March 23, 2005; Sugar Bowl Resort, CA
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:06 pm
After skiing the Bonneville salt flats and getting unstuck from some Nevada mud, Big Kam and Skip manage to get themselves down to my place in Tahoe for a quick ski trip. With over a foot of new snow all over Tahoe, we decided to ski Sugar Bowl hoping to avoid the usual Tahoe feeding frenzy crowd.
This was our first test of the Red Oktobers, made by Big Kam and Kelvin, which have the following dimensions: 135-145-125mm. It's a Spatula-like ski, however, with a little more inverse sidecut and less negative camber (only 2mm). The first runs on the Red Oktobers were amazing and definitely changed our perspective on what a powder ski should be. The huge width combined with the reverse sidecut and soft flex made for a very forgiving ski that allow for super smooth turning and was pretty stable at high speeds in the powder. Even when skiing the cut up leftovers, the Red Oktobers just floated right over the junk. These skis are simply incredible.
They do have some drawbacks though. The skis were a bit too soft (only 7mm at the thickest portion of the core) which allowed them to get knocked around quite a bit. But having the ski so soft also made them very forgiving, which helped out when trying to throw these tanks around. The reverse sidecut was also a little too extreme. You could really notice the sidecut when skiing the hardpack and the bumps. With no edge grip, the skis were hard to control making me look like some wild bird flopping my hands all over the place. But I think with a little more practice, the firmer snow should be managable.
Overall, I really like these skis. They definitely changed how I will ski powder in the future and I doubt if I'll ever go back to skiing a regular fat ski on a powder day again. I've never realized how crappy a regular sidecut ski is for the deep snow.
Pics and video will be up soon.
This was our first test of the Red Oktobers, made by Big Kam and Kelvin, which have the following dimensions: 135-145-125mm. It's a Spatula-like ski, however, with a little more inverse sidecut and less negative camber (only 2mm). The first runs on the Red Oktobers were amazing and definitely changed our perspective on what a powder ski should be. The huge width combined with the reverse sidecut and soft flex made for a very forgiving ski that allow for super smooth turning and was pretty stable at high speeds in the powder. Even when skiing the cut up leftovers, the Red Oktobers just floated right over the junk. These skis are simply incredible.
They do have some drawbacks though. The skis were a bit too soft (only 7mm at the thickest portion of the core) which allowed them to get knocked around quite a bit. But having the ski so soft also made them very forgiving, which helped out when trying to throw these tanks around. The reverse sidecut was also a little too extreme. You could really notice the sidecut when skiing the hardpack and the bumps. With no edge grip, the skis were hard to control making me look like some wild bird flopping my hands all over the place. But I think with a little more practice, the firmer snow should be managable.
Overall, I really like these skis. They definitely changed how I will ski powder in the future and I doubt if I'll ever go back to skiing a regular fat ski on a powder day again. I've never realized how crappy a regular sidecut ski is for the deep snow.
Pics and video will be up soon.