Po’ Boy Seeks Thrills: Fastest Used Ski Under $300

With my Line Mavericks in need of a long stint with Dr. Chris in the ski hospital, the time to add a new weapon to my quiver was finally upon me.

After telling the Canyon Lodge Demo Shop staff my sob story of a desperate, broke skier in need of some gear (myself) they were kind enough to pull back the curtain on their secret stash of last years high performance skis they’d apparently sell me for short money.

“I’ll even give you the employee discount on the standard rental rate… take as many out as you want, and let me know what you think,” said Charlie, the shop’s manager.

Hell yeah.

Picking a new set of skis is not a task to be taken lightly.  I had my last pair almost eight years, and put thousands of runs underneath them.  They’ll see duty again too, once they’re back from the shop.

But now that I’ve spent almost two decades on two planks, more than my share of time riding with PSIA cert’s and NASTAR racers, plus this season trying to keep up with my unabashed roommates, the stakes are even higher.

I don’t want to limit myself with a basic, do-everything-with-mediocrity ski.  I need something that’s going to be a challenge to ride, something fierce.  Basically, if I can find its top speed, I’ll leave it on the shelf.

Enough psyching myself up, on to the comparo.

•••

On this day in late January, 2012 I rode four pairs of skis in the following order; the K2 Aftershock 181, the Völkl Unlimited AC50 177, the Salomon Enduro 177 and the Nordica Hot Rod Tempest 178.  They were ex-demo 2011 models, so they all had a few nicks on the topdecks but the bases were all Drake Lake smooth.

Don’t forget, last year was a record for snowfall here in Mammoth, so these demos wouldn’t have seen half the rocks we have to deal with in 2012.

Each ski was run over a wax roller before I took it out, and the DIN on my bindings was always 7.  And for the sake of full disclosure, I was rocking my Salomon Sensi-Fit boots from 2004 complete with structural cracks and very tired buckles.

Yeah, I know.  Well if I could afford new boots I wouldn’t be shopping for skis in the barging basement of the rental shop, would I?

What matters is that each ski was tested with the same shitty boots… so journalistic integrity remains intact.

I did no less than four runs on any one ski and did at least one all-bumps, one all-fastblast, one hoon run and one mixer to get a complete feel for the ski.

I’m also writing these evaluations before purchasing one of the skis, and they were all being offered to me at the same price with bindings.

One more disclaimer; don’t forget I’m looking not looking for a rounded, easy all-mountain ski.  I’ll have that when my Mavericks are fixed.  I’m testing these skis to see which is the scariest, most demanding, Shao Khan-badass on the mountain and which ones couldn’t blow the scarf off a snowman.

Test Metrics

Rider: Scrawny but strong 6 foot, 155-pound male.  Competent skier on all terrain.

Dateline: Mammoth Mountain, California.  Late January 2012.

Conditions: Heavy, well packed snow.  Some pockets of thin powder, some pockets of thick, wet “Sierra Cement.”  Good-not-great snow coverage all around.  Excellent visibility.  Agreeable temperature.  Resort was not crowded.

4^th: Salomon Enduro (177)

Kickass

• Lightweight

• Easy to bump n’ jump

Scheiße

• A little too light… feels flimsy

• Couldn’t really get handling dialed in

• Not particularly stable at high speed

Coming in least-beastliest is the Salomon Enduro.  I wanted to ride this ski because what I really wanted was a 2012 Salomon Shogun, and for some reason I thought this would be similar.  I also liked the plain-black design and how light it was to pick up.

It felt so flexy and playful I started with a hoon run, pulling 360’s and big snow-throws with the tail.  I’m not sure if this particular pair had dull edges or if I just wasn’t vibing with the sidecut, but I was actually having a lot more trouble spinning these skis than I thought I should.

On my fastblast run, they ran alright up to about 35 MPH but started acting skittish when pushed.  Carving was adequate, just.

The Enduros came into their own in the bumps.  In fact, I reckon they out-shone every other ski here in terms of how easy they were to hop and huck through the heavy moguls under the mid-section of Chair Sixteen.  But this just wasn’t enough to redeem their lack of confidence at speed.  I felt like they were letting me down when I needed real performance and weren’t challenging me enough at low speed.  For that reason, the Enduros are coming up fourth.

3^rd: K2 Aftershock (181)

Kickass

• Carved harder than grandpa tearin’ the turkey on Thanksgiving

• Extremely versatile

Scheiße

• Poor balance… I couldn’t get my weight to the right places.

• Clattered like the Tin Man on a Flexible-Flyer

• Dorky Power Rangers paint scheme

I rode the K2 Aftershocks first because of a solid recommendation from Charlie.  He reckoned this ski would give me the speed I was looking for while still being versatile enough to have fun on the whole mountain.  I have to admit, I left the shop with these feeling a little unsure for no other reason than that they’re just so damn cheap looking.  K2 makes great skis, but they are seriously lacking in the design department.  With weird textures and a super-90’s color combo, you certainly won’t be hanging these on your wall when you retire them.

Interestingly enough, it took me the longest to get dialed in on these skis.  I took a few more runs with the K2s than the others for the same reason you sit through a Hugh Grant movie to get to second base… I knew there was something sweet to be had, I just had get comfortable first.

Luckily the K2s and I connected before the credits rolled, and we made sweet giant-slalom symphonies as I wound them out so hard I could have fallen asleep at my lean angle.

Despite having such a long footprint, the turns I was able to lay out with these things were unbelievably fun.  But where that footprint let me down was in the bumps.  The 181 centimeter length was just a little to long for me, and I could never really hustle them around obstacles like I’d need to on the double-blacks off the top of the mountain and in the trees back east.

If you’re about to scroll to the bottom of this post to comment “hey asshole, you can’t claim to review a ski that isn’t sized properly”, save your proverbial breath.  I’ll state again here that I’m reviewing used skis from 2011… and therefore only have the options of what’s on the lot.  The K2s were so popular that they were sold out of all but one pair, the 181s I had a go on.  Since I do feel like the K2s have been shortchanged in this review by being too big for me, I think this is worth mentioning again.

The carves on this ski were so satisfying that I almost bought them despite the Fast & Furious paint scheme and oceanliner length, but the final neg that made me hang them up was an unbearable clatter they produced at just about any speed.  Could have been loose bindings, the front out-extending my weight, or just ski gremlins living between the woodcore, but for some reason these skis just sounded like an old Land Rover full of aluminum cans driving down a cobblestone road every time I got off the chairlift.

2^nd: Nordica Hot Rod Tempest (178)

Kickass:

• Good length-to-weight ratio

• Stiffness

• Speed

Scheiße:

• Bindings somewhat lacking… a bit vague

• Durability- long term tests seem to indicate these lack staying power

The Nordica Hot Rod Tempest was a ski I hadn’t heard of until I saw it sitting on the demo rack.  But a quick search on my smartphone indicated these things had a solid reputation as a high-speed all-mountain expert-level snow weapon.

With cool graphics and a viable length, I had to have a go.

These were the last skis I rode of the day, and I had to bat my eyelashes a little to get the demo shop to fit and wax them for me forty minutes before lift closing.  But they did, and it was on.

After coming off the lift I pumped out a few meters of skating and headed straight into a fastblast run.  The skis exploded with acceleration and held good stability all the way up to just shy of 60 MPH, a speed I was mostly limited to by traffic.

In the bumps the Noridcas required a little effort to negotiate, but the experience was rewarding.  As far as hooning it up, I didn’t get into it much because of how icy the snow was at this point in the day.  But based on how easy it was to jump on these things and fly I reckoned the Hot Rods could live up to their name with little practice and confidence.

I caught last chair up Twenty Two and headed down the double-black Face Runs.  These skis were the only ones I had the privilege of testing on terrain this steep, and the feedback was pretty solid.  I really had to pay attention to keep them from getting away from me, and my legs were absolutely burning by the end of the run, but these things got me through some very steep, very icy, tree-splattered bumps in a low-light situation.

A really solid ski for the money, and the second meanest in this day’s test.

1^st: Völkl Unlimited AC50 (177)

Kickass:

• Fast, fast, fast.

• Stiffer than a Buckingham Palace guard when Kate Middleton goes out for a swim in her royal bikini.

• Beautiful topdeck.

Scheiße:

• Too heavy for the timid

• Difficult to hustle through the backcountry

The Völkl AC50s were that chammak challo you spot when you walk into a party.  All your friends tell you to stay away, but you’ve heard that before haven’t you?  You know you’ve gotta make a pass before you bounce, just need a little liquid courage first.

“You won’t like those, they’re too stiff.  That’s an extremely aggressive ski,” said Charlie in his worldly sounding British accent as I ran my finger down the titanium-and-woodcore spine.

But the length was perfect, the topdeck was finished in a jaw-droppingly sexy stained wood design, and it didn’t hurt that they were made auf Deutschland.

After a little deliberation the Völk’s were waxed and ready.

I swung them over my right shoulder, they were too heavy to rest on my dented left, I clipped in and skated up Chair Sixteen.

I took my time dialing in on these skis.  When I got off the lift I started with a gentle cruise, getting a feel for the sidecut and weight.  Charlie was right; these were some aggressive-ass planks and frankly I’d be able to do a lot more with them if I had a little girth on my bones.

But as I skated around and got in tune with the heft, I started hustling them and beginning the real test.

The fastblast was first.  Coming in hot off the top of Chair Five I was met with a dangerously enticing combination of a traffic-free face run and the Vishal-Shekhar playlist on my headset.

Seeya later.

I skated out two hard pumps and aired in off the drop, hitting the ground with about twice as much speed as I had expected.  In an attempt to stay in control I carved out to the right, hard to the left, then back right so hard I felt like I could have skied back to the drop-in.

Leaning forward as hard as I could, I struggled to keep my paltry mass over the front of the skis before they had their way with me and fed me a faceful of granular hardpack.

Carrying speed through carves was almost too easy… I had to throw snow a few times just to keep my velocity within a maintainable range.

After a dramatic hockey stop at the bottom of the lift, I was left out of breath and completely out of energy.  My legs were on fire and I was thankful Chair Five had some of the best padding of any on the mountain.

Next up were the bumps.  Heading the other way off the chair this time I aired in to Dry Creek, a naturally occurring halfpipe loaded with moguls and rocks the size of Woolly.

With the snow coverage as skimpy as it is these days, this run makes you feel like Luke Skywalker hustling down that back-door alley on his way to blow up Death Star.  Just swap aluminum trussing for rocks and TIE fighters for lost gapers struggling to falling-leaf their way to safety.

The skis responsiveness was clutch ripping around the first few obstacles, but their weight took their tool on me quickly and I was gasping for breath by the fifth turn.

Control was being quickly exchanged for speed in a devil’s transaction that all skiers and boarders have known at some point.

I fought to stay on top but now gravity was running the show and the skis were playing second fiddle- I was just some idiot in the back strumming a piccolo.

I caught air off a particularly icy mogul and landed hard on top of another… tore through that and started blazing my own b-line through two more little bumps as I came crashing into a flat section seeking salvation.

Not being able to remember the last time I had had to stop mid-run to catch my breath, I decided then and there that the Völkl AC50 would be my next ski.

Fast, durable and obviously difficult to master, these wood-and-titanium monsters forged in hell’s own ski factory (actually located in Straubing, Bavaria) would help take me to the next level as a skier and be sure to offer up enough near death experiences to keep me interested in the sport for the foreseeable future.

Lassen Sie uns dies tun!

February 6, 2012 | Categories: West Coast USA, Skiing, Gear Review | Tags: skis, mammoth mountain, k2, salomon, hot rod tempest, aftershock, völkl skis, salomon enduro, fastest skis, best skis, nordica, nordica tempest, ski racing | Leave A Comment »