Icelantic Skis gives the Snow Crunch team a preview of their new 2013-2014 season product line.
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This year Icelantic’s theme is “Explore Your Mind”. That theme is very relevant to the art this year as well as the ski line. Explore Your Mind for Travis Parr our artist this year, had to do with him, making a departure into another medium, which is these sculptures. Travis Parr is well known as a painter and a drawer, and every year our topsheets have been comprised of those two mediums. This year he entered a whole new realm, made these sculptures which are beautiful, and photographed them himself and that’s what you’re looking at for the topsheets of each ski.
For the ski line, Icelantic this year we are also exploring new realms, by offering new options for some of our most popular models. What we’re doing this year is offering an SKNY line, we took four popular models and we made a skinny version, that’s what SKNY stands for. That’s basically just to accomdate a broader market, Europe, the east coast, just people who prefer skinnier skis.
Gypsy: The Gypsy is a powder/freeride tool, it’s a fully reverse camber, so that is a fully rockered ski designed for deep powder, backcountry, side stashes, things like that