Gear
The Kabookie Bids Adieu
A sad bit of news I unfortunately have to report following the WWSRA demo at Mammoth Mountain is word the Kabookie will not return for the 2015-2016 season (more...)...
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Gear
La Sportiva Vapor Nano
If you want a ski with lots of surface area and very, very little weight, La Sportiva presents the aptly-named Vapor Nano: 103mm underfoot and 5.29lbs per pair (spec). The Vapor Nano is a carbon fiber ski, and an expensive one at that, featuring what Sportiva calls “Nanotube” construction, a nano-ish technology designed to deliver (more...)...
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Gear
Kabookie vs. Bonafide
Short answer: I prefer the Kabookie. I’ve played around with both skis for over a year now, and for my body weight (about 145lbs), I’m just not seeing much benefit from the Bonafide’s full metal sheet. Kabookie and Bonafide are geometrically identical—same sidecut, same dimensions. The principle published difference is that metal sheet, which extends (more...)...
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Gear
Volkl Code L
New for the 2013-2014 season, Volkl’s Code Speedwall L offers performance skiers a fun and lively alternative to both the RTM and RaceTiger lines. I’m not big on the RTM skis (see my most-hated video), and the RaceTigers are race specialists, so for me the Code L vaults to the top of Volkl’s frontside carver (more...)...
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Gear
Blizzard Kabookie
Blizzard’s Kabookie ski was one of two new Alpine Touring standouts I found at the 2012 SIA show—the other being Garmont’s Cosmos boot. Like the Cosmos, the big news with the Kabookie is its ability to bring the performance and especially the ‘feel’ of your favorite Alpine rig into the backcountry. On my scale, the (more...)...
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Gear
Atomic Smoke Ti
Atomic’s Smoke Ti is a frontside carver that makes shop owners and skiers happy alike—it sells well, and it delivers a lot of ski for the money. Probably Atomic wouldn’t exactly push this as an economy-class ski, but you can’t help noticing that the Smoke Ti trades at a noticeable discount compared to everything else (more...)...
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