Blizzard G Force Supersonic IQ

Me: 53 yo. (and 44 year skier), 5'9.5 and 160lbs, level 9 (so I have been told by instructors), Eastern skier, preferred terrain - short turns down steep fall line



Current ride: 2007-8 Blizzard Titan Cronus; Dalbello Krypton Pro



Location: Tested at Sugarloaf (Maine) April 11, 2009/Les Deux Alpes, June 2009



Conditions: Classic spring skiing in Maine - 45-50 degrees
                 LDA ski camp on glacier

  Snow: Sugarloaf - Groomed hardpack and ice on top/ ungroomed mash potatoes at mid/ corn toward bottom
            Les Deux Alpes - from frozen corduroy to mush (all in four hours)



Test: I have wanted to test this ski since I first started reading about it earlier this year. And I have been a member of the elusive "Blizzard clan" since I got my Titan Cronus's late last year. I have grown to love the TC's. They are the ultimate fun ski - easy going, frolicking, always agreeable. On soft snow they carve with an edge unexpected from a ski with an 88mm waist, soft tip and no metal top sheet. While they have a big turning radius (19m?), they can be pressed with no effort into short scarved turns without balking. I took them to Vail and Deer Valley for my first out west in February and March. No big pow but some boot top height at Vail and softies at Deer Valley. The TC shined and gave me the confidence to get into the Daly Chutes which I would not have done if not for the utter trust in the TC. 

But they have their limits. No ski can do it all. And when you get the TC on real hard pack and ice it looks up at you wondering if you are mad. Not that it can not handle these conditions. I can scarve my way down the edges of an ice covered trail. But forget trying to hold an edge on a traverse or in medium turns. And that is no criticism of the TC. No hammer should be asked to tighten a screw.

That is why I wanted to try the Supersonic. And I was not disappointed. But I was not immediately smitten by them either. I skied them the entire day. It was 40 degrees warming to 50 as the sun rose. My first two runs were on flat, wide blue level trails. The snow was soft (3-4"), ungroomed with small clumps of mush. My first reaction after pushing off was that these skis seem a LOT longer than the TC's. But there is only 1mm difference. I figured out it was because I could feel the entire length of the ski. On the TC, the tails are, how shalI say, a throwaway. And that caused me some issues at first. The long turns I made were splendid. The Supersonics hook up quickly and effortlessly and will stay fixed on a trajectory until instructed to change edge, which again was effortless. I skied timidly for the first couple runs not knowing how the low profile tip and medium narrow waist (72mm) would handle the softies - not their optimal terrain. Not to worry. I was struck by the amount on energy the skis seemed to dissipate. They did not so much float over the soft, even with the wide shovel (123mm?) as plow through it. In his excellent review, gcanoe described the ski as "glued" to the snow surface. That was my impression as well. You really can let these skis run with utter confidence, even on ungroomed softies. Conversely, I saw a bunch of racer types on their short Atomic and Fischer race boards get bounced all over the place on this snow.

The trouble began with those short turns I like to make. I initiated a few and thought "What the hell. Why won't the tails release?" Lesson #1. The TC are a scarvers delight. With a big radius and soft tail, you make short turns by carving the top of the turn and scarve the rest. Not with the Supersonics, and particularly not in mush. Once hooked up, they want you to complete the turn. I tried to overski and even manhandle them. Not good. And so I listened and learned. Be patient. Apply increasing pressure throughout the turn and the ski will come around and in a lovely line. Thank you for that lesson. So I did. And was rewarded with the experience of carving the full short radius turns. This lesson came in handy later in the day. So after a few runs, we were getting to know each other. I was gaining more confidence as I began to figure out what this ski wanted me to do.

