Review on my favorite skis EVER!!
Me: 6'1", 195 lbs, ex-racer
Previous skis used: 190 Gotamas last few years, both black Budhha and White/Reds, 138s a couple days.
191 Goliaths mounted on the line.
Now I'm not the best at reviewing skis as I haven't tried that many skis but I'll try my best with the adjectives.
What can I say about these. They just rock pretty much everywhere. Used them so far 5 days including opening weekend at Revy in Pow-Pow and packed pow conditions at Kicking Horse. In the pow, they felt oh so good. With the lengthier rise tip, I was able to ski them with my weight forward and not have any tip dive issues. Haulled ass in open pow filled bowls, did not feel squirrely or hooky at speed at all. Could make shorter radius turns in the pow in the trees fairly easy. On packed pow conditions and bumps, just felt so stable yet easy to maneuver. I'm not sure but I feel the straighter sidecut and flat tail helps in making shorter radius slidier type turns in the bumps, not that I'm looking to ski bumps, but sometimes its the only choice on the way. On softer groomers, again so stable carving gs-superg type turns with no tip chatter. If you really load up the tip you can make gs size turns, otherwise rolling the ankles gets you super-g size. On icier groomers, yeah there is some slipping, but to be expected with a ski of this width. Stomping, WHAT, holy shit I've never felt so comfortable, so at ease dropping either into pow or packed pow/bumpy conditions. Straightlining chutes, pfffft, no worries. Straightling chutes into garbage/bumps, pffft, still no worries.
To sum them up, I just felt SO CONFIDENT on these. I couldn't believe they would be that different, that much better than the Gotamas. I'm not able to ski much the first part of the season because of work, but I feel more confident in my skiing on these at the start of this season than I did on my Gots at the end of 50 days last season. Had the lucky opportunity to ski with Hjertaas, Hjorleifson, and Ruebens last run of opening day Revy under the Gondy line, pillows, stumps, drops, bumps, and def wouldn't be keeping up on the Gots-sorry for the name dropping.
Just SO stable everywhere and easy to ski, size feels perfect.
I came close to buying XXLs/Big Bros but went with these instead, just sounded 'better' from some of the input given off the forum. That said, I really want to try some XXLs/Big Bros out to compare and will hopefully later in the season.
Unfortunately there is a sad ending to this review. Christmas Day, 3rd day on them, dropped a double, probably 20'-25' drop, landed right on a rock and compressed an edge on both skis underfoot. Luckily the edge or sidewall didn't crack, but shop figures core might be slightly. Pic is of the worse of the two skis. Oops, I guess it would have been better if the sidewall had cracked??
Otherwise, bomber topsheet, its kind of cool with these sort of raised pixels/squares.
That is all.
GO AND GIT SUM!!!!
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