bindings and give them a bit of a tryout with uphill stuff too. They may be a bit heavy for full week tours, and I'm not sure my skinning technique is quite up to taking a ski this wide across a steep traverse, so some experimentation will be required to see if these really are my do-it-all ski. If someone wanted to donate me a pair of DP Pros though, I'm sure my arm could be twisted  .
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I love the Mantras and was quite pleased when Graham passed them over... and I couldn't understand the probs he had with the Pow Pow when he handled the DP's so well. I can't imagine they are more ski tha the DP's but sometimes just that extra piece of lenght will write off a ski and put them out of a comfort zone. Some skis just aren't the right size IMV
I didn't rave about the Kilowatts and I had them in L2A... I am inclined to put down my lukewarm impression to the bad tune. I think Black Diamond are on the right track with their ski range so I would give the Kilowatts the benefit of another go. Loved their Carbon fibre adjustable poles....$99 will be getting me a pair, for sure.
DB, the Mantra skis light for 96mm and I think you should at least try one as they are a very good ski, IMV. They are certainly my find of the year so far. I thought they were very manageable with rental bindings.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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JT,
Were you on the red 05/06 Mantras or these?
http://www.sport-conrad.com/ArtikelDetail.asp?Kategorie=&ArtNummer=70001038
There doesn't look to be too much weight diff between the Mantras and a proper touring ski of similar size. I've got a pair of Volkl snowwolfs for longer tours but it sounds like the Mantras might be the ticket for downhill biased day tours. I'll probably try the Mantras and Scott Santiago Missions next time I get over to St Anton.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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DB,
I've been on the 05/06's which are a cool slate colour and the red 06/07's or however they date them I think they are both 94mm altho the tech told me 96mm.
I love the new look so I'll be on them asap but they are a bit bigger, it appears
I think the Mantras are a grown-up 8000...not tried the 8800's. I hope that doesn't put you off and I'm not so much a fan of the 8000 but I know they are well regarded. The Mantra is a bollicking ski IMHO. I'd take it anywhere. I think its is a better ski than the Mission or rather I'd go for the Mantra in a hire-shop over the Mission any day of the week and twice on sundays. Not that the Mission is any way a bad ski..far from it based on my hardpack PSB trial
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