As the day progressed, I discovered that this ski does not necessarily demand very precise technique but certainly rewards it. I own a pair of Volkl Supersport 6* in 175cm. They punish any technical indiscretion. While the Supersonics might "roll their eyes," at a technical blunder, they remain kind if not impatient for you to get your sh*t back together. And ultimately I did. First, I tested different postures - crouched, forward, back, etc. And I found that the best that worked for me was a more upright, very centered stance. I am upright on the TC's as well, but tend to have my center of pressure just aft of the arch. Looking back, I suspect that I do this to try to engage the tail more. You do not have to do this on the Supersonic. It rewards dead centered COM (if that is a proper use of the term), subject to tweaks on the fly, of course. In this stance, you feel the entire length of the ski which feels very engaged. I ski in Dalbello Krypton Pros and have found that I use my knees a great deal to fine tune turns, much more than I did in my old Tecnica XT 17 plugs. And the Supersonics approve.

The best skiing of the day was high up on the hill where the snow was still hard and shallow. And there were some steep sheets of ice. Just what I got this ski for. As an aside, they came from the Happy Tunes ski shop in Carrabassett Valley, which put an absolutely killer tune on them. I later learned that they tune their skis before every demo. That is righteous. Great guys too. Got to love a ski shop that dedicates more square footage to its tuning enterprise than to its retail space.

So I made my way over to White Nitro which by reputation has some of the steepest pitches in the East. The trail is wide and was free of bumps, for the most part. It is groomed by winch. And because it stayed cold higher up, the groomers were able to get up it recently. In the morning, the surface was hard and edgible, with sheets of ice where turning was marginal. Again, I like to ski the fall line with short turns for speed control. I skied this same trail in very similar conditions two weeks ago on the TC's. I swear they sent me the following message through my feet: "What the hell am I doing here." Fair enough. There was no way to hold an edge on the icy traverse. The heels kept washing out even with very focused boot pressure and CM moving down hill. But I could scarve down the edge in my usual fashion. Here is where their burly brother really shined. The steeper the pitch, the more responsive and surefooted the Supersonics were. No tail wash today. Nice surgically cut short and medium turns all the way down. The ski was so quick to move edge to edge and hook up that I could literally go as slow as I wanted down this 30 plus degree hardpack/icy slope. At the end of the trail extention, and just before it dumps unceremoniously on a flat cat track, the trail steepens considerably. I have read it is 58 degrees. I am not a good judge of such things, but it is steep and usually has a sheet of ice from folks skidding down it. Not the Supersonics. They just continued to carve down the icy edge. If there was a bit of scarving, it was from me, not them, losing my "edge." As I looked up the pitch, I saw people timidly picking and sliding their way down. Now while I do know how to ski these conditions, the Supersonic just let me do it with great confidence.

For me that run was the litmus test. The Supersonics proved to be as capable and dependable in hard and ice as their TC brother is in the soft stuff. 

I am not much of a bump skier. But I was on these, and it surprised the crap out of me that a ski that can do the icy steeps and run on the wild side, can do the bumps easy enough for me to do enjoy the bumps. Now I am not talking about a mogul field, but bumps the that inevitably form from a day of skiers sculpting turns on soft. They were fun on these skis because I could literally carve quick power turns around the bumps, like a sports cars threading a line of cones. And I was also suprised to find that when I went over one (with soft knees), the ski seemed to absorb the energy from it rather than spool up and bounce as the TC's tend to do. Again, the "glue factor." It was great fun, so much so that I went looking for this terrain. 

By the end of the day, I really felt as if I had a handle on this ski which is so much different that the TC. I was even able to coax it into a series of scarved turns down a straight trail that is about 7' wide. They didn't like it, but they did it. The Volkl 6* would have catapulted me into the nearest pine tree - and snickered.

To be fair to the Supersonics, I was using these skis mostly in soft, ungroomed conditions where they could not be expected to shine. But they did. Truly I would have been happier dancing around on the 88mm TC's yesterday. But the Supersonics, even on my first day on them, and learning how to ski this ski, performed admirably in the soft stuff and bumps, and majestically on the the steep hardpacked and ice. 

