My first impression of the Atomic Atlas was: medium-stiff, traditional feel, easier “old Big Daddy”. I remember someone saying that the new wood-cored Atomic freeride skis are heavier than the old ones with the foam core but I am not sure; the Atlas didn’t feel that heavy, considering the huge size (and demo bindings, which are heavy by nature in any case).

One thing was easy to observe from the first few groomer rides: the tips are so tapered that if you lean forward enough you can cause the skis to “split” a bit, and (slightly) shoot in separate directions (because of the heavily tapered, “reverse sidecut” tips). This was the first time I’ve experienced this and I can only imagine how this kind of “split” feels on a so-called reverse-reverse ski, like Praxis Powder. However, on Atomic Atlas if you skied a bit more centered the skis carved very well and offered a stable yet pretty relaxed ride.

In my opinion the Atlas has quite a “traditional” feel but not in a bad sense. This is probably a great ski for those that “just” want to turn..and I guess cliff drops and air are not bad either (if you are not into spins and flips and backcountry kickers). The shovel is really long, so I guess landing on the front seat wouldn’t be a problem on  Atomic Atlas.

Due to the width and tip rocker the skis also offered some fun sideways “slides”…anyway, after trying the new Atomic Bent Chetler I realize that Atlas is still quite traditional and  doesn’t offer as much fun than the Bent Chetlers did (read more here: Atomic Bent Chetler 183cm 09/10 Ski Review).

Atlas was also clearly a long turning ski that didn’t quite get into its element on our little groomed slope. But I am sure that for soft snow and wide open runs the ski would be great.

Atlas handles a groomed slope okay but I have to admit that forcing the 125mm middle ski into edge and trying to bend into shorter turns was pretty damn hard on my old mogul skier knees. So, to summarize: don’t buy this ski for “all-mountain”/piste use, it is clearly a soft snow ski made for steep and deep!

Atomic Snoop Daddy 184cm

129mm-94mm-118mm, 22m turn radius, contruction unchanged from the 08-09 line-up.

Frankly, I didn’t get that excited about this ski. This was probably because of the conditions though. While the dimension of this ski are not that huge on paper I felt like it skied much “bigger”, meaning long turns, very stable (almost too stiff for my taste, especially in the tail), damp and calm. The sidecut also felt straighter than the 22m turn radius would make you anticipate.

For small hill use Atomic Snoop Daddy felt a bit dull. But I guess this would rule in chopped-up crud or soft, not too tight moguls.

I also did a couple of jumps from the table top. And compared to the twin-tips the mounting point felt way rearward, and required you to be very careful on the take off. Well, this is no freestyle ski anyway…but if you like to huck a lot and mix a bit freestyle and big mountain, this probably isn’t your ski.

Atomic states that the Snoop Daddy would serve as a nice telemark and AT ski, and I believe that. Corn snow, couloirs and variable condition probably suits the Atomic Snoop Daddy best.

Atomic Patent 184cm

95 mm middle (didn’t get the tip and tail measurement), full twin-tip

This is said to be a bit wider twin for soft(er) snow and soft bc and spring kickers. However, it didn’t feel wide at all.

I really dug this ski. It was not as much fun as the Bent Chetler but very predictable and easy to ski. Atomic Patent carved nice round turns, even with bindings mounted quite centered. Jumping was easy and somehow the Patent felt also very forgiving on landings (especially fakie) even without the rocker and with slightly stiffer flex than the Bent Chetlers.

On piste Atomic Patent wasn’t “noodley” at all, the ski felt torsionally stiff, no chattering at all on the hard surface.

I could buy this ski. I really like my current park skis, Salomon 1080 CR Labs,  but I see no reason to go a bit wider when buying the next ones. I guess I am used to the wider skis but in my case they seem to add some (necessary) stability to landings and take-offs, and I am not spinning 900′s anyway…so the added weight doesn’t matter that much either.

Atomic Coax 183 cm

105mm in  the middle (didn’t get the other easurements), twin-tip

Atomic Coax felt like a wider and slightly heavier version of the Patent. Carved nicely and felt really solid. I only skied these for two runs and didn’t jump at all.The flex is rounder than e.g. on Völkl Gotamas (current version, which hasn’t changed that much from 06/07).

Atomic Coax has a quite centered mounting point for a ski this big. But hard to say anything about the soft snow performance with this limited test…I guess some might mount the bindings a few cm’s back from the recommended mark.

Well, we have also seen these kinds of “special skis” in the past. Remember the skis made of stone? How about Hublot All Black skis? Although I prefer skis like Praxis Powder Boards, it would be interesting to test skis like the Lacroix Ultimate. Anyhow, as an experienced skier I wouldn’t really waste my money on Lacroix skis or anything similar, so it’s really interesting that some people actually DO buy these sticks. Maybe it’s just the fact that I don’t have money to burn and I’m just skiing on budget. How about you? Would you buy these?.

Wally Yachts of Monaco who are famed for their carbon fiber bases yacht’s also make carbon fiber skis. Wally’s skis are made with a solid ash wood core and a carbon fiber structure making them incredibly light weight. They are tough and have much of control because the edges of Wally skis are made of steel.

Wally skis were invented by Luca Bassani

Wally skis are a product of the company of wealthy Italian Luca Bassani who spends his summers on water and winters on snow. They say Luca Bassani spends much time in his St. Moritz hideaway in Switzerland, so it is no wonder why this business man decided to start making luxury skis as well.

In 2001 46-year-old Luca Bassani started applying his company’s carbon fiber knowledge to build skis. His skis were made with a wood core then laminated to produce a strong, stiff ski that is lighter than conventional skis. While other ski manufacturers use metal and fiberglass, Luca Bassani decided to try something totally knew.

What makes Wally skis so interesting?

Wally skis are worth of $1500, so they must provide something unique, or at least something great compared to other skis. Wally skis don’t have any technical little things, and their design is almost ascetic, so what’s the secret? Wally skis are damn light compared to other skis. Probably this is the big thing, although there are few other advantages as well. Anyhow, people say Wally skis are very nice to ski especially on hard snow because they are light and tough.

Wally skis are not the only carbon fiber skis out there. If you are interested in carbon fiber skis, you should check also Goode skis, another interesting ski model. Unfortunately we haven’t tested none of these skis, so our information relies on “Internet research”.

So we wanna test ride Wally skis right away

Although Wally skis sound more like “James Bond gigolo ski gear for showing off” than real mountain sport weapons, we would definitely like to give Wally skis a try. You know, it’s easy to imagine James Bond skiing through a slope restaurant, catching a bad guy, and finally buying a drink to some foxy ladies. I’d like to do the exact same – with Wally skis naturally!

You should never judge skis before testing them, so I hope we can get a pair of Wally skis to our “Homeboy Ski Test Lab” one day. Wally has several ski models including powder, freeride, carving and traditional all mountain skis. I guess it won’t be easy, but we’ll try. If you’re quicker than us, please tell us your thoughts about Wally skis.

However, if you are  interested on solid and cheap gear that you can trust, 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. Lengths 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. Volkl 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).

First touch with Salomon 1080 CR Lab ski

First impression from these skis is quality. Salomon isn’t know for its superb longevity, stiffness and durably – 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 constructions just have generally been too soft and weak for the real chargers.

The above doesn’t hold for the LAB (race room) 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 construction.

Salomon 1080 CR Lab skis for example 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 Salomon 1080 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 in run to our biggest kicker (a reasonably high cheese wedge booter/gap with around 35~40 gap). On the smaller but even more steep 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!

Other important findings from Salomon 1080 CR Lab

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 a lot felt great)

The landings then. Well, with stiffer (both longitudinally 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 in run 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 Salomon 1080 CR Lab skis is that you get a lot 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, playful 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!

Krypton Il Moro is a different ski boot though. If this fits you, it is also something totally different. In this review I will tell you why.

How did I discover Dalbello Kryption Il Moro?

I did buy this ski boot pretty much out of an impulse. I’ve heard much about the legendary Raichle Flexon boots and been tempted over the years to try one – these are the current reincarnation of the Flexon design. Dalbello is also said to make some refinements to the boot, without loosing the original idea. There is also a small company/label called Fulltilt who still makes (almost) the exact original Flexon boot.

Anyway, I believed that my feet were made for Langes, after several years of being quite happy with them. Then I tried the Il Moro, and they felt pretty good from the start. I decided to give it a try – after all could Seth Morrison, Glen Plake, Janne Lahtela, etc. be wrong? It seemed that there was some kind of cult believing in this design (see e.g. TGR forums, search for “Flexon” or “Krypton”…)

Is the race boot originated design the best for freeskiing? That’s maybe something the original designers of the Flexons thought. I was also coming into this question as I’ve spent quite alot of time in the last years hitting the kickers in our tiny little area. My Lange FR 120′s were doing the job but something felt missing. Especially the stiff and very forward leaning flex started to bother me slightly.

Making the first turn with Il Moro

Enter Il Moro. First impression: damn these boot are light! They shouldn’t feel THIS comfortable. Toe area is maybe just a tad tight for my “duck feet” (very thin ankle/heel area, but somehow wider toe area). Start skiing: hmmmmm, seems like I can’t pressure the front of the boot AT ALL. Very weird sensation… Ok, this is the very soft flex option, I can always change the “tongue” to stiffer “race” version (available with every pair). Still, I remember some review saying that you should change the technique from “ankle skier” to “knee/hip skier” with these. Let’s try that: forget pressuring the front, concentrate on getting angles from the hip and/or knees. Well, this works pretty fine, still feels odd though.

Conclusion from the few groomed runs: I’d still try the stiffer “tongues” for “real” skiing. The soft progressive flex is still something you must get used to. I’ve read many review where this is said to hold even for the stiffer “tongues”, meaning that skiing with these you should modify your technique a bit. At least it occured to me that I like to drive the ski from pressuring the boot, maybe even too much for modern skis and technique? This is yet to be seen.

Ok, I thought maybe the park/jump performance is something that really makes difference with these. Into the jumps we get… OH BOY. What can I say? I’d almost say it felt like doing a different sport, a step towards to snowboard like comfort and hit absorbing I’ve never experinced before. I also had new, “poppier”, stiffer and slightly longer skis. The combination of these boots and better skis just made me feel like flying. I don’t know if it is the slighly more upright stance, the progressive flex of the Flexon/Krypton system, shock absorbing inner sole, snowboard like buckles, intuition liners, the unique heel fit or the combination of all these but I just have to say jumping with these things just felt so much more natural, it made me smile and almost laugh the whole two hour session. The kids at the park must have wondered that weird old dude pulling simple moves but having stupid perma-grin on his face…

Also, one super cool feature of the Flexon/Krypton design is that it lets you to adjust the ankle buckle so loose that it is very comfortable in the lift/lift line. Yet, you don’t have to tighten it on the top of the hill – add some pressure and get into the skiing position and the system/buckle kind of tightens automatically, especially really locking the heel into it’s preferred position. The heel just doesn’t lift, even with the quite loose buckles. This is something very functional in the small hill and/or park environment, forget the hassle with the buckles, just adjust them on the comfy position and keep shredding.

So I was getting maybe even too comfortable with these: on the so called “last hit of the day” I was trying to do 360 mute when something went wrong on the take-off… I started to rotate too early and too strongly, edge catched slightly, causing me to case a little and over rotate a bit. On a short but over rotated landing I managed to slighly tweak a knee (nothing serious luckily). Once at home I also noticed that the piece controlling forward lean on the back of the boot was broken. No big deal but this leads to my few only complaint of the boot.

Every single piece made to modify the ride is an additional attachment/single piece to add to the shell. Canting, forward lean, forward flex. All right, they’re pretty simple but I’m a firm believer that every additional moving part is a breakable part (and I proved that again here!). This means I have to buy spare parts, lots of them actually. And I don’t like the idea of that at all.

I might try the most upright position and loose the forward lean piece completely – seems like I liked the quite upright stance for park skiing (the middle position gave approximately 13 degree forward lean, while the most upright is around 11 degrees). Also, I felt like I don’t need the forward flex piece at all. That piece is made for restricting the “travel” in forward flex. Without the piece you get most forward flex (in travel), and then you can reduce this with additional pieces of plastic. But I probably won’t need these either, I felt like the strength of this boot is the unique “progressive” forward flex that gives you more “travel” into the flex. The only way I can describe this is to compare with the bottomless squish of the big travel full-suspension DH/FR mountain bikes. No wonder Seth likes Flexons…if you think his habit to fly “just a bit” off different obstacles…and land those airs too!

Al in all the overlook of the boot is a bit “plastic” and I think I will buy some spare buckles too. Other than that the snowboard like upper buckle and the original Flexon type ankle buckle are just superior to any traditional buckle. Did I already said that – superior.

Summarising Dalbello Krypton Il Moro ski boot review

To summarize: one day at the local park made me a believer. I’ve yet to try these in any bigger environment, and I think I take my trusty old Langes to the upcoming Austria trip (4 days still!). But even with that little experience I can say that at least in park/freestyle these just work and are the comfiest ski boots I’ve ever worn (and trust me I’ve worn quite alot of different shells and designs!)

Stay tuned: the review of my new park skis, Salomon Teneighty C.R Labs is coming tomorrow (yes, the ski is a couple of years old but still very NICE). Also, I will post from Flachau, Austria, next week. Hopefully I’ll get the first real powder of the season there…