Demo Day @ Loveland - Quick Impressions

[Colorado_Freeskier]

Headed to Loveland for the demo day on Saturday and figured I'd post up my impressions of some of the skis. I'm a 195 lb, aggressive skier. On soft/pow days I'll be on my LPs or XXLs and when it is early season hardpack I'll be on my Nordica Doberman GSR race boards. I've never been on rockered skis so I figured I'd test a few despite the conditions. Conditions were not ideal for testing fat and rockered skis...hardpack, some heavy wind affected pow under chair 4. Temps crept up throughout the day and the heavy pow got even more dense.

The skis:

Lib Tech Freeride 188 - Ski had no guts, felt over powered and floppy. Felt very much like a light version of the older K2 Seth Pistol/Vicious, dull and lifeless. According to the rep its a wood core with no metal layers, so maybe I'm just to heavy for it. My buddy who weighs 135ish pounds loved the ski.

Rossignol S97 - Think it was a 186, asked the rep for something that would ski like a Legend Pro and this is what he gave me. This was one of the best skis of the day, extremely stable, stiff, heavier (2 layers of metal) and carved extremely well.

Dynastar Legend Pro 115, 184cm - Having skied the LP for years I was really worried they screwed it up with the 115. The ski doesn't have much sidecut (probably even less previous versions) and it is a lot fatter. It is a burly, heavy ski and the most stable of any I demoed...didn't feel like it was a 184cm it was so stable. That said it was not as carvy as the S97 it only wants to go in a straight line or take giant high speed turns.

Saloman Czar 191 - Super stable, heavy, but it could carve a turn pretty well although the tips were noticeably floppy because of the rocker...something you'd get used to though.

Atomic Bent Chetlier - Obviously not the ideal conditions to test it but I did like the mix of tradition camber underfoot with the rockered tip/tail. If I lived in Utah I could see owning a pair. Surprisingly, it could hold a low/medium speed carve on firm snow but isn't something I'd want to ride a whole day at a resort...just not versatile. Would be nice to try on a deep day or cat skiing.

Atomic Blog - Similar to the Chetlier but a little narrower in the waist...around 114 I think.

Volkl Gotama (190ish) - Don't have much positive or negative to say about it. The Marker demo bindings were exceptionally heavy, even for a demo binding, so that could of masked the real feel of the ski.

Volkl Mantra - Ski identical to my 94mm waisted 1st gen Mantra which I absolutely hate as a resort ski (it's okay for an AT ski). It is very light, not that stable going in a straight line, better on edge, but not great. One thing that I can't stand is the "hollow" sounding core.