Trying new skis out is fun, particularly when they are so different from your current ride. The best part was that I learned as much about my skiing and technique yesterday as I did about the qualities of this ski. When a ski can teach you something, you should listen. I came away thinking that the TC is the ski for how I turn, and the Supersonic is the ski for how I aspire to turn. I learned to be patient and allow the ski's geometry to take command without my interference. And I was rewarded with an utterly unflappable and even elegant ride. And that is why I am going to buy a pair. I can not imagine a better two ski Eastern quiver than the Blizzard brothers. And while I know that they are out of stock now, I have read that, except for graphics, the ski is the same for 2010.

I finally want to mention that this ski seems to be skier size sensitive as well. The most favorable reviews have come from skiers, like me, who are lightweights. At least one reviewer, who topped the scale at around 200 and was well over 6' found it to be unsubstantial, while he found the Dynastar 4x4 to be more to his liking. I have tried to write this review in as painful detail as possible in the event that someone is not in a position to demo before buying. But I strongly encourage trying this ski before pulling the trigger. The Titan Cronus you could buy untested. I did on a lark from Tramdock, and it has been great. But it is a much easier going ride and does not make the kinds of demands the Supersonics do. But if you get on the Supersonics and listen to them, they will be a great partner on the hill, and may just make you a better skier. Thanks for reading.

 Post script (update 11/09):
 After completing this review, and reading of other's experiences with the Supersonic, I went on a quest for the the ski in the 167cm and ultimately found a demo pair from a shop in Vermont. Picked them up in May for a trip in June to Les Deux Alpes for a ski camp on the glacier. Spent six days of drilling, training, drilling, training with master teacher Rick Schnellman (aka Fastman). Could not imagine a better teacher or better ski for the experience.

  First off, the 167cm was better for my size than the 174cm, at least in these circumstances. We were doing slow speed drills that involved just a couple turns each time. The Supersonics were brilliant with this slow dance. No demands. No pushing to go faster to be compliant. The 174's, with the longer tail, would have required more speed. But, as I found with the 174's, it is a technical ski that rewards good technique. And not only did Rick let me know when I was getting it, the Supersonics did as well. 

The conditions at LDA were also perfect for ski testing. We would get up on the glacier at 8:00 and it would be rock hard corduroy. With each run, the conditions would soften. And by the last run, around 12:30, we would be high up on the glacier, and the snow would be mush. That is when they closed the lift. The Supersonic seemed unruffled by any of these conditions. The fact that it clearly excelled in the softer conditions, simply reflects my own limitations. Simply put, this is a perfect ski for the Eastern skier (with the Titan Cronus or progeny for those powder glory days). And the better you are, they better they are. Just as Nolo says below, they are ready to do all the work. Makes the ski utterly delightful and less fatiguing than most, even when there is work to be done.

While my experience with this ski at speed was limited given the training regimen, I got to let them rip on the last run of the session. It was on the GS course set for the racers. Just like I like it. Steep and smooth. Speed + Supersonics + Technique = WOW! I made the best turns of my 40+ years of skiing. The Supersonics were rock solid at appx 40mph - even in the 167cm. Rick said they were the best turns I had made all week. Nothing like a little speed....

  By the end of the week, I went from "skiing like Stein no longer skis" as I put it, to someone who was carving with angulation, counter and inside leg extension. Totally revolutionized my skiing. I have Rick to thank for that - and the Supersonics as well. They did help to make me a better skier, just as I thought they would. Highest marks.
 

I was looking for an east coast groomer ski since that's where I spend most of my time. The Supersonic seemed to fill the bill for me because:
I like wood core skis with metal in them.
I like basic sandwich skis with vertical sidewalls.
I like skis with low camber.
I like the simplicity of the IQ system.
I like the Duke type heel piece.
I find the Blizzard line the most organized and well defined so there was little involved in figuring out which model would do the job.
My old friend Weems said he was going to be on them this year.

