So the first of the 3 big Fall demo days in CO happened this past Saturday. I spent most of the day skiing on the new Head skis and they honestly were the brightest points of the demo day. I own a couple pairs of Head skis, but I've never really been much of a Head "zealot", but I have to admit that Head is really doing some good things with their latest skis. So while many may lament the loss of the original Supershape there are still some excellent skis available for the PMTS faithful.
Conditions were mixed, but mostly hard pack without any recent snow. Of course that meant that I could actually test the skis' ice performance so it's not necessarily a bad thing. Too bad the demos didn't continue through today because I would have loved to get some of the Head Big Mountain series skis in the deeper snow.
My intention was to go from skinny skis to fatter skis as the day progressed and I was able to mostly stick with that program. I didn't only ski Head skis; I tried some other stuff too. And I had an interesting observation; this season the reps actually came to play with more of their skinny models available for demo. Though this wasn't true across the board, I was encouraged to see that narrower waist widths were available and noted that the skinny skis were almost always out for demo while a lot of the fat skis were just sitting in the racks. Maybe much of the skiing public is starting to have the realization that fat skis have their place (and it's not on a hard snow groomer skiing day), but there are still those fools who go out on entirely inappropriately wide skis when a fresh flake hasn't fallen in weeks.
Note that I ran all of the i.Supershape series and the REV series skis 2 "notches" forward from normal on the demo bindings. This equates to about 7mm forward of the factory mark. I normally would run even more forward, but I was leery of going too far "out of whack" from the factory marks without taking ski measurements and being able to spend more time on the skis to experiment. I ran most of the skis for 3 runs except for the ones I really wasn't liking after 1 run.
Head i.Supershape Rally - I ended up on this ski first because the Magnum was already taken out. World Cup construction, a nice deep sidecut, and I was in my happy place. This is a ski that will really perform marvelously with the right input, but it's not especially punishing for failure to achieve skiing greatness. It's smooth, stable, damp, but not lifeless. I have to say that I really like the feel and performance of these new i.Supershape skis which is surprising to me since I've generally gravitated to more damp and stable feeling skis - I love that "glued to the snow" feel. Many find that type of ski a bit one dimensional, but here we have a ski that keeps me happy while being quite a bit more adaptable for other types of skiers. Ice hold was sufficient, but not fully up to the par of my Blizzard S-Power/G-Power skis (but those really set the benchmark for grip). If I wasn't already swimming in skis with waist widths in the mid 70s I would put this ski on my buy list.
Head i.Supershape Magnum - This ski is much of the same as the Rally which shouldn't surprise anyone given that they share almost all characteristics except for width. It has an almost identical sidecut to the Rally and as you would expect is just quicker edge to edge. I also found this ski quite adaptable and not a one-trick pony. I skied the Magnum a few seasons ago and I remember coming away with the thought that I wouldn't want to ski that ski all day. Of course my skiing has changed a bit, but I think Head has definitely reworked this ski for the better and it's become a great all-around ski. The old ski was stiffer and straighter while this new version has more tip cut and an improved flex pattern. When my Stockli Globe skis finally go to meet their maker I will keep this ski in mind as a replacement.
Head i.Supershape Titan - I skied this one in the 177cm length; a length that I normally wouldn't choose for an 80mm underfoot ski. Oh, but what a surprise. I honestly could go with this ski as my number one all-mountain choice. Same construction as the Rally/Magnum, but Head has also tweaked the sidecut from the old version and it really improves the versatility of this ski. The older Titan had a "lot of tail" and kind of felt locked in on turn radius to me. The new version has a slightly deeper cut for the tip while relaxing the tail sidecut. I felt like I could do no wrong on this ski; it just ate up any terrain I fed it. I will probably buy this ski at some point.
Head REV 80 Pro and Head REV 85 Pro - So color me not a big fan. After my demo runs on the i.Supershape series I found that the REVs just couldn't hang with the performance of those skis. Yes, they're a bit wider than that series, but it's not the whole story. They use a different construction and don't provide the feel I like on hard snow. They also have significantly more rocker in their profiles. The i.Supershape series really only has marketing rocker (it's barely noticeable), while the REVs have enough that I would call it significant; it definitely changes the skis' performance. I can see the REV series as being more popular for less aggressive skiers and if I hadn't spent so much time on the i.Supershape skis I might have come away with a slightly better impression. They may be good choice for softer snow days, but I have the feeling I would be just fine on something like the Rally or Titan on a softer day, so for me these REV series skis don't really fit into my quiver needs. I skied the wider REVs a couple seasons ago in soft conditions (many feet of snow had fallen in Tahoe) and I did enjoy them there, but didn't walk away from that experience with the feeling that I needed to buy any of them.
Head Venturi 95 - I was grinning ear to ear on this ski. Even though the conditions certainly didn't warrant being on something this wide I found that it performed admirably and you wouldn't be whining about such a wide ski on your way back to the chair lift. This is a more than worthy successor to the R-n-R. Although I didn't get to run it in a back-to-back showdown with the venerable R-n-R I think that I prefer the Venturi. Head is really onto something with the construction of their new Big Mountain Series skis. The TTS technology definitely improves the tip and tail stability and the feeling of the ski is like a wide surefooted carver on the hard pack. I did not find that the rocker profile detracted from my turns at transition, but I was really focusing on holding my CA when tipping to new edges because I knew that these skis might have a tendency to want to pivot when flat. Note that the graphics at the tip and tail aren't just pictures, there are actually raised ridges and purposeful structure in the construction of these areas. This ski is definitely on my buy list.
Head Collective 105 - so I got on this ski against my better judgement. I had no business being on a ski this wide (105mm) on a groomer day. It also has a much more aggressive rocker profile and they only had the 181cm ski available (in a ski this wide I would normally go longer due to the much shorter contact length). I only took 1 run on the Collective because it was just the wrong ski for the conditions and it was pivoting like mad. I will say though that the tip stayed fairly quiet; much more so than skis of similar design. So Head definitely has something figured out to help stabilize more rockered skis in their Big Mountain series. I would love to get on this ski on a truly deep day and compare it to some of my other wide skis.
I also skied on some Rossi and Blizzard skis, but I doubt the forum collective is interested so I'll post my thoughts on those elsewhere.