The worst ski ever made - Page 5

The early K-2's had this similar problem of construction . With a metal ski I could bend them and get them straightened only to do it again but with a fibreglass sandwich ski they would snap and be hanging by the threads of glass cloth
I will nominate the K-2 comp for this reason and for the fact I saw too many others in similar states. Very dissapointing as I was so proud of these skis when I bought them before they, or one at least, became garbage

No, Jimi, the PRs are the worst ever. I'd rather be on a snowboard than those skis!

Just kidding. There is nothing wrong with most of the skis on this list. Some of the older models can't compare to today's boards, but I think the skis are getting unfairly blamed for bad skiing in a lot of cases.

I'm sure PRs still rip. I never ski them, but I know they would out-perform most skis I've used. In fact, they would out-perform most of the skis I own now.

Spoiled rich whiners.

Pocket Rocket

Ok, so it's a noodle and only gapers ski it. But I found one at REI for $90, new, in a 165 (for the lady ).

Which leads me to think -- there might be a worst ski ever, but shouldn't we preface these remarks with some sort of idea about the fiscal aspect of skis? What is the worst ski for the money? I wouldn't call a PR for 90 the worst ski ever, I'd call a pair of beat up twins that didn't have any edge or base left at a ski swap for 90 a worse ski...

I won a pair of blue and white Yamaha Hi-Flex skis (195cms) around 1972 in a drawing when my number (actually it was my mom's) was personally drawn by Olympian Spider Sabich at a ski store give-away in Tyson's Corner, VA (memory fails, might have been Alpine Ski Shop grand opening at its early location?). I enjoyed skiing them about 30-50 days a season in the East until 1978 (they outlasted poor Spider). Took 'em to Colorado one March and remember jump-turning through deep crust/crud all day in Vail's back bowls. One man's treasure is another man's trash.

James, I rented Yamaha All-Round IIIs from Woodward and Lothrups downtown circa 1970. They were the first modern (not wood) ski I used and I could finally make parallel turns! Among the greatest skis of all time in my book.

I read an article a couple years ago on Howard Head's original metal prototype skis. I believe it was in American Heritage's Invention & Technology magazine; I wished I had kept it.

Howard used various ski instructors to test his skis. After taking a trial run, one of his testers reported back and said "perhaps if you polish up the ski a bit more you could hang it for use as a shaving mirror. As a ski, it is useless". :

Howard got many other less-then-positive comments before hitting on a winning formula, but that's the comment that I have remembered.

Mine were Orange. Had them in 1976, used un NE and Austria. Perhaps I felt that way because of the excellent Spauldings I had previously.

Did he go on to provide leadership for Volants to fix this shortcoming and eventually create some well made skis?

I just went outside to take a look at these skis that I have sitting next to the garbage can.... Very sorry looking skis.

Tua - Excaliber

Ok, I didn't buy them they were thrown into a deal when I was buying some old randonee bindings. I took them up to Mt. Rainier, they didn't ski well and then the metal top sheets delaminated. So, here I am stomping around in the snow with these metal topsheets flapping in the breeze... slap, slap... slap.

Tried gorilla glue and screws... What was really holding the top sheets on were the bindings. Finally ripped the metal off and left the sorry things lay out in the back yard for about a year... Now, I've decided that if I stick them in the garbage can, maybe they will disappear.

Aren't all metal topsheets doomed to eventually delam? Or are these just the crappiest skis ever?

I have to go with those who have already mentioned The Ski. The other skis on this list don't even come close to how bad this ski was. The first generation model had a core made of sagebrush (abundant in the hills of Idaho) and lasted approx. one run. Burns later used a foam core, but that didn't help much. I skied at Sun Valley one day in 1976 with Bob Burns and his posse. He used poles that looked about 5 feet long. And......(help me here with the name of those ski boots that had interchangable styrofoam liners, 2 buckles and ultra thin plastic shells that broke in half in the first hard impact?).....my nomination for worst boots. He leaned back and swiveled The Ski skis back and forth down the fall line because they couldn't hold an edge for love or money. When he got going too fast he would throw off a hockey stop turn to slow down. It was quite hilarious. In his defense, skiing technique was going through sort of a 'disco phase' where shaking your booty was all the rage. Still it was one bad ski!

Scott Boots, 2 models..Ultralite and Ultrahot II.

I have had some conversations with Bobbie, interesting character.

Rossignol Mutex is the worst ski presently being made. A GS and SL ski in one? Maybe it would be ok for wanna be James Bond types who want to pull out a suitcase before each race and change the ski arms depending on the event. I have yet to see any of the ski shops stocking these and they haven't been written up in any of the buyer's guides.

You have skied them?

I hate to say anything bad about Fischer, 'cause I've probably had more of their skis than anyone else's and generally loved them. But the RC4 SC is probably the only ski I ever sold at a big loss because I just didn't like it.

MultiX - yeah they suck.

What was the Dynamic VR something they came out with in 1971 or so with the segmented aluminum SIDEWALL? Not only did they ski like crap, the sidewall broke off in chunks.

 I can name several bad skis
THE Ski
Durafiber
Olin mark4
Hexcellerator
Fullplost
Grizzley
Molnar
Lange
original Volant

There are no bad skis, only bad skiers. 

I actually owned a pair of 202cm Spauding Heli skis, with a helicoptor on the top sheet. When I bought it in 1988, I was wondering why the price is only $99. And the indent to heli ski was never realized, so I took to the normal slopes and then I know why was the price. 

K2 Bermuda shorts...

 I vote Rossignol FM.  I can't even find a photo of one to post because they are all blown up

Ditto. The worst.

My vote has always been for the Dynamic with the segmented aluminum sidewalls which broke off in chunks.  Skied like crap too.  I can't remember the model, but it came out in about 1970, and was the first new ski after the VR-17.  Way to follow up a legend!

Must've been the VR-27.

The Ski

 There was a ski a while ago called PRE which I found to be the worst ski I ever skied, except for a pair of skis tuned by a friend of mine. I was afraid to ski to the bottom of the hill because of the fear of getting hurt. I walked to a lift, went to the top and went down on the gondola. Back to the PRE. In one magazine it was rated the worst ski of the season.   

I will respectfully disagree with you. While I will admit The Ski was never one of the highest skis ranked in durability, they are no where near the worst ski ever made. I still take out an (almost) 35 year old pair every year and have fun on them, I can't say that about too many skis from the mid 70's. 



PRE did market, I say market, because PRE never made thier own skis, they marketed skis built by other manufactures under the PRE (short for PRECISION) name some poor skis. The early PRE skis, the "hundred series", 800, 1000, 1200, 1200SP and 1600GSP were very nice skis. These were actually built by K2. Later PRE did start getting skis from the Head factory some models that come to mind The Premier and the M6, these I was never a fan of.  I skied and actually still have (somewhere) a pair of 1200SP's that were some real beefy skis and had a hand signed "race flex"sticker with a race flex in the low 20's, VO Slaloms ran from 22-26, so these were stiffer than a 712 of the day and along the lines of a softer VO, pretty good company. 

In later years the PRE name was bastardized and did market some pretty serious crap, but don't let those crap skis deminish the fact that they did offer some very fine product in their early years. 

For the (one) worst ski ever made, I still will stand by my pick of the Elan Stealth. There were many skis produced over the years that were lousy, much of that had to do with sub par production facilities or materials, the Stealth (87/45/87) was just a design that should have never left the drawing board.  Unless you were on pure hardpack, anything more than 1/4" of soft snow made the Stealth one of the scariest rides ever. 

Do you still have the red "The Ski" TRS's ?  If so, do you want to sell them ?