Originally Posted by
Bandit Man
I spent a few hours on my new Cochise 106 today. Here are some very preliminary thoughts...
Skier Info: 5' 8"...about 200-lbs right now (yeah for COVID weight!); 47-yo...skiing since age 5; Boots - 2018 Tecnica Cochise 130
Setup - 2021 Cochise 106 - 185-cm mounted with Salomon Warden 13 MNC Demo and skied on the recommended line.
Detune - I took a "hard" gummi stone and made several passes along the rockered sections and to about 1 inch beyond the contact points; After my first run, the skis felt a little too grabby under foot, so I took a few passes with a "soft" gummi along the full length of the skis. Problem solved.
Conditions - Off-Piste: 10-20" of medium density powder on top of a very hard crust; On-Piste: 4-6" of pow that fell after the slopes were groomed. Groomers were a mess when I got to them with Cochise, which was kind of perfect for testing.
Swing-weight: Even with the demo bindings, they feel lighter and easier to toss around than other vintages of the Cochise I have skied. I current own year 2 and 3 iterations of the heralded OG Cochise in a 185-cm. I also owned the first major re-design model (blue with carbon tips and tails). I skied them 3-days and sold them. Too harsh to ski (for me) and nowhere near as loose and fun as the OG version. Anyhow, they do "feel" a bit lighter to me...whether or not that is good remains to be seen.
Powder: I spent the morning on my 119-cm in the waist 193 Volkl Shiro, so switching to these I expected a huge difference in float. Up to about 10-12", they float well enough, especially compared to other Cochise variants. Not amazing float, but certainly passable.
Pivotability: This is the biggest surprise and probably the strongest attribute of the ski...they pivot so easy and ski really loose, especially in soft snow. The rocker profile in the tip is very similar to my OG 185, but the tail on the 106 model has a lot less rocker. I was concerned that the ski would hang up or at a minimum, not pivot as well as the OG variant. Despite the reduced tail rocker, they are really loose in soft bumps and soft snow of any type. Coupled with the 24-m radius, they never, ever felt hooky. They are quite similar to the OG model in this regard. I wouldn't say they ski as loose as the 192 MFree 108, but for a ski with a much flatter tail, they aren't that far off. Most people know I am a fan of the Katana K108. I won't go into a detailed comparison of these two skis since I have such limited time on the Cochise 106, but I'm fairly certain at this point that the Cochise 106 skis looser in deep snow than the Katana K108. Both ski soft snow loose in the tail, but the Cochise 106 seems more natural and easier to break the tail loose and throw the ski sideways.
Soft crud/cut up powder: They push through this stuff just fine. Maybe not quite as adeptly as the OG Cochise, but very close.
Soft Groomers: Our recent spring freeze-thaw cycle ice has been covered up by last night's storm (hurray!!), so groomers were very soft and really messy in most spots. They ski groomers well-enough, but compared to my M102's and K108's with a 20-m and 19-m radius under foot for each ski, the 24-m radius made the ski less intuitive to me on groomers. It's easy to get on edge, but just isn't as natural a carver (at least in today's conditions) as the Volkls. I want to get them out in better groomed conditions to see how they really perform as a frontside tool.
Speed: They seem to like it. On the torn up groomers I felt like I wasn't quite as comfortable on this Cochise 106 as I have been on the OG version. The new ones go just as fast, but seem to pass on more of the terrain feedback to the skier. They just weren't as confidence inspiring to let them run. Again, need more time before making a final decision.
Final Thoughts: This isn't the OG Cochise. It feels somewhere between the OG Version and the carbon-tipped variant that just wanted to go fast. They are a fun and capable big-mountain ski that excels in soft snow and is above average on shredded groomers. There is definitely a strong resemblance to the OG Cochise off-piste, where that playful charger character shines, but they feel less like that version on packed or groomed snow, where they felt somewhat less damp and at times jarring.
Still a Cochise...but not quite the OG...for better or worse...it will be up to you to determine that.
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