The Ski Diva + SkiTalk Ski Review Sharing Partnership

[santacruz skier]

I'm flattered. Testing is a skill set I'd like to develop / refine, but I'm not sure what Tricia/Phil/Rachel are looking for, and I do run into the scarcity of skis on demo days issue. Years ago, my friends were product testing for Elan, and I couldn't join because the shortest skis in the test fleet were 165cm traditional cambered skis.

I know. I used to go with the Ski Shop Santa Cruz to their demo days at Alpine and Sugarbowl and the shortest skis were 170's......

 

[tinymoose]

The struggle is real! And there really is a need for skis for smaller adults -- many of the most active threads this off season were started by people 110lbs and under (like, waaaaay under) trying to figure out what was out there, short of getting custom skis.

There's nothing like a serious case of FOMO while you watch all your friends demo skis and you can't b/c they're all a foot over your head. lol

It has been exciting to see all the new fellow shorties on the forum in the last year or so. It was great to have a fellow smallz in @jthree to demo skis with me at Killington at Diva East.

 

[MissySki]

There's nothing like a serious case of FOMO while you watch all your friends demo skis and you can't b/c they're all a foot over your head. lol

It has been exciting to see all the new fellow shorties on the forum in the last year or so. It was great to have a fellow smallz in @jthree to demo skis with me at Killington at Diva East.

Same for taller folks. I have been with @lisamamot at a number of demo events where she has almost nothing in her size to try in women’s skis. Usually I am lucky to be in a sweet spot for womens demo skis, being anywhere in the 160s lengths working pretty well for me. Though it’s funny because in some recent years I’ve been annoyed to find the longest size a rep will bring in a ski I want to try being in the low to mid 150s. I totally think they should bring those sizes of course, it’s just that my height of 5’4” being about the average woman’s height in the US that seems to be a short cap! Last year this happened to me because there was another demo day elsewhere at the same time so they split the fleet.. we happened to get the short end of the stick haha. Though it wasn’t every brand. I would be super annoyed if I were in the situation where skis were never there in my size at demo days. So I feel for that for sure.. hopefully it will change at some point.

 

[SkiBam]

The world is made for average-sized people. Ask me how I know. Sigh.

 

[tinymoose]

Same for taller folks. I have been with @lisamamot at a number of demo events where she has almost nothing in her size to try in women’s skis. Usually I am lucky to be in a sweet spot for womens demo skis, being anywhere in the 160s lengths working pretty well for me. Though it’s funny because in some recent years I’ve been annoyed to find the longest size a rep will bring in a ski I want to try being in the low to mid 150s. I totally think they should bring those sizes of course, it’s just that my height of 5’4” being about the average woman’s height in the US that seems to be a short cap! Last year this happened to me because there was another demo day elsewhere at the same time so they split the fleet.. we happened to get the short end of the stick haha. Though it wasn’t every brand. I would be super annoyed if I were in the situation where skis were never there in my size at demo days. So I feel for that for sure.. hopefully it will change at some point.

Only upside to being taller is you can try men's skis. Nobody brings junior skis.

 

[MissySki]

Only upside to being taller is you can try men's skis. Nobody brings junior skis.

True, but many are not the same construction between the men’s and women’s versions.. so not sure if that helps someone who wants the women’s specifically. Especially taller women who are lightweight and don’t want a burlier ski. But I guess that is still more options than just nothing in a shorter size perhaps.

 

[jthree]

There's nothing like a serious case of FOMO while you watch all your friends demo skis and you can't b/c they're all a foot over your head. lol

It has been exciting to see all the new fellow shorties on the forum in the last year or so. It was great to have a fellow smallz in @jthree to demo skis with me at Killington at Diva East.

Yes that was fun!

I haven't done a general demo day at a mountain and sad to learn that the small sizes are generally not available. Yes, @SkiBam the world is made for average-size people!

 

[SnowHot]

I'm flattered. Testing is a skill set I'd like to develop / refine, but I'm not sure what Tricia/Phil/Rachel are looking for, and I do run into the scarcity of skis on demo days issue. Years ago, my friends were product testing for Elan, and I couldn't join because the shortest skis in the test fleet were 165cm traditional cambered skis.

