Aspen trip
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago by Seth Masia
Went over to Aspen for a couple of days before Christmas, to ski with Sven Coomer, Wayne Wong and John Clendenin. In this company I knew we’d ski fast, so I took my good skis, the metal Wagners (72mm waist, 166cm, 11m radius).
Sven wanted me to try some new boots — the Head Raptor Supershape, a plug boot with a solid upright stance and very narrow last, especially in the heel. For the past couple of years I’ve been in the Rossignol Race 1 Pro shell, with a Zipfit liner. We popped the liners into the Heads, and Sven ground the inside of the Head shell near the toe buckle rivet to take the pressure off the lateral metatarsal.
The stance in the Head is more upright than in the Rossignol, and the closer around the heel gives a better sense of power. I felt really rooted to the skis. We skied hard snow, especially in spar gulch, and I was able to match Wayne ’s snaky fast short-radius carves. Exhilarating. I like the boots. I love the skis.
Happy to report that Clendenin still skis like a pro moguls world champion, and Sven still skis like a guy who trained with Perillat and Killy back in the day. –Seth Masia
Permalink · Posted by Seth Masia · December 24th, 2009 · · Read 1 Comment
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March 18th, 2010 at 12:48 am Steve
Seth,
I’m very happy to have stumbled into your blog. Sorry if I’m off topic. Over the years I’ve learned more about ski equipment from your articles and videos than anywhere else.
Young whippersnappers may chuckle at my quest to replace my old K2 Merlin VI skis. I’m too cheap to replace skis until I get significant miles on them and also need to find new skis that are much better than my old skis for my typical skiing conditions. As I generally only ski 7-15 days a year, it takes me a while to feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth.
I love to ski (or at least pretend I can ski) powder. But it seems the odds of getting more than 5″ on my trips is less than 20%. That and the fact that I can enjoy powder on any ski and find it too scary to use any ski without great grip on ice, leads me to discount a ski’s soft snow abilities. I generally ski on steeper, groomed runs at various western resorts, though occasionally in the Midwest. I probably am not going to purposely ski many mogul runs in future years.
I’ve demoed about 10 pairs of skis in the last 3 years. I liked a few (Head Xenon Xi 9.0, K2 Apache Recon, ) better than my 188cm Merlins. Less so with a Volkl Tigershark. All were 170-177cm. I’m not sure if it was the tuning or the way I ski. I prefer my Merlins to the other skis I tried except for the Atomic Metron B5i. Those Metrons really stood out. They made it very easy to rip railroad tracks on hard snow and blasted through 6-8″ of cut up, wet Whistler snow. The B5i weighed a ton. Did the weight contribute to how well they skied through crud?
I would have bought the Metron B5i demo pair had they gripped the ice better at Snowmass this year. The edges seemed sort of sharp as measured by shaving my fingernail, though not as sharp as the polished edges on my K2 Merlins. Would the right edge tune make the 76mm waist Metron hold ice as well as my K2 Merlins? Could the 2 year old Metron demos have been skied on so much that their ice holding ability deteriorated? Would the 162cm hold ice better than 172cm?
As the Metron B5i is no longer made, can custom skis be made to duplicate the feel? Can other skis carve as easily as the Metrons or is it just a matter of me improving my ski technique that may have not been updated much in the years since I raced in the Midwest in college in the 1970s?
Someone suggested I try slalom race skis. Would 165 cm retail race skis make sense for an old fart recreational skier? I’d love to spend enough time in ski country to enter masters races, but I’ll probably only get into a few Nastar races. Our club will probably ski at Telluride next year. Is it likely any shop there will demo slalom skis?
As I live in Hawaii and have to pay too much to lug more than one pair of skis, I want one pair to do everything. The Metron B5i seemed really close to that if they’d hold a bit better on ice, but are no longer made. Did not enough other people like them? Is there anything else like them?
Thanks,
Steve