Reservations:
The shape (123-72-105) is more extreme than any ski I've owned. The length (174) make this the shortest ski I've owned.
Would it be too unstable at speed or force me to make to make short radius turns all the time? I've been skiing on skis in the Volkl G40, G4, AX4, Explosiv, Mantra (love the 06-07 Mantra) lineage for quite a while and like the feel of those skis. With ex-Volkl engineers on board at Blizzard, my guess was that they would get it right. To put things in context, I'm not a fan of the Volkl AC3, AC30, AC40 genre. Too much camber, too heavy an edge for my tastes which (to me) limits their versatility. Also not a fan of the fan favorite Dynastar Legend 8000. Autodrive don't work for me.

Conditions:
Well groomed eastern snow.

First impressions: Very favorable. No weirdness. Comfortable and balanced from the first turn.

Second date: I skied on them twice this week and they've only gotten better. They are very predictable, or as my wife would say, "obedient." Like a faithful dog (dog in the good sense)they only want to please their master. Easy pressure and they turn easy. Quick carved turn? No problem. Stomp on the gas? They give you a strong, balanced platform to stand against. Dial up the speed and make big radius turns? They lay right down and hug the snow. The best thing is that they allow me relax and let the ski do the work. Get on them early in the turn and they take it from there. You can tighten up the radius with a little more pressure, or back off and let them run. There wasn't any super slick stuff, but they held and carved without protest on the hardest stuff I could find.

I have not skied them in anything but consistent, hard snow conditions, but my experience is that if they work well there, they'll work well anywhere.

Me: 6'0", 175 lbs. High level skier (don't know what those level numbers mean). Spend lots of time off piste and touring in the spring in Europe. Bought my first AT boots in '82.

Other rambling random observations: The past few years I've convinced myself that I can ski everything on 85 - 95 mm waisted skis. That's true up to a point, but getting on these makes me think that I've been missing out on a lot of fun. Bob Barnes has made some good comments here on how he uses his narrower Head skis at Jackson a lot and how he is still learning about all the things that he can do with them. All I know is that I can't wait to go skiing again.

Bottom line: Definitely worth a good hard look if you're thinking about something in that category. I'm betting that they work well pretty much anywhere, but time will tell.

by Choucas 12/5/08

[Copy of post on member gear pages here. Moderator asked that I post a duplicate here rather than just a link.]
 

Ski: 08/09 Blizzard G-Force Supersonic IQ, 167cm.

Me: 5’ 7”, 130lbs, 46yo, level 8, right coast

Executive Summary

What I liked, in rough order of importance to me:

§         At medium to high speeds, amazingly quick & reactive. Responsive to small inputs without being abrupt or unpredictable in any way.

§         Superb grip

§         Curious but wonderful combination of light weight with relatively high stability

§         Smooth, effortless initiation in hardpack arcs

§         Wide range of turn shapes – not a specialist ski

§         Born to carve, even at milder edge angles (thus, perhaps, the range of turn shapes)

§         Perfect tune out of the box

§         Good length fit for me – no wish for a “between” size (bridge of nose @ 167cm)

§         The way my ski buddies say “Blizzards? Really? Huh. Hmm. Really? Blizzards? Okay. If you say so.”

What I could live without, in order of importance:

§         Smallish sweet spot in softer snow and on slower “scarved” turns (but I expect I will dial that in after another day or two)

§         Not the easiest initiator in same conditions as above

§         Somewhat jarring in “mini-crud”

§         The fact that I couldn’t buy them used or deeply discounted as a last-year’s model

§         Metallic noise on hard snow, that at least one other reviewer mentioned

§         Foil top sheet that has already proved a bit too easy to scrape off

Overall

§         A sports car thrill ride for able lightweights who want to carve it up on hardpack, but don’t want the responsibility of having to push a race ski all the time. Not for skidders or soft snow, unless you’re bigger than I am.

