speden
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- Nov 18, 2008
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Did the demo day at Loon today. Pretty good deal for $10. I tried about ten different skis. They had Elan, Volkl, Head, K2, and Rossi there for the main brands, and then a few less well known brands like Amalgam and Meier. They were supposed to have Atomic and Blizzard too, but they weren't there for some reason.
![demo_stands.jpg demo_stands.jpg](https://forums.alpinezone.com/data/attachments/15/15937-3a4e4aee8d721360f480e5a8b55a4333.jpg)
It was pretty comfortable temps today, somewhere in the mid to upper 30's I guess. Usually crowds at Loon on a Saturday would be big, but today it was only moderately busy. Lots of guys showed up for demo day though, so sometimes it was hard to get the exact size ski I wanted to try, since most of them were checked out.
I'm looking for a fairly wide ski I can take out west, but that's also useful on powder days in the northeast. Two skis I really liked were the Elan Ripstick 106 and the Head Core 99. I guess those are both freeride skis, and they felt very light and flickable, and while clearly not carving skis, they were comfortable on the groomed trails. The Ripstick was particularly good at dealing with crud and was good at skidded turns. Probably freeride skis are more at home in powder, but there was none of that to be found today. I was really surprised I liked the Ripstick; it didn't feel that wide at all. By contrast I tried the Rossi Soul 7 HD's at 106 width, and they felt like giant boards strapped to my feet. Looks like the Head Core also comes in a 105 width, but I didn't get to try that today. I should probably try to demo that somewhere before I pull the trigger on the Elan's since I might like it better.
The snow held up pretty well during the day, and the sun showed up in the afternoon.
![trail.jpg trail.jpg](https://forums.alpinezone.com/data/attachments/15/15938-9229b5ee32d89e3bedfb21e9ba270177.jpg)
The demo's wrapped up at 2pm just as the snow was starting to get really scraped off. I still felt like more skiing, so I popped on my regular Atomic all mountain skis and they felt terrible. If I had been demoing them I would have turned them back in after one run in disgust! It seems I've outgrown them and the length is too short for me now. I didn't realize how bad they were until I could see the difference back to back with other skis. Looks like it's time for an upgrade.![Smile :) :)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
![demo_stands.jpg demo_stands.jpg](https://forums.alpinezone.com/data/attachments/15/15937-3a4e4aee8d721360f480e5a8b55a4333.jpg)
It was pretty comfortable temps today, somewhere in the mid to upper 30's I guess. Usually crowds at Loon on a Saturday would be big, but today it was only moderately busy. Lots of guys showed up for demo day though, so sometimes it was hard to get the exact size ski I wanted to try, since most of them were checked out.
I'm looking for a fairly wide ski I can take out west, but that's also useful on powder days in the northeast. Two skis I really liked were the Elan Ripstick 106 and the Head Core 99. I guess those are both freeride skis, and they felt very light and flickable, and while clearly not carving skis, they were comfortable on the groomed trails. The Ripstick was particularly good at dealing with crud and was good at skidded turns. Probably freeride skis are more at home in powder, but there was none of that to be found today. I was really surprised I liked the Ripstick; it didn't feel that wide at all. By contrast I tried the Rossi Soul 7 HD's at 106 width, and they felt like giant boards strapped to my feet. Looks like the Head Core also comes in a 105 width, but I didn't get to try that today. I should probably try to demo that somewhere before I pull the trigger on the Elan's since I might like it better.
The snow held up pretty well during the day, and the sun showed up in the afternoon.
![trail.jpg trail.jpg](https://forums.alpinezone.com/data/attachments/15/15938-9229b5ee32d89e3bedfb21e9ba270177.jpg)
The demo's wrapped up at 2pm just as the snow was starting to get really scraped off. I still felt like more skiing, so I popped on my regular Atomic all mountain skis and they felt terrible. If I had been demoing them I would have turned them back in after one run in disgust! It seems I've outgrown them and the length is too short for me now. I didn't realize how bad they were until I could see the difference back to back with other skis. Looks like it's time for an upgrade.