Realskier ski reviews are up

I haven't read them yet, but from our experience here as our season comes to an end and we have been selling many of the skis about to come on sale in the Northern hemisphere, the big mover over here has been the K2 Rictor and the other skis with "Early rise".

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Originally Posted by paulski 

I haven't read them yet, but from our experience here as our season comes to an end and we have been selling many of the skis about to come on sale in the Northern hemisphere, the big mover over here has been the K2 Rictor and the other skis with "Early rise".

I haven't bought into the "Marketing Rocker", I think the manufacturers are using rocker in places where it isn't needed, K2 is one of the biggest offenders here. Now I will say I love what K2 did with the Rictor and particularly the it's big brother the Aftershock, these are not the spiritual successors to the Recon and Xplorer, these two skis took the Recon and Xplorers lunch money and kicked their wimpy asses off of the playground and it has nothing to do with "All-Terrain Rocker". 

I was just looking at the reviews on realskiers and the aftershock is one of the skis they panned the hardest. But they liked all the other new K2 earthquake line or whatever they call it.

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Originally Posted by Philpug these two skis took the Recon and Xplorers lunch money and kicked their wimpy asses off of the playground and it has nothing to do with "All-Terrain Rocker". 

Good description of the Recon. Whenever I hear "I love my Recon's", I  feel sad and can only surmise that whomever hasn't been on any decent skis, or would be just as happy on a 2 x 4. What an awful ski.

Recon finally gone- yeah! As you said - wimpy - they're the Bose of skiing - if you don't know any better, then they seem OK, but if you do know better, they're laughable in their mediocrity.

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Originally Posted by snofun3 

Good description of the Recon. Whenever I hear "I love my Recon's", I  feel sad and can only surmise that whomever hasn't been on any decent skis, or would be just as happy on a 2 x 4. What an awful ski.

 

Recon finally gone- yeah! As you said - wimpy - they're the Bose of skiing - if you don't know any better, then they seem OK, but if you do know better, they're laughable in their mediocrity.

ROFLMAO. I referred to them as the Lexus but I like Bose reference too. I never want to be old enough to appreciate a Recon. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by snofun3 

Good description of the Recon. Whenever I hear "I love my Recon's", I  feel sad and can only surmise that whomever hasn't been on any decent skis, or would be just as happy on a 2 x 4. What an awful ski.

 

Recon finally gone- yeah! As you said - wimpy - they're the Bose of skiing - if you don't know any better, then they seem OK, but if you do know better, they're laughable in their mediocrity.

I LMAO at this too.  Sorry about the uselessness of this post though Snofun3.
 

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Originally Posted by bjames 

The 2011 ski reviews for "major brands" are up on Peter Keelty's website.

To get back from the partial hijack on the Recon, based on a three minute quick look the realskier's reviews are full of info this year.  For example:

-- the numbers for the Head Peak 88's went up, while the Peak 82 got panned;

-- they loved the Volkl Kendo;

-- the Atomic Nomads did relatively well (based on a posting a few months ago here on Epic, I expected otherwise);

-- there was no review for the Titan Cronus.  Is it gone from the Blizzard line-up?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jimski 

To get back from the partial hijack on the Recon, based on a three minute quick look the realskier's reviews are full of info this year.  For example:

-- the numbers for the Head Peak 88's went up, while the Peak 82 got panned;

-- they loved the Volkl Kendo;

-- the Atomic Nomads did relatively well (based on a posting a few months ago here on Epic, I expected otherwise);

-- there was no review for the Titan Cronus.  Is it gone from the Blizzard line-up?

    

I've seriously been considering getting this as my "hard snow" ski.

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Originally Posted by ecimmortal 

I've seriously been considering getting this as my "hard snow" ski.

When you demo it, let me know what you think.  Since typically 1/2 to 2/3 of my skiing is "hard snow", this could be a good fit for me. 

It seems, having read the reviews, Realskiers is coming to terms with fatter skis (with a lot of positive nods for '115mm waisted' skis)--They'll always save the warmest regards for high level carvers (like the Palmer PO2, new Head WC slaloms, etc).

I Think the two best reviewed skis were the Kastle FX84 (as a AT all-arounder) and the SkiLogik Ullr's Chariot (which sounds great, but I had to look up Exotic Skis review here on Epic and search the web to find out anything about these skis and company I'd never heard of before).

All in all, I love Peter Keelty's website, I've been a long time subscriber and frequent user of the direct-one on one ski purchase advice.  Peter is a cool old cat who knows his skis and boots--he's got biases (like all of us) but he is very upfront about them.  

I always recommend his site to fellow skiers (especially less informed intermediates looking to step up their equipment game).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liam 

It seems, having read the reviews, Realskiers is coming to terms with fatter skis (with a lot of positive nods for '115mm waisted' skis)--They'll always save the warmest regards for high level carvers (like the Palmer PO2, new Head WC slaloms, etc).

 

I Think the two best reviewed skis were the Kastle FX84 (as a AT all-arounder) and the SkiLogik Ullr's Chariot (which sounds great, but I had to look up Exotic Skis review here on Epic and search the web to find out anything about these skis and company I'd never heard of before).