The Gory Details

I demo’d several skis in my quest to replace my Fischer World Cup RCs with a hard snow ski that is better suited to my light weight, is a bit turnier, and that will be slightly more versatile without sacrificing too much hard snow grip or high speed stability. A couple of these reviews can be found here. I was interested in shopping around at this time of year, when prices tend to be relatively low and my skiing is fairly well dialed in. One of the skis that I had been most anxious to try was the Blizzard Supersonic, based on a combination of magazine reviews and commentary found on this board. I found this thread and this one particularly compelling. Unfortunately I was not able to find anywhere even to LOOK at a pair of these, let alone demo them, within a reasonable distance. Meanwhile I liked the Head Supershape Magnum a lot. It was very close to what I was looking for. Hindsight revealed that I probably should have been on the 170 instead of the 163, and that part of what I did not like about the ski might have been attributable to Head’s allegedly unreliable factory base angles. However, the logistics and expense of making a second demo pass to try to figure out if those factors would turn “like” into “love” were a big hurdle. (I could just picture the eye-rolling “get a load of this dude,” reactions of the shop staff as I tried to explain my nerdy concerns about base bevel issues I heard about on the Internet.)  I was feeling a bit of time pressure as most eastern areas and ski shops were visibly winding down the season. Most of them had long ago shipped their demos off to … wherever it is that demos go to await the late fall ski swaps. I was seriously considering just ordering a pair of the SS 170s from Dawgcatching. (Who helped me out a LOT with narrowing my choices and who had a good price on this ski. Thanks, Scott!) I had pretty much exhausted all available demos of candidate skis – which included the Progressor 8, among others - within a two hour drive. Just about then, I located someone a couple states away who had the Supersonic in my size of choice for a reasonable price (even though it was still about double what I’d ever paid for a pair of skis) and was willing to ship free. I took a deep breath and bought them, un-demo’d. Gasp!

Any review under these circumstances is highly suspect. Who is going to admit – even to himself, let alone on the open Internet – that he spent a lot of money on something untried and then didn’t like what he got? Point is that I am attempting to make an effort here to counterbalance my own consumer psychology with healthy skepticism. That said, I now have several hours on this ski on two different days and I’m convinced I made a fantastic choice. (The “right” choice? Who knows.) Strangely enough for Maine, there hasn’t really been all that much hard snow around lately for proper testing, but I did get two good hours in at the ‘Loaf this week on some very firm but very consistent corduroy. This ski absolutely rocks for me in these conditions.

Maybe it sounds stupid, but my very first impression was that these were the sharpest boards I’d ever been on. Obviously they must have had a very good tune, but I’m sure my impression came from more than just that; for some reason I seem to be able to just glue the entire edge of this ski to the snow and keep it there, even at relatively low angles. Turns initiate quicker and less fussily on this ski than on my RCs, and I can vary the turn shape more easily. It’s just way easier to ski. So, one goal achieved. At the same time, it seems fully in the same league in terms of grip. Stability is definitely lower than the RC’s – no surprise there, I guess. For one thing, the RCs are about 15lbs and these are less than 12. You feel that right away. However, the more I skied the more I realized that only part of what I was feeling here was a real loss of stability. Most of it was psychological. The Supersonics are not the least bit jittery or squirrelly. And they have none of that brittle, glassy feeling that some Salomons, such as the GC from a couple years ago, have, that I hate. They’re just lighter and quicker-reacting and not quite as damp. The more I skied them, the more confidence I had on them at speed. At first I had to be careful not to do anything too sudden, lest I get too big and quick a response from the skis. and I wasn’t sure I liked that. After a little while longer, though, I actually started to get really psyched about how much more control I had over them with small movements. What had seemed at first like a bug now seemed like a feature. Seriously. I’m pretty sure that if I got back on the RCs – since sold to a bigger friend – I would find them ponderous now. The Supersonics are just sooo reactive, and I seem to have become addicted to that quickly. J  Also, the length of the ski just feels right to me. I don’t have any of that nagging feeling that I’d really like the ski a lot better if it was 4 or 5 cm longer or shorter.

The feel of these skis was much closer to that of the Fischer Race SC Pro that I’d demo’d (and reviewed elsewhere) than it was to the feel of the SS Magnums. Neither the Fischer nor the Blizzard is really damp, and both are very crisp and confidence-inspiring on edge. I didn’t ski them side-by-side on the same day, but my feeling is that the SCs were interested primarily in short turns, and that they were distinctly better at true slalom-radius ones than the Supersonics are. The Supersonics are really more of a medium-radius ski both on paper and in practice. However, the Blizzards work for me in a wider range of turn sizes, and are more stable with the gas pedal down. I didn’t notice any lack of edge-to-edge quickness at all with these skis, even though they verge on a waist width that would have been called a mid-fat six or seven years ago. At any rate, if there’s a limitation there, I’m not discriminating enough to appreciate it.

The Heads were even easier to initiate than the Blizzards, with their soft tips. This was very noticeable at lower speeds and/or on softer snow, and I much prefer the Heads on that score. I’m thinking, though, that the relatively stiffish forebody on the Supersonics is probably one of the things that helps them rail on the hardpack, and since that’s their primary intended usage for me, I have to give that more weight. Like the Race SCs, the Heads have more sidecut and do make very short arcs more easily than the Blizzards. But the Supersonics feel like they have far tighter steering and suspension. With a few hundred turns under my belt I REALLY don’t think I’d want to give that up, now that I’ve started to groove into it with subtler and easier foot and lower leg movements. [Insert your analogy to a favorite parallel activity here – sporty cars, chef’s knives, bicycle geometry, etc.] Moreover, they feel more secure at speed than the Heads did for me. Yes, the Magnums were damp and calm, but the edge simply did not have the same glued-down feeling I get with the Sonics, except when I had them WAY up on the sidewalls in a knuckle-dragger turn… and then you lose the turn-shape flexibility. I guess I’ll never know if I’d still think that, if I got onto a pair of the 170 Magnums with a known-good tune, but I can live with the uncertainty. ;-)

So what were the downsides? Well, for me, at least, there were some, believe it or not. One of the goals I had was to get onto a hard-snow ski that was still decent in the bumps and in small quantities of soft chop. Unfortunately I did not get to ski any of these skis in real bumps. The SS Magnum was definitely better than my other candidates in the soft chop. It’s the soft tips again. Another reviewer said that he didn’t like “tip deflection” in these conditions. I do. I want the ski to absorb some of the shock, even if it throws me slightly off line. I’m usually not doing a full-on carved turn in these conditions anyway, so who cares? (This is where I love my Dynastar Legends.) The Supersonics were better than my RCs, and better than the Fischer Race SC Pros at this. But they’re not great. The very low-profile tip tends to cut through the clumps of soft snow instead of riding over them (“tip deflection”). Perhaps irrationally, this kind of tip also makes me nervous in bumps. The somewhat stiff front end can be jarring when blasting through uneven "mini-crud."

For the same reason, initiating semi-carved “brush” turns on steeper slopes is not always easy for me on these skis. (Although I was getting more of a feel for it as I skied them more.) If you are patient and accurate with your movements, and have bulletproof “instructor turn” technique, they will perform well in this kind of turn. In this sense, I feel that these are quite demanding boards and would not necessarily make great learning tools for someone of my size. I know this contradicts what a couple of other posters have said. There is just a whole lot of  “snap” to these skis, which is a good thing only when you’ve learned how to control it. And controlling it is harder at slow speeds, because the timing is more difficult: You’ve got to know how to wind up the ski and keep it wound up until the right moment, even without the continuous supply of energy available in a longer turn at higher speeds. For lighter folks like me, this can be a challenge with anything but a very soft ski.

In the end I think I resigned myself to the fact that I just wasn’t going to get the soft snow behavior I wanted out of a true hard snow carver. But I totally achieved the objective of getting a high-performing speed-tolerant ski that was much easier to ski and much better suited to my size and style than the cheater GS skis from Fisher, Atomic, Volkl, etc. that I once thought were the obvious choices.