Quote:
Originally Posted by
TheDad 
Usually, on-hill demo shops charge by the day and let you trade in and out to test multiple pairs of skis.
I think they probably
are softer. That's why I think of them as a western, rather than eastern, ski.
This is what comes from typing while your nine-year-old reads what you're typing aloud as you type it. I meant to say the Salomons were softer than the Dynastars. I've heard conflicting things about the Legends. About my 4800s, one site selling them suggested they were "good in the East, too," while somebody else said "you can use them in the West, but they're really more of an eastern ski," I guess because of their width (or lack of width). People talk about ice out here, and it's true we have it, but I find sudden mounds of crud more challenging, and the 4800s help with that. In ice they're acceptable. On the local "mountain" where my son takes board lessons, where the snowmaking is questionable and the grooming is . . . not yet fully mastered, the slopes sometimes look a lot like snow but are really sheets of crystalline concrete. The 4800s hold ok on that -- but it's no fun on the steep and narrow "black diamonds." (Worse was a two inch crust over four inches of fine powder -- cut you off at the shins!)
Demoing sounds great, if you're throwing $900 at a pair of skis -- on-slope shops aren't known for their incredible prices. (Incredibly low, I mean). We're both teachers, with great vacations and so-so pay -- I think we're lucky to pick up two-year-old models dirt cheap (especially when they're fresh out of the wrapper!). I have to save money for a boot-purchase -- the real thing, at a real boot-fitter, isn't cheap.
Thanks for the info, though. I'll look for a demo deal, if just to try out a bunch of skis, one pair of which I might buy a couple years later!
