Thread: Gotama = Less Durable Ski Ever

First the good

Me 6ish 175ish. I’ve always been a fan of longer stiffer boards with my deep day boards of choice being Rossi Axioms. I decided this year to check out one of the new breed of fat, soft, twined machines. Sight unseen, I chose the Gotama as I’d had good experiences with both Volkl’s durability and the way they ski. I went with the 183cm, the shortest ski I had since the 5th grade I mounted up with Freerides on the line. The first thing I noticed is how rear mounted they looked when compared to the rest of my quiver. The tail looked about the same size as a fruit boot.

Pow - I popped the cherries of these bad boyz on one of the super deep days the Snowbasin that you’ve already heard too much about. The first couple of runs a felt like I was continuously fighting going over the bars. This was really surprising considering their width and rear mounting. After a while I really got the hand of these machines and they started to shine. The fore/aft balance on these skis is unlike anything I’ve ever been on. With most boards, when you pressure the tail or get in the backseat, you accelerate. With the Gotama the opposite is true. Because of the soft tail, it feels like you can actually slow down by pushing down with your heels. The ski has a balance point in the wheelie position which makes powder skiing effortless. You don’t have to fight it with your legs to stop from submarining. You can also scrub speed by getting them sideways with out them starting to hook. They were much more stable at speed than I expected. Obvioulsy, a great landing platform.

Bumps – Stay away at all costs

Groomies – Not a problem

Crud – There was none

Now the Bad

I’ve haven’t seen a ski this poorly constructed since I had an entire K2 GS Race delam on my first run. On my fourth run I lightly grazed a sub-surface rock. With my Atomics or Rossis, I would of expected slight scrape. The Gotamas were torn all the way through to the core. These skis have a base about the hardness of a slick of butter. The core shots have a smooth look not unlike the impressing a spoon leaved in a bowl of pudding. More importantly and certainly more annoying is that the side wall is completely blowed up. The edge was not even touched yet there is a six to eight inch crack directly underfoot.

[rant] Now I certainly understand that a ski can’t be made to handle massive impact damage but this in ridiculous. How can Volkl sell such a complete piece of crap. Because of the core shot, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to warrantee. I thought they fixed this issue with the Gotamas this year. Generally, I don’t care about damaging skis. I’m certainly not going to change my style to save my boards but this is ridiculous. I can’t think of another $500 product that would break within 1 ½ hours of regular use. Bullshit[/er]

Summary: Sweet powder skis with about as much durability as Paris Hilton

maybe they're beast 92's in a gotama's clothing.

Yeah, but how do they railslide compared to the Spatulas?

If I wanted to groom the moutain I'd ride a snowboard, brah! Did you mount yours yet (not in the living room, with binders)?

I am on the same setup and have experienced nothing but good things on the Gotamas.

However, on the second day on them, I noticed a small crack in the topsheet of the tail. WEAK.

Just yesterday, a buddy of mine hit a rock from the side and had the same result as you did.

Be careful out there, I think those "wooden" sidewalls are really, really soft.

Sorry bout yours, send them back

I feel better that I'm not the only one. Hopefully, Volkl understands thats it is a design/ manufacturing defect. Whe Dude posted about his I thought to myself, "Yeh, but its Volkl they'll fix it".

Originally posted by Foggy_Goggles
I feel better that I'm not the only one. Hopefully, Volkl understands thats it is a design/ manufacturing defect. Whe Dude posted about his I thought to myself, "Yeh, but its Volkl they'll fix it".

Ya Know I think I heard about early model defects. Something about the side walls for sure. I can't remember if their was any thing about the base

I had a very similar experience to foggy. I skied my 190 gotamas for 9 days when I discovered that I had a large crack in the sidewall directly under my foot. I didn't have any damage to them other than that. I hadn't taken any hard impact landings as until last week there still wasn't enough snow at snowbird to huck the cliff lines. I took them to the shop where I purchased them and they said that they had to send them back to volkl to decide whether to warantee them or not. They said that this ought to take about 2 months. It angers me that I am going to be without my powder skis for this period of time. I think that the shop ought to be able to warentee the skis as a volkl dealer, or the local volkl rep should be able to do it. I shouldn't have to wait 2 months for them to get shipped all the way back to volkl.

Originally posted by Turkey
They said that this ought to take about 2 months. It angers me that I am going to be without my powder skis for this period of time.

I don't understand why you don't just ski them until the end of the season and then warranty them. Is crack in the side-wall so bad that it renders the ski unusable?

Originally posted by slim
I don't understand why you don't just ski them until the end of the season and then warranty them. Is crack in the side-wall so bad that it renders the ski unusable?

At the end of the season my skis will be hammered and not warranty-able

are you guys having problems with the sidewall only, or have you managed to wreck the whole core?
isn´t that sidewall merely a glued on strip of wood with no
real structural properties (i.a. a cosmetic piece of wood.) ???
does it truly render the ski unskiable??

just wondering as a gomama owner myself.

QUOTE: Summary: Sweet powder skis with about as much durability as Paris Hilton.

i thought paris takes a lot of banging...

I just sent my 2nd pair back for replacement. The older rounded tail just doesn't want to stay together once it gets about 30 days! Hopefully the square tail design will hold up better.

Are they warrantying sidewall damaged skis??? Some manufacturers don't, quipping that hitting a rock on a sidewall isn't covered. Also, bases are a big bitch for me after having the ptex 6000 base on the nko's hold up so well to massive rock abuse. Manufacturers need to pony up for more durable material where it counts, IMO.

The skis are not getting sent back. After tourning with them and pow skiing at the area with them, I've now decided that they are my favorite skis ever. If they end up in the garbage at the end of the year, so be it. I am talking some digi pics of the damage and emailing them to the CO Volkl rep to "document" the damage before the whole ski falls apart. Whether I buy another on of their products will depend on the treatment I receive. We'll see!

heh- saw some sanouk's in uttahhh the other day and wouldn't it be sweet to blow the sidewall on a 1200 bone ski in a half hour? yeah baby! WORK IT WORK IT!

FG
Is the crack still a crack? Does the sidewall seem to be attached well or do you think chunks will start falling off?

Its strange how some hits feel like nothing and destroy stuff. I cracked the sidewall on my Asteroids the first day of use on a traverse. I just sealed it and it has been holding strong. That same day I lightly grazed a rock and got a huge core shot. The funny thing is that since then they have been surprisingly durable, a true tank.

According to Boulder Ski Deals 1 in 4 gotama's have come back with cracked sidewalls!
Haven’t used mine yet but my knee is getting better fast.

my brothers 04'-05's, Volkl's last year with visable wood sidewall, just delaminated under the rear binding after only 20 days. (He rode his G4's on rock and groomer days.) Perfect ptex, barley a scratch. Just under the binding the wood seperated and buckled the top sheets steel rail, botom rail still perfect. He sent them back to Volkl but they are out of warranty obviously.

Obviously a design defect. Perhaps some epoxy will seal it up again...?

I'll let you know what Volkl says, pretty bullshit for such a high end ski.

I have the 05'-06' with the covered side wall and see no damage on mine thank god!!

I did destroy a pair of 04'-05' Pocket Rockets in Utah this Jan. Blew the rail under the binging too, but I snagged a rock, didn't smash it but snagged a rock and it pulled my rail off. That sucked...seemed pretty weak!

Anyone else have these issues?

Skiing without snow sucks!!!!!

Wow, more than three years between the last post and this one... Is that a record?

My Gotamas are three years old and they've been absolutely bomber. I finally got a teeny little core shot after beating the hell out of them for several seasons and skiing straight over rocks most of this season. I'm extremely satisfied with the durability.

Sorry to hear yours aren't holding up. But if you can't think of another product that doesn't hold up for more than a few hours... Big Stix 106 did that for me. Two pairs in a row with an exploded sidewall from hitting nothing much at all. The first one didn't even have any base damage.

(heh, didn't even see the dates on the original...)

shows that someone used the search function. i say kudos!

no shit, f2. But I didn't look at the date until after I was trying to remember the last time I was talking about nko's, other than reminiscing with endless season and iceman last week.

heh, splat, this thread reminded me of the last time i ran through a parking lot in my bros. nary a scratch on the bases deeper than 1mm. i was considering gotamas at one point for the generous sidecut (which the bros lack, and it causes me a few issues when trying to turn tight) but threads like this one remind me why a 200+ male should not be considering gotamas.

their 2005/2006 model was advertised as having an "increased and hardened base". from other threads, more recent, i consider this to be an inside joke of the marketing dept.

Originally Posted by f2f

but threads like this one remind me why a 200+ male should not be considering gotamas.

Why's that? I'm 225 and my Gotamas have taken an insane amount of abuse. The wood sidewalls cracked on my first two pairs, but Volkl took care of me and the ptex sidewall version has been great. The edges have been especially amazing. Several times I've sworn I ripped out an edge and looked down only to find a massive coreshot but intact edge.

I really have to laugh about these threads talking about "thin" ptex. Maybe I'm jaded because I predominantly ski at Kirkwood, where the volcanic rock takes its toll on any ski. But really, who cares. Just fill the fucker back in and go ski. That's the magic of ptex, it's replaceable.

But if you really care about core shots, go get yourself a pair of volants. Spatulas have the thinnest bases in history, yet I still haven't managed to put a coreshot in mine. And believe me, it's not from a lack of trying. I was talking to someone else a few years ago at Mammoth and he was raving about the Volant base material too.

heh. Arty's right. Anyone who skis kw regularly learns not to take their bases too seriously. I used to always shred my edges and bases early season and not do anything about them until the snowpack was deep, then do the base and edge repairs with a stonegrind and hope they'd last through the spring. I've had constant sands and grinds take more life out of my skis than rocks, except for the big hits that stove in edges.

Those volcanic cheesegrater rocks at Kirkwood are particularly savage though.