Albertan ski girl
Angel Diva
I know there are many lovers of the Samba on this forum - but @contesstant I relate most to your view of the Samba. I totally expected to love the Samba heading out to the mountain today, but the opposite was true. So here it goes...
Me: Advanced skier, mostly Rockies blacks, 220 lbs, 5'8", more aggressive than finesse, but not by a lot. I like soft and steep - and, I've discovered over the past few weeks, soft bumps of all sizes! My daily driver right now is a 2013 Volkl Kenja.
Conditions: Typical March powder day at Sunshine Village! Morning was untracked pow, from ankle to knee deep in some places, windblown chalk at the tops of Lookout and Goat's Eye, some chop. Afternoon was a lot of cut-up pow and lots of big soft bumps.
Blizzard Samba 2016, 173 cm:
131-98-116mm
19 m radius
Mr.Albertanskigirl decided to try some Blizzards over the past few days (Bonafide and Brahma), so I decided - what the hell - I'll try one too. I decided on the Samba since I'm considering adding a circa 100 underfoot as my main all-mountain daily ski here in the Alberta Rockies. I tried the Nordica Santa Ana a few weeks ago and it's been the benchmark thus far, with nothing coming even close yet. Well, the Samba didn't come close either. Today was an amazing day, and I was looking forward to trying the Sambas out in a variety of conditions at Sunshine.
On my first run of the day, I noticed that I had a hard time turning the ski. I'm not a lightweight, and I've never really had this problem, but I had to muscle this ski to get it going where I wanted it to. The ski was softer in the tip and mid-section than my Kenjas, but I felt that the tails were much stiffer. I could feel the tails with every turn and it made me feel like I had lead on my feet. In the pow morning, I did notice that I had no tip dive at all - which was great. Tip dive is something I do have with my Kenjas quite a bit, so this was a nice surprise. It made me feel like this ski was quite floaty in the conditions. It took me a few runs to get used to handling the ski, but my tentative-ness did not improve throughout the day. I thought these skis were a lot of work. I could make pretty nice big sweeping turns, but I had difficulty getting the Samba to comply and make shorter turns. Most of the day, I thought that the Sambas were about 2 seconds ahead of me and I was struggling to keep up. I don't know if this has to do with technique - I've been told that I have a pretty good stance and I am never in the backseat - so I'm going to blame it on the ski, but I am open to the possibility that it could also be the driver.
We went up on Goat's Eye which was quite windblown and even scraped down to ice at the top and did a sequence of blacks down from the top. Just as we were starting off, the storm moved in and the light became unbelievably flat. Piles of snow that were 3 feet high that I had seen while going up on the lift just disappeared. The very top black run was very windblown and scraped down. Those conditions coupled with the flat light made the skiing very difficult. In this part, it was interesting - I didn't feel like the Samba let me read the terrain very well. We're used to skiing in flat light here quite a bit, especially at Sunshine Village (yeah, that name is the biggest joke in the world). But, even in flat light, my Kenjas give me a good feeling for the terrain underfoot, and I feel like I can still read the terrain relatively well. With the Sambas, I felt I was skiing blind. It really threw me off and I struggled immensely for about the first third of the way down. By the time we got past this first third, I began to feel soft chalk underneath me again, and it was much easier. The bottom half was really fun - it was some untracked pow, some semi-tracked and I had a pretty good time making big swooping turns through the snow.
The afternoon was clearer, with some sunny spots opening up all over. SO and I did a bunch of bump runs on Lookout, Standish and Wawa. Again, the Samba was ok, but I felt continuously that I really had to muscle them to go where I wanted them to. I really was puzzled by the work it took me to turn the skis. Even after a full powder day with lots of vertical, I rarely feel more than general fatigue and soreness. Today, I felt really tired and sore in my knees.
Overall, I can confidently say that the Samba is not for me. Although I really appreciated the float and the way that the tips just travelled over the snow, I would not ski the Samba again
In case any of you are interested in Mr.AlbertanSkiGirl's experience with the Bonafide and Brahma, he didn't like them either. The front runner for his next pair of skis is still the Nordica NRGY 100s.
