Review: Van Deer Freeride 98

[jbotti]

I was able to get on this ski in the 180cm length this past week in Utah. Conditions were 4-6" of fresh but wetter heavier snow on groomers and 15+" inches of wetter heavier snow off piste. They are very well made skis with nice attention to detail. These skis have a lot of tip rocker and a forgiving flattish looking tail. I found them somewhat difficult to ski, at least the way I wanted to ski them. There is a lot of tip rocker and the tips are quite firm. Getting forward on the skis was a real challenge for me. In doing brushed carved turns on groomers, I could not get far enough forward to be able to use a combination of tipping and hip counteracting to brush a round arc. Instead I had to allow my weight to move aft, and then basically push on the tails. They come around nicely if you do this, but so does pretty much every ski. Off piste in the heavier pow, it was pretty much the same story, very difficult to get forward at the top of each arc and felt like I needed to push on the tails some to make the skis turn. The natural place that this much tip rocker puts a skier is neutral to aft which for me is not confidence inspiring.

In general the ski was unresponsive to the movements I wanted to use and quite responsive to movements I didn't want to use. I will say that I think that skiers with strong PMTS fundamentals in place will not like this ski or want to ski it. Having said that, many of my friends who skied them (non PMTS skiers who are used to heavily rockered skis and ski them all the time) absolutely loved them. I don't find that surprising, because as I said they are really well made, with a race bred construction.

Because of how uncomfortable it was to not be able to ski the way I am used to skiing, I gave them back after 1 run. They were in great demand so I was happy to have others have a try.