Exclusive! The upcoming season's top skis tested by our team of experts. Frank, objective assessments by high-level professionals, competition skiers, in-store specialists and experienced skiers.
Snow and weather conditions The weather conditions were pretty varied but worked out well overall in light of our ski review programme. We do have two regrets however: we were not able to test the «Mid Fat Freerides » in deep snow (they were tested at La Grave in snow that ranged from hard packed to crud), and we were not able to test the slalom and giant slalom skis on extremely hard packed snow.
Test site 2008/2009 Wintersports.com's 2008 ski review session (testing the new 2009 skis) was held at the 2 Alpes ski resort, in Isère. We set up our logistical base in the « Le Panoramique » Restaurant (altitude 2600 meters). It was an ideal location thanks to the fact it gave the testers a direct access to the upper and lower parts of the skiing domain, to the Toura and to the snow park, thus allowing plenty of rotations. The Mid Fat Freeride skis were tested on the impressive La Grave skiing domain.
Testers 2008/2009 As with previous years, we made sure we had a large panel of testers, comprised of both pros and non pros. Indeed, while competitive skiers, ski instructors and ski pros are able to fully analyse a ski's characteristics and give a very technical opinion, non pro skiers (but experts nonetheless) might have a less technical opinion but are able to formulate an opinion that is a lot closer to that of the end user. The debriefings we conducted at the end of the tests for each category allowed the testers to exchange points of view, thus enabling them to provide us with the most relevant, comprehensive and objective evaluations possible.
Filling out the review forms: a difficult exercise for the testers, who had to give their opinion according to a very precise grid!
A quick run on a railing to make sure this ski can go anywhere...
The Panoramique, altitude 2600m: the tester team's logistical base and restaurant.
The Pipe: one of our freestyle testers' favourite playgrounds!
Weather briefing: the weather conditions could've been better, but (soon after this picture was taken) the fog and the snow disappeared and bright sunshine appeared instead.
On account of the variety of ski slopes and of exposures, the skis could be tested in the different conditions required by their category...
The Freeride team arrives to the top of the La Grave chairlift...
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Full details on all the testers;)
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