Me: Advanced skier, mostly Rockies blacks, 220 lbs, 5'8", more aggressive than finesse, but not by a lot. I like soft and steep - and, I've discovered over the past few weeks, soft bumps of all sizes! My daily driver right now is a 2013 Volkl Kenja.
Conditions: Typical March powder day at Sunshine Village! Morning was untracked pow, from ankle to knee deep in some places, windblown chalk at the tops of Lookout and Goat's Eye, some chop. Afternoon was a lot of cut-up pow and lots of big soft bumps.
Blizzard Samba 2016, 173 cm:
131-98-116mm
19 m radius
Mr.Albertanskigirl decided to try some Blizzards over the past few days (Bonafide and Brahma), so I decided - what the hell - I'll try one too. I decided on the Samba since I'm considering adding a circa 100 underfoot as my main all-mountain daily ski here in the Alberta Rockies. I tried the Nordica Santa Ana a few weeks ago and it's been the benchmark thus far, with nothing coming even close yet. Well, the Samba didn't come close either. Today was an amazing day, and I was looking forward to trying the Sambas out in a variety of conditions at Sunshine.
On my first run of the day, I noticed that I had a hard time turning the ski. I'm not a lightweight, and I've never really had this problem, but I had to muscle this ski to get it going where I wanted it to. The ski was softer in the tip and mid-section than my Kenjas, but I felt that the tails were much stiffer. I could feel the tails with every turn and it made me feel like I had lead on my feet. In the pow morning, I did notice that I had no tip dive at all - which was great. Tip dive is something I do have with my Kenjas quite a bit, so this was a nice surprise. It made me feel like this ski was quite floaty in the conditions. It took me a few runs to get used to handling the ski, but my tentative-ness did not improve throughout the day. I thought these skis were a lot of work. I could make pretty nice big sweeping turns, but I had difficulty getting the Samba to comply and make shorter turns. Most of the day, I thought that the Sambas were about 2 seconds ahead of me and I was struggling to keep up. I don't know if this has to do with technique - I've been told that I have a pretty good stance and I am never in the backseat - so I'm going to blame it on the ski, but I am open to the possibility that it could also be the driver.
We went up on Goat's Eye which was quite windblown and even scraped down to ice at the top and did a sequence of blacks down from the top. Just as we were starting off, the storm moved in and the light became unbelievably flat. Piles of snow that were 3 feet high that I had seen while going up on the lift just disappeared. The very top black run was very windblown and scraped down. Those conditions coupled with the flat light made the skiing very difficult. In this part, it was interesting - I didn't feel like the Samba let me read the terrain very well. We're used to skiing in flat light here quite a bit, especially at Sunshine Village (yeah, that name is the biggest joke in the world). But, even in flat light, my Kenjas give me a good feeling for the terrain underfoot, and I feel like I can still read the terrain relatively well. With the Sambas, I felt I was skiing blind. It really threw me off and I struggled immensely for about the first third of the way down. By the time we got past this first third, I began to feel soft chalk underneath me again, and it was much easier. The bottom half was really fun - it was some untracked pow, some semi-tracked and I had a pretty good time making big swooping turns through the snow.
The afternoon was clearer, with some sunny spots opening up all over. SO and I did a bunch of bump runs on Lookout, Standish and Wawa. Again, the Samba was ok, but I felt continuously that I really had to muscle them to go where I wanted them to. I really was puzzled by the work it took me to turn the skis. Even after a full powder day with lots of vertical, I rarely feel more than general fatigue and soreness. Today, I felt really tired and sore in my knees.
Overall, I can confidently say that the Samba is not for me. Although I really appreciated the float and the way that the tips just travelled over the snow, I would not ski the Samba again
In case any of you are interested in Mr.AlbertanSkiGirl's experience with the Bonafide and Brahma, he didn't like them either. The front runner for his next pair of skis is still the Nordica NRGY 100s.
