 Poster: A snowHead
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Decisions decisions, so little time and so many skis?
Do we go All Mountain, FreeRide, Piste or race?
What would you guys like to see?
Conditions don't really lead to off-piste / touring, so we're thinking trying All Mountain skis looking for what works best on the piste, chopped snow etc
Don't follow hype etc so would be good to get some ideas?
Thanks
PS we'll be probably testing using Carv system to get an idea of how the ski (s) actually work etc
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Mon 30-01-23 12:39; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Weathercam,are these the guys up in Monetier today and tomorrow? Rather unfriendly lot.
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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’m interested in the cheaper end of the all mountain range, we don’t all need to latest & greatest, what is the best of the rest 88-92 under foot?
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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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Fatty bombattys and how usuable they are in sub optimal conditions.
Anything in the true all mountain ( not marketing all mtn = piste ski + tiny bit of width)
FIS Super G skis ( to see if you live)
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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@Weathercam, bro-in-law has a pair of next year's Blizzard Rustler 9s in the shop, just to show them off. He tried them in Austria a few weeks ago and said they're amazing. Would be interested to see what other folks think.
Out of interest, what do you think Carv will show you?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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If you don't have a pair already, any FIS SL.
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Freeride baby!!! New Rustler 11’s. What else have they got?
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@under a new name, @rjs, @Hells Bells, Ok hopefully you'll understand the logic here ...
At the ski test (UK ski industry) you have an inordinate amount of skis, so with only two days here (La Cluzas) one has to work out a sensible strategy, not least based on conditions.
In the past I've tested touring and Freeride skis, this time round trying to find a unique test feature as it were.
As a very Joe average piste skier I invested in these....
And have used these with the Carv system to get a semi decent IQ score.
So I have that score based on some de-tuned race skis that are obviously going to give me a better score than maybe some All Mountain, so talking to the various brands I want to test their All Mountain skis that they say work well on piste, and with the Carv it will be a benchmark as it were of how good the ski actually is on piste?
Talking to a few of the brands, Blackcrows for instance with their very sweet All Mountain ski that I forget the name of, they think this is quite a refreshing way to approach ski testing.
With the AM skis I'll also try and find crud chopped up conditions but on the piste I'll ski the same 3 or 4 segments, and compare the scores with each ski.
Hopefully we'll get a handle on what is a good ski, but alas not in uber fresh, but I suppose we're trying to get close to finding that all elusive one ski quiver?
And @BobinCH you'd cream yourself at the skis on offer, but alas no DPS....
Should also add that I'll also test some slalom skis, small radius, to see how they affect the scores.
Mind you I kept looking at the untracked touring potential up there 
Last edited by After all it is free  on Mon 23-01-23 23:00; edited 2 times in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Test some Black Crows against the equivalent Blizzard / Fischer / Rossi / Dyna - are they marketing over substance (like Faction imo) or do they cut the mustard?
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Is it the blackcrow captis your going to try? Intrested in your findings
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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@Weathercam,
Test the best GS skis they have. Hammer them on the piste and get some big turns off piste to see what they are like.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Weathercam, interesting to see your views and what tge measured approach brings to it.
Any Kastlè present to add in there ?
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Rax?
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You know it makes sense.
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I rather think testing race skis, esp. FIS race skis a bit of a waste of time. A. you can hire/borrow them in most villages somewhere and B. there isn't such a huge difference between brands.
A look over "all mountains" would seem reasonable - what's standout? I like the idea of the quest for the one ski quiver (obvs., this really doesn't exist at the limit, but for 80% coverage?).
Curious about the Carv stuff though, that'll be nearly as interesting, whether +ve or -ve. I am still skeptical (other than as a possible input into proper coaching/instruction). But I'm still thinking that a good instructor will be better than an AI*
* this post was brought to you by SkiGPT - the skiers' AI
I think your cheater GS baseline a good idea too.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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So far BlackCrows Mirus Cor
Carv score 140
My Salomon RS score 143
Just back from Atomic Redster and score up to 146!!
Now going up with Elan Wingman 86TI
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Poster: A snowHead
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It'd be interesting to see how the Line Blade comes out. It's a strange ski; wide but short radius and quite a forward mount. Only skied it indoors but felt like I had to be fairly on my heels to make it work. Curious if you/Carve agreed.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@Weathercam, what's the score range on Carv, i.e. are those different numbers meaningful? I actually can't see how they can be.
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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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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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He'll be dyeing his goatee next. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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reverse camber vs a little camber vs full on camber would be interesting to see those 3 skied??
Are next seasons avi bags there?
So after a huge dump last week is the OP trashed??
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Weathercam, surprised Glen got all his hair under that small hat 
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If they're there, Norse. They were set up by one of the ex-ski engineers from Faction - I was skiing with one of the ex-Faction guys at the weekend; he was riding a pair and rated them very highly. BobinCH can get to like a Faction ski without having to like an actual Faction ski 
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Best skis so far Ripsticks 106, awesome!!!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Not in the slightest bit influenced by skiing with
Glen Plake ...
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@adithorp, done
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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I'm sure it made his day
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You know it makes sense.
