Poster: A snowHead
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These are 14/15 model bought from Spyderjon in the recent Whitedot clearance. Traditional not carbonlite construction. Not sure how different the current model is.
This is even by modern standards a fat (128mm), full rockered ski - the first I've skied so can't make comparison with other skis of the type. Other skis I can compare it to are
Whitedot Ranger 108 CL 186cm
Line Prophet 100 179cm
Conditions - firmish, grippy pistes. Variable off-piste - some untracked boot depth powder, some tracked powder, some skied-out soft small bumps
Me - 176cm tall, 78kg without gear, 46 (reasonably fit but no athlete!)
I was on a 3 day trip and skied one day on each of
1. Ranger CL 186cm
2. Stockli Stormrider 174cm (stiff, 75mm waist - aging but good)
3. Redeemer 180cm
Observations -
off-piste
What a giggle! The running length of these skis is shorter than practically anything else I've skied (don't be fooled by 180cm - the big tip and tail rise means they ski very short). Unsurprisingly this makes them very very manouverable - you can pivot them at will. Playing about in trees, bushes and boulders it was a load of fun skipping between them and grabbing every bit of powder left behind. Beyond the short running length you also benefit from the float and huge tips. I quickly realised that I would have to be trying really hard to bury the tips and this made me very confident to stay centred (versus being slightly back to hedge against the risk of "going over the handlebars") which of course helps stay so nimble. All this makes them very easy to ski on and confidence building - found myself skiing a little quicker, flowing better. In chopped up stuff they didn't so much as charge through it as skim over it, unless it was truly crusty/refrozen I hardly noticed. Downsides? Well I guess they are probably not idea for making huge super G turns down powder bowls - just a it too turny for that and it costs a bit of stability. I guess the 190cm would be better but suspect the WD Ragnarok is really the ski for that. Personally I wouldn't choose to be on something this fat in an icy couloir either but the on-piste comments probably explain that. For either of those situations my R108s would be better (more stable and more edge grip) but they won't quite put a smile on your face in the same way.
on piste
They are not designed for pistes. Of course you can get around on the pistes fine, I didn't find them unpleasant but not rewarding either. You can ride the edge and the radius is 21m so not at all unmanageable but I found that I couldn't actively shape the turns. If the piste was soft enough I could get my feet wide apart and roll them right over but them I felt I was rather precariously stacked a long way from the edge contact. By comparison the R108s offer much more control and variety (and even they feel like a hatchet vs the scalpel of the Stormriders*). In practice I tended to ski the Redeemers in old school short swing turns on piste which made use of their nimbleness and is quite good fun, if a little tiring, unless the piste gets very hard. Towards the end of the day I was going out of the way to avoid the piste whatever the state of the offpiste!
Overall: I bought these thinking that I would use them very rarely, e.g., storm skiing in the trees. While I think that is their perfect environment I suspect I'll be grabbing them on any powder morning. I wouldn't choose to ski them if I was using the pistes for anything but getting me to the next off piste run as quickly as possible.
* on a different topic, these Stocklis are now 11 years old and are still tremendous skis. I had an utter blast on them carving turns of all different shapes all over the piste, blasting through chopped up off piste and floating easily enough in the patches of boot top powder. Under the conditions we had they were much the better skis on piste and perfectly able to to deal with the off-piste despite the 75mm waist.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@jedster, Great review, mirrors my thoughts re the Redeemers. I had a pair 12/13 ish and ran them for a couple of seasons but moved them on in favour of the Ragrarok CL's 191 a couple of years ago, a perfect deep-powder brother for the R108's CL 186cm that I now use as my go-to ski for last 3-4 years. The Redeemers really are great fun in the right conditions.....ski the Rags though if you get an opportunity, they'll make you grin more than ever.
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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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I took a pair of 14/15 redeemers to Alaska last year - the result was epic!! Looking forward to dusting them off and trying them in the alps - agree tree should be fun.
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