Best of the Best: Men's Skis
Nov 14, 2009 · 05:32 AM · permalink
Browsing the newsstand at Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, the racks were bursting with “best gear” editions of all the snow sports publications. I’ve always vaguely wondered: if you compiled results from a bunch of magazines, would you find agreement? Would you even find overlap? So I bought a few magazines—Freeskier, Outside, and Ski—and compiled the results.
The results are interesting, and I’ll be publishing them here over the next several days, but here are a few things I noticed right off:
- Freeskier and Ski have done a good job of talking about women’s gear. Outside not so much.
- There is surprisingly little agreement or overlap between these publications. Only Freeskier attempts to be comprehensive.
- Ski has completely changed their categories, allowing them to rate more skis, but divorcing those ratings from how many skiers approach gear and how most manufacturers categorize their gear. Needless to say, Ski’s rankings aren’t very user-friendly.
Since it was difficult to find much agreement between the three magazines about what category a particular ski or boot falls into—let alone the ranking—my approach to compiling the results is to include only the gear with a rank of 5 or better by at least one publication. In those cases, if there is a ranking of less than 5 from another publication, I include it. This narrows the pool down to 55 men’s skis and about the same number of Women’s skis.
Among men’s skis, there are plenty of skis that received two rankings, but only one with three: the Völkl Gotama.
Here then, are the compiled rankings for 2010 men’s skis. Tell us what you know about these skis—agree, disagree, think someone got cheated? Let us know.
| The Skis | Freeskier | Outside | Ski |
| Atomic Cloud 09 | Cruiser 02 | ||
| Atomic Coax | Big Mountain 04 | Powder Super Wide 06 | |
| Atomic Savage T1 | Freeride 03 | ||
| Atomic Smoke | Intermediate 03 | ||
| Atomic Snoop | Powder Wide 01 | ||
| Blizzard G-Force Supersonic IQ | Speed 01 | ||
| Blizzard Magnum 7.6 IQ | Intermediate 01 | ||
| Blizzard Magnum 8.1 IQ | Cruiser 05 | ||
| Blizzard Magnum 8.7 IQ Max | All Mountain 04 | Freeride 02 | |
| Blizzard The Answer IQ Max | Big Mountain 04 | Powder Super Wide 02 | |
| Blizzard Titan Atlas IQ Max | All Mountain 06 | Powder Wide 02 | |
| Blizzard Viva 7.6 IQ | Cruiser 01 | ||
| Dynastar 6th Sense Distorter | All Mountain 01 | ||
| Dynastar Legend Pro Rider | Powder Wide 03 | ||
| Dynastar Legend Pro XXL | Big Mountain 03 | Powder Super Wide 08 | |
| Dynastar Legend Sultan 80 | Intermediate 02 | ||
| Fat-Ypus A-Lotta Rocker | Powder Skis 02 | ||
| Head John 94 | All Mountain 03 | ||
| K2 Apache Crossfire | Front Side 04 | Speed 03 | |
| K2 Apache Xplorer | All Mountain 02 | Freeride 04 | |
| K2 Apache Recon MX | Cruiser 04 | ||
| K2 Coomback | Powder Wide 04 | ||
| K2 Kung Fujas | Park Skis 03 | ||
| K2 Obsethed | Big Mountain 02 | ||
| K2 SideStash | All Mountain 01 | Powder Super Wide 07 | |
| Kästle MX98 | Big Mountain 03 | Powder Wide 06 | |
| Kästle MX88 | All Mountain 06 | Freeride 05 | |
| Liberty Double Helix | All Mountain 03 | ||
| Line Prophet 100 | Powder Wide 05 | ||
| Line Prophet 90 | All Mountain 05 | ||
| Moment Bibby Pro | Powder Skis 05 | ||
| Nordica Ace of Spades | Park Skis 04 | ||
| Nordica Dead Money | Park Skis 05 | ||
| Nordica Girish | Big Mountain 01 | Powder Super Wide 05 | |
| Nordica Hot Rod Ignitor CA XBI CT | Intermediate 05 | ||
| Nordica Hot Rod Nitrous CA XBI CT | Cruiser 03 | ||
| Nordica Speedmachine Mach 4 Power XBI CT | Front Side 03 | Speed 05 | |
| Rossignol Classic 80 TI | Front Side 02 | Speed 04 | |
| Rossignol Phantom SC 87 | All Mountain 05 | ||
| Rossignol S7 Barras | Powder Skis 10 | Powder Super Wide 03 | |
| Salomon Dumont | Park Skis 01 | ||
| Salomon Lord | All Mountain 02 | ||
| Salomon Rocker | Powder Skis 04 | ||
| Salomon Shogun | Big Mountain 01 | ||
| Salomon Suspect | Park Skis 02 | ||
| Scott Punisher | All Mountain 04 | ||
| Scott Stunt | Powder Super Wide 04 | ||
| Völkl AC50 | Freeride 01 | ||
| Völkl Chopstick | Powder Skis 03 | ||
| Völkl Gotama | Big Mountain 05 | Big Mountain 02 | Powder Super Wide 01 |
| Völkl Kuro | Powder Skis 01 | ||
| Völkl Tigershark 11 Power Switch | Front Side 01 | Speed 02 | |
| Völkl Unlimited AC20 | Intermediate 04 |
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