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| KenX wrote: |
| Best skis so far Ripsticks 106, awesome!!! |
Are these really all mountain skis? The waist is 106 and looking at the reviews for current ski are more suited to powder?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| KenX wrote: |
| Best skis so far Ripsticks 106, awesome!!! |
. Black or ordinary
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Poster: A snowHead
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@Weathercam, using Carv for reviews is an interesting one. Unless it's moved on since I last looked, doesn't it focus entirely on carving (and penalise any kind of slip/smear/pivot)? If so, then you're testing the carving performance of the skis, maybe to the detriment of other characteristics that you'd want in an all mountain plank?
My other thought is about the bindings - if they are different, and have different ramp, will that impact your scores? Some people are v sensitive, others not. I've no idea where you are on that spectrum.
Still, interesting to see what the results are.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@stewart woodward, @dan100, Ordinary version, obviously the wider Ripstick 106 works better in powder than the 96, but the concept of testing with the Carv system lets us discover the on-piste capability and gave some interesting results!
The skis were all fitted with downhill bindings which have a similar ramp, so that shouldn't affect results.....
The Ripstick 106 was playful with very good edge hold on the piste, probably due to the assymetric contruction of the skis which have more camber on the inside edge and more rocker on the outside.
The 106 gave the second highest score on piste out of the skis tested on the first day, same run for every ski, based on the data of a slalom carver which I used for the very first run to set a datum.
We obviously couldn't test each and every ski in powder, but there was good tracked out snow to the sides of the pistes to get an idea of how they performed.
Carv gave a score of 130 for the Volkl Racetiger SC and 125 for the Ripstick which may have been higher, but I was chasing Glen Plake all over the mountain at the time and may have taken my eye off the ball regarding carving
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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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Also aware that living in resort gives us more opportunity to develop our skiing, so where I may consider a 106 to be an all-mountain ski, others may prefer something a little narrower, hence why I tested skis in the 90-106 range
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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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Skis I tested were deliberately in the category, All Mountain with a bias to piste performance, apart from the Rossi end of day one.
As I mentioned above I was benchmarking the skis using feedback on scores from Carv.
What was obvious was that those skis tested in the morning before the groomers had been skied out were producing far better scores.
We were skiing one run that was nigh on 1,000m vertical made up of red piste and blue with a variety of terrain, stopping in the same place on the hill, dividing the run up into segments so that we could hear the score of that particular section.
One time I mentioned to @KenX, that I felt the ski that I was on was not as good as the previous ski, and then a couple of segments later I felt as if I was really cranking over as I'd never really achieved before, I stopped and heard my score, 146 which was better than my GS S/Race ski benchmark previously set, which then resulted in a massive fist pump
Only issue is that I was saving most of the ski data in the notes section of the Carv app as I ended each session, and whilst I knew the ski was an Atomic Redster, the all important width and height that I put in, currently, I can't extract due to a software glitch, but I'm pretty sure it was 84 and not 70 or 90. So I'm awaiting Carv to come back to me
Blackcrows Mirus 178 87
Atomic Redster Q98 181 83
Élan Wingman 178 86
Nordica Steadfast 84 174
Head Supershape e-titan 177 84
Rossi Hero Elite LT TI 176 71
Salomon Stance 84 M12 177
Dynastar M-Cross 88 176
Blizzard Rustler 9 96 180
Volkl Kendo 177 88
Scott Pure Free 90 177
Fischer RC One GT 173 82
This is the sort of data that you can see at the end of each run if you drill down.
Unlike @KenX I didn't bother going in the chopped-up crud, concentrating on the piste performance, as what with the pressure on my knees from carving I didn't fancy the crud, as you can see in the image below
A couple of skis did stand out, that whilst maybe not achieving the best scores, just felt great underfoot, I'll be writing a more detailed feature on it all later.
GoPro 360 vid not great as pole balance carving is so critical and the GoPro on the pole was far more off-putting than off-piste.
Last edited by You need to Login to know who's really who. on Fri 27-01-23 8:16; edited 1 time in total
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Looking forward to your writeup, interesting to see relative performance measure vs opinion in feel etc.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| KenX wrote: |
| Also aware that living in resort gives us more opportunity to develop our skiing, so where I may consider a 106 to be an all-mountain ski, others may prefer something a little narrower, hence why I tested skis in the 90-106 range |
On that basis, and since you are linking preference to skier ability, as well as your ski data for comparison, do you also have a bio of the testers (except Glen Plake of course, but he's not the one posting reviews  )?
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@KenX,
“Also aware that living in resort gives us more opportunity to develop our skiing, so where I may consider a 106 to be an all-mountain ski, others may prefer something a little narrower”
Yeah, that and skiing with legends like weathercam and Glen Plake….. pow(d)er’s gone to his head!
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| Weathercam wrote: |
A couple of skis did stand out, that whilst maybe not achieving the best scores, just felt great underfoot, I'll be writing a more detailed feature on it all later.
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Chop chop - which ones?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@stuarth, yeh, 3 testers from Style Altitude, all in our 60's, I've been skiing for 40 years, the other 2 came to their senses 15 years or so ago and switched from snowboardering to proper kit, all of us live for the off-piste, but last season's dearth of snow (and age?) have let us drift a little to piste skiing on down days, getting on for 40 seasons between us with a mix of gender, height and weight!
Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Fri 27-01-23 9:44; edited 1 time in total
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FAQ