There's nothing like a serious case of FOMO while you watch all your friends demo skis and you can't b/c they're all a foot over your head. lol

It has been exciting to see all the new fellow shorties on the forum in the last year or so. It was great to have a fellow smallz in @jthree to demo skis with me at Killington at Diva East.

Both of you are a strong consideration, if we thought they'd have skis in a good length for you.

 

[SnowHot]

I found that I could tell something by demo'ing skis that were one size too long, even as an adventurous intermediate. It worked out well when I bought a shorter length Head Absolut Joy after I liked the slightly longer length at a demo day.

The situation for demo'ing for shorter lengths is better for the name brands than the indie brands. For that matter, new indie brands often aren't even made in lengths much under 165.

There are a handful of skis that you can demo in a longer or shorter length to get a sense of what it will do, but there are some that just don't work that way.
I skied something with a lot of shape this past year that was a length shorter than I'd usually ski and it was far to squirrly to make any judgement of what it would do in the correct length.

Tunes are a whole different bag of tricks to sort out when testing.

 

[scandium]

All the talk about demo lengths is making me realise how lucky I often am to ski a 150-something ski, and also that most brand demo tents bring them to the mountain!

I haven’t seen a 140-something at a demo day since 2018ish when I got on the first iteration of the Astral 78, but this year I got on a 150cm Salomon X Max 8, Atomic had mid-150s in their Maven series, K2/Line had the low-150s lengths of the women’s’ Mindbender series, and Volkl had the mid 150s lengths in the Yumi and Kenja. Black Crows also brought their 150somethings but I ended up going longer.

 

[coldthrill]

I'm in the completely privileged position of having only demo'd Stocklis, at a small resort in upstate New York. The experience had me sell the first skis I'd bought in 25-ish years and buy SC's, thanks especially to the advice of a wonderful Stockli rep I connected with via Skitalk. Not necessarily in that order. My second Stockli demo day, in the spring, was also super eye-opening. I loved skiing the AW, but even more, the (unisex) Laser SL, which I was only able to try in a size larger than I'd buy. They seem to have everything I love about the SCs, only squared. I love them. (Should I replace the SCs with SLs? It's very tempting!) Anyway, I am excited about the prospect of seeing more ski reviews for women on both websites. I love this partnership!

 

[coldthrill]

I should add that the only reason I made sure to be there for the Stockli demo day was Skitalk's obsessive, maniacal and thoroughly entertaining Never-Ending Stockli Discussion, which I dove into while recovering from Covid last November.

 

[SnowHot]

I'm in the completely privileged position of having only demo'd Stocklis, at a small resort in upstate New York. The experience had me sell the first skis I'd bought in 25-ish years and buy SC's, thanks especially to the advice of a wonderful Stockli rep I connected with via Skitalk. Not necessarily in that order. My second Stockli demo day, in the spring, was also super eye-opening. I loved skiing the AW, but even more, the (unisex) Laser SL, which I was only able to try in a size larger than I'd buy. They seem to have everything I love about the SCs, only squared. I love them. (Should I replace the SCs with SLs? It's very tempting!) Anyway, I am excited about the prospect of seeing more ski reviews for women on both websites. I love this partnership!

Lindsey B is a wealth of information in the never ending Stöckli discussion and generally makes himself available to answer questions via PM as well.
I don't own any Stöcklis but every year when I demo them I'm blown away with their smoothness and responsivness.

And, frankly they are one of the brands that bring shorter sizes to demos

 

[tinymoose]

I'm totally going off-topic here so feel free to move/delete, but I got to try a pair of Stockli Laser MX at Killington this past season and was really underwhelmed with them. I only took them out b/c the demo shop guy wanted me to try them out (wasn't in the market for another pair of skinny skis). They weren't bad, they just didn't feel as energetic or as grippy as my SLs. I'd like to eventually get to try other Stocklis, though.

 

[coldthrill]

Lindsey B is a wealth of information in the never ending Stöckli discussion and generally makes himself available to answer questions via PM as well.
I don't own any Stöcklis but every year when I demo them I'm blown away with their smoothness and responsivness.

And, frankly they are one of the brands that bring shorter sizes to demos

Completely agree. Lindsey is so generous with his thoughts and insights.

 

[skinnyfootskis]

This is great!