Dynastar Speedzone 16 173cm

[jbotti]

I thought I would post a brief review of this ski. This ski is discontinued but the Dynastar has a current version, the Speed 963 which appears to be very similar (same dimensions but slightly different construction). I got to ski Harald's pair at my home mountain in Montana for a couple of days 2 weeks ago. HH had them tuned at 3 degree side and .5 degree base. The bases were very grabby on our snow and brushing these skis with this tune on our snow was challenging. You had to be incredibly precise with brushing or they would want to hook up or just hook up. But my issues were clearly user error, because HH could do awesome brushed SRTs all over the mountain with no issues. It was impressive to watch.

I used the word precision with brushing (which was mostly about the tune) but these skis require precision in every type of arc. When skied with precision, the reward was beyond anything I had ever felt in a ski before. The forebody of this ski (from the toe piece of the binding to the tip of the ski) may be the best and highest performance that I have ever skied (I have a pair of Rossi race room GS skis that are at the same level). After HH watching me ski them he encouraged me to get a pair because skiing well on them requires a higher level of precision, a level that I am not yet used to. After a while I was able to ski these well, tighten the arc in my turns and get a high level of performance out of them. They are truly amazing skis and they absolutely require me to be a better skier. When I went back to my Head SS Speeds Harald said "those are like toys compared to the Dynastars" and he is right. The SS Speeds are great, fun, easy to ski ski that have a super wide band of performance, but their high end is well below that of the Dynastars but they are also way more forgiving.

So, for me these are great skis to take out and work on my skiing and work on my precision. and they will absolutely make me a better skier. I might not choose to take them out every day (although, if I can up my game/precision, I might ski them every day on groomer days). The ski is stiff, somewhat unforgiving and IMO, most of us will forget about skiing bumps with these and in general most off-piste skiing will be more fun and easier on different skis. For arcing and brushing on groomers, done at a high and precise level, it's hard to beat these skis.

Because HH is not positive about the new core in the Speed 963s, he wanted me to wait til he gets to demo the new ones before I buy. But I have some skis that require a higher level of precision and have a higher performance band. I have been skiing my Stockli Laser SXs in the 170cm length as a substitute. They definitely require more precision than the SS Speeds and they definitely have a higher performance band and one day when I was skiing less well I pined for SS Speeds!

So to summarize, the Speedzone 16s are great skis with a super high performance band and also require lots of precision and not learning skis for people early in their PMTS journey. East coasters that ski on ice and have the skills, might consider this or the 963. HH has skied it on ice and he says it just slays it. But again, they are anything but forgiving skis.