First - this is a few years old model (namely 2005/2006). So if you’re only into the newest and most innovative gear, skip this.

However, if you are  interested on solid gear that you can trust…and solid gear you can find cheap, read this.

I scored a pair of these from German E-bay. There has been good offers in e.g. Steap and Cheap 

The dimensions are on the narrow side: 113-79-106mm. Lenghts 168cm and 180cm (tested). Essentially this is also the same ski as Salomon 1080 Candice Lab, just the top-sheets differ.

I was looking for the replacement of my beaten up 05/06 Völkl Dogens. Völkl usually has really good skis but the Dogens were a failure - too much quality problems. Otherwise the pair I had was ok but the bases just didn’t glide anywhere, even with waxing every time before hitting the slopes. Also, I wanted slightly stiffer skis with some more “pop” in them. Dogens were kind of lazy and dead feeling from the beginning - you get used to that but IMHO lively park skis are just more inspiring and more fun (I guess that depends on your style though…as an old mogul geek I tend to be quite active and actively pop/jump from the lips not just lazily launch/carve from the take-off…)

Ok, let’s get into the review. First, as usually, couple of facts about the reviewer himself:

 Height/weight: 184cm (~6feet) 83kg (~160lbs)

Ability: very experienced, not the best/most modern carve/on-piste technique though. Can do basic moves in the park (180’s, 360’s, 540’s, switch take offs on smaller hits, several grabs, easy rails / pressure boxes etc.). Mogul background.

Age: 34

Days/year: currently ~30/year (but skied several years over 50 days a year)

Conditions: Moderately soft park hits (from 15 feet to around 35 feet), few runs on a very short and low angle groomed slope

Resort: Talma, Finland

First impression from hese skis is quality. Salomon isn’t know for its superb longevity, stiffness and durabily - in contradiction the reputation of Salomon is more like easy-skiing, forgiving, fun skis for the masses. Take Pocket Rocket for example, the concept was a winner but it never gained the popularity from the hard-core, 100 days a year crowd. All in all, Salomon skis with their foam core and cap contructions just have generally been too soft and weak for the real chargers.

The above doesn’t hold for the LAB (raceroom) series. With LAB you get full wood core and black (graphite) race bases. The skis also weight more than the more “mainstream” models = the offer you have to pay from the real durable contruction.

C.R Labs for exampe weight significantly more than my old Dogens. The first feel on the slope is also that they’re much stiffer. This is all good…but has also its downside. Couple of runs and you realize this is no lazy man’s and/or beginners ski.

I only had a few short, low angle runs to test the real skiing abilities. The impression is that the skis obvioysly have pretty good all-mountain characters in them. You get a lot of liveliness and pop. Sidecut is pretty straight in today’s standard though. One thing you also notice (if you have any old-school experience/feel) is that the recommended mounting mark is very center! This didn’t bother me because I plan to use these maybe 80-90% for park. 

I had a feeling if you mount CR:s 2-3cm back from the recommended point, they would have quite an “old school SL/mogul ski feel”. The thought of that even tempts me to remount at some point; I can image a nice slushy mogul zipperline with a few good jumps to be an absolute blast with these beauties. You can always buy cheap park skis from spring offers etc. But C.R Labs are SKIS that have so much more to offer than strict park planks.

In the park I had mixed feeling about these skis. Overall, the combination of these and my new 08/09 Dalbello Krypton Il Moro’s offered a very enjoyable couple of hours session. Stiffer skis were very good for bombing the quite rough inrun to our biggest kicker (a resonably high cheese wedge booter/gap with around 35~40 gap). On the smaller but even more steap lip with lots of “kick” I really felt the “pop” of these skis: I felt like I was rocketing skywards…pretty cool feeling, after all!

I’m no acrobat in the park, so a few cm:s difference or a slight weight difference didn’t mean anything at all. I could do what I can do (not much  in today’s standard but the basic 3’s I do alot felt great…see the pic below for example)

The landings then. Well, with stiffer (both longitunally and torsionally) skis the landings were more unforgiving. With my old noodles I could revert/”butter” some bad landings much easier. But this is former C.R’s ski after all. And in his speed and with the side of his hits, I guess, stable and stiff is good, very good (imagine the pro-level 90 feet gap jump, the inrun requires almost SG speeds, after all!). For us normal hackers, this is more demanding ski than your average china made jib stick. I guess for me this is both good and bad. This forces me to be more precise and concentrate on good landings etc. On the other hand, I feel small jumps and jibs don’t feel as good ( f*** those anyway, “high speed, low tricks” has always been my motto! :))

The conclusion for these planks is that you get alot of ski (and probably pretty cheap these days). They might be a bit narrow for really good snow resorts / parks but to our mole hills 79mm middle is just perfect. With that you get also good hard snow performance and mogul abilities, especially if mounted a few cm’s back.  I’d say this is a solid all-mountain ski disguised as a twin-tip. Especially if you don’t like too much of side cut and like a lively, playfull ski, this is for you. I also think that mounting plays a big role on the skis feel: recommended mark is great for park but if you like more all-mountain feel, mount 2-3cm back from that. Graphics don’t usually get too much of my attention but I have to say the understated camo-topsheet is pretty cool and doesn’t jump into your face like many of today’s prints in this genre.  

Ok, that’s all for now. Hopefully my next post will be from Flachau, Austria in the week 5. I guess it will be a hassle (with kids) on the trip but I’ll try to find time to post a few trip reports and/or pictures.

Let it snow!