Well, I prolly could ad something to phils short writeup...
Agree on couple spots with phil but disagree on others.
Skied the skis (183s) for a day in norway in the beginning of june for a day.
180cm,75kg,sporty and with long,blond,curly hair.
I have skied a bunch of volkl skis (few editions of gotamas,mantras,sumos,explosivs etc) so I have a certain image
of how Völkl skis feel. And Shiro does not feel like a Völkl.
Völkls have a certain kind of glass´iness in them, few skis can replicate the sound "KLING!" they make.
Metally,poppy and stable. Shiro felt very different,very un-völkl.
Conditions: Summer slop,breakable slush, refrozen ice,corn and...25cm of wet pow. So late season extravaganza.
Shiro felt burly but kind of chunky from the start. Instantly when clicked in the felt solid but could feel that they lack the
aaah! feeling. Couple of first runs were on CrustyMankTM and they felt solid,but lacked the confidence inspiring OMG feeling. Couple of runs later with some breakable slush and occasional mank,they starter to feel better, they felt damp and solid, albeit a bit rubbery and over damped lacking the acute feedback. They tracked well in and all kind of hookiness was absent due to the rocker (was on my elan1010s for the first runs) and the shape in general. On icier/harder snow they felt predictable but lacket the machete like edge hold that elans have.
Over the day as the visibility improved a bit we started to find more and more of wet pow & corn stashes and could finally open up a bit more and start to "charge" as you americuns say. The skis arced big turns with confidence and ease but were really easy to cut loose and slash/slarve to scrub speed. They were kind of confidence inspiring but not like in a "WHOOO!" kind of way.
The day left me duly...unimpressed.
Skis were predictable and...good´ish. But nothing spectacular and definately lacked the "Völkl" feel.
Hell,I would be tempted to say that any person that would say that,havent even skied the skis! The lacked totally the normal glassy and sharp völklism, and reminded me more of some bastard child of K2 AK maidens that have mated with old Rossi Scratch BCs. Rubbery,overly damped and kind of boorish.
Dont get me wrong, skis were ok.
I have skied way shittier skis but I had quite high expectations towards the shiros.
I thought I would get the "wide explosiv", or "slim´n´stiff sumo" or "katana on stereoids" but no. Teh dissapoint.
Too wide to be a good euro/shítsnow ski and too narrow to be a dedicated pow stick.
I think their optimal snow would be some kind of british columbia snow : Ski that plows through wet pow and dont mind the occasional thin layers of crust.
On the classical euro scale, from 4-to-10, I would give them a solid 8-.
Stable,easy,predictable,damp but passive,unpoppy,rubbery and booooring kind of skis.
Bookmarks