Ah, the seasons are changing! The air is about to turn colder and soon the Geese will be making V formations toward the south. How do I know? My 2010 gear guides have arrived in the mail! I may not be in the market to replace any major gear this year, but I can't resist looking. If you love skiing and ski equipment, the gear guides are a chance to turn your head to winter and get excited about all the new things that ski manufactures have created for you.
I started with the guide I gave the best reviews last year, the Ski Magazine Buyer's Guide. Ski is fair in holy consistent in how they test and who they have test. I like that, because it gives me a basis from year to year.
I know I will see some of the same names testing each year, like Olympian Edie Thys, or my former neighbors from Vermont, Doug and Kelley Lewis. There will be new testers, keeping a wide range of ages and experience on the team. I like that I can see a tester's ski experience, height and weight. Someone my size, with lots of time skiing in the East, probably has comments more relevant to me than a tester who weighs 40 pounds more and lives in a land of frequent powder.
New this year, Ski gives you a brief questionnaire that helps you pick the kind of ski you need. It's gimmicky and some of the questions are dumb and just irrelevant. However, there are enough important questions weighted in that the test should do the trick and land you in the right section regardless of how you answer the fluff questions.
Kudos to Ski Magazine this year for putting the women's results with the men's and giving equal space. Just as ski manufacturers are recognizing they need to make gear for women, this guide is no longer relegating women's reviews to a small section in the back pages. One magazine even put women's gear in a separate issue in the past...which meant waiting an extra month! Thank goodness that idea went away.
Ski Magazine will give each ski an overall score and weights for flotation, stability at speed, quickness in bumps, rebound energy, forgiveness, crud performance, hard-snow performance and balance of skills, as well as the ski's strength and weakness. This gives you plenty of opportunity to look for the criteria important to how and where you ski and see what gear comes to the top. It's a good way to see what serious gear might meet your needs. Many skis are tested that don't make the cut to be in this issue.
So you can assume any ski that appears in the magazine is a good ski, but you need to read to find the one that is good for your skiing.
No review though is as valuable as testing it yourself. If you have the opportunity to test, do it. Use the magazine to help you define what skis you really want to try, then make arrangements with a local ski shop to take the skis out for some runs. It's worth your time.
Trying a ski is important. But trying a boot is far more important. You want good fit, the right amount of flex, and possibly a custom fit. The reviews of boots in this issue are decent and will give you a base knowledge as you head to the shops. Read, learn, then go spend a few hours finding the fit for you.