 

All in all, I love Peter Keelty's website, I've been a long time subscriber and frequent user of the direct-one on one ski purchase advice.  Peter is a cool old cat who knows his skis and boots--he's got biases (like all of us) but he is very upfront about them.  

 

I always recommend his site to fellow skiers (especially less informed intermediates looking to step up their equipment game).

This is why I can't really use this for my personal needs as I have no real desire for a high level carver. I guess the site is reviews for real skiers mainly in a certain demographic. And honestly I can find a ton of reviews on the ski's I'm interested, by real skiers, for free elswhere.

I thought the site was useless and sucked. IMO , log on and help that guy perpetuate useless information to line his  pockets.

I found the site to be one of the best review sites.

The good thing about the site it doesn't just give you a one sentence description; it rates half a dozen categories and you can compare different skis scores in the categories.

It's not just an opinion of this is a great ski or a dog, it describes the ski so you can like it even if they don't.

If you don't give a rat's azz about carving, then ignore the "clean carving score".  If you don't care about high-speed stability, ignore the speed rating.  If you don't care about how well the ski responds to non-carving, ignore the soft-edge/smooth drift score.   If you don't care what level of performance you can extract from the ski or what level of user it is suitable for, ignore the ability rating icons.  If you don't care about lightness, ignore that score.  If you don't care about subjective rebound feel, ignore that score.  If you don't care how forgiving the ski is, ignore the "relaxing" score.  If you don't care how accurate the ski feels, ignore that score.  If you don't care how quick the ski is, ignore that score.  If you don't care what terrain (ice, bumps, off-piste, race courses, etc) ignore those icons.

I care about a lot of that stuff, and some of the stuff I don't care about gives me further insight into other areas of the ski.

Any skis that I have been able to try myself have proven to match up pretty well with the reviews too.

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Originally Posted by davluri 

I thought the site was useless and sucked. IMO , log on and help that guy perpetuate useless information to line his  pockets.

Keelty's review site isn't perfect, but it stands head and shoulders above other reviews that I've seen.  It's the only set of reviews that I pay attention to.  Besides what Ghost said, one of the nice  things about Keelty's site is that he regularly updates his reviews when the facts change, for example when the factory makes a fix in response to early demo feedback or when it takes the community a while to fully appreciate a new innovation.  I don't think he's lining his pockets -- the recordkeeping frustrations and logistics hassles surely aren't worth the modest income he receives from the site.

The choice of reviews is driven by what the reviewers choose to review, not by any edict of Keelty.  The range of coverage from ultrafat pow skis to hard snow carvers reflects the varied interests of the testers.

Lucky for you, as a Tahoe skier you have some of epic's finest gearhounds in the area (now including Phil), so you don't really need online reviews.

I agree with Ghost and sharpedges.  The Realskiers reviews has a larger sample size (i.e., more reviewers) than any of the other web or magazine reviews.  But, to say the obvious, the best course is to gather information from a variety of sources and weight each source according to your personal needs and preferences.

Anyone see a worthwhile review on the Volkl Kendo...they can share?

http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/96369/the-crazy-88s-revisited-2011-mini-reviews#post_1253715

Realskiers also liked it very much.... fives across the line except for "stability and relaxing" (fours).

Quote:

Originally Posted by davluri 

I thought the site was useless and sucked. IMO , log on and help that guy perpetuate useless information to line his  pockets.

yeah man, I'm quittin' my job as a hedge fund manager to start a competing site!

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Originally Posted by Ghost 

I found the site to be one of the best review sites.

Fully.

I think realskiers is focused on one particular flavor of skiing. And because of that they miss a ton of important stuff. There are important skis they just skip - I mean how, for the 2010/2011 season do you skip the new Hellbent or the EP Pro. Or the SFB? Or the Armada ARG? 

My subscription expired a few days ago - so I can't go back to verify my exact recollection. But the short version is that skis like these are pivotal & critical in this year's offerings. Also, IIRC realskiers just plain misjudges a ton of skis because of their lack of experience with modern designs. How do you not know the Alpha is a park ski & review it accordingly? If you are a "technical skiing" fan, they probably have something to offer. If you are looking for modern all mountain or powder reviews based on real insight, maybe not so much.

If I ever renew my subscription, it'll likely be more out of curiosity than the expectation of getting useful information (if I did, it'd be a surprise treat). I'd trust the reviews in Powder way more than realskiers at this point.

Kind of odd because I got my my first pair of "fatter" skis (PRs) in part because Keelty was stoked about them. Maybe he needs some fresh/young blood in his review crew?

You could be right spindrift, and that flavour must be skiers who like to make technical lines in deep snow at slow speeds.

How else do you explain their overall ski of the year being ski logik's Ullr's Chariot - a 101 mm waisted 15-m turn radius ski? And they tested the short (178 cm) one!  We all know an Atomic D2 GS or SS i.speed or maybe a nice SG ski is better suited to bombing down the steeps (or blacks and phony double blacks if you can't fly out to get to the steeps).

Darned deep-snow-spoiled slow poke skiers!

He is at the mercy of what his testers decide to try out and send in cards on.  How does he pick his crew anyway, all it says on the web site is it includes  "a large number of shop employees—we don't rely exclusively on ex-racers, elite instructors and the like"