Piste Performance
As far as the latest technologies go, this is the cream of the crop. With these latest performance skis the manufacturers have thrown everything at them to make them well equipped to deal with the rigors of maintaining great edge grip, stability and maintaining a smooth ride while making high speed turns. It’s a category that recently seems to be making a bit of a resurgence, many skiers have tried All Mountain skis, but have realized that sometimes there is too much of a compromise to give a true adrenaline fuelled run on the groomers. Many of these piste skis deliver a performance which is close to race, and will guarantee maximum fun out of every turn.
Technically there have been many modifications and tweaks to these skis from last year, many of them utilizing lighter materials and design methods. Its well worth reflecting on what sort of skiing you enjoy on the piste before making a choice within this category, there is quite a range of performance and some skis will definitely favor a certain turn shape due to their sidecut and profile.
For female skiers, a lot of the design and construction of the skis within this category will mirror the men’s version, but often with tighter sidecuts and swapping heavier layers of reinforcement with a lighter material. Some skis tested here are super light underfoot, yet still manage to rip it up when skied hard. There is more choice of shorter lengths while many of them will have design features like a raised heel, different placement of the binding and lighter tip and tails to work with the difference in morphology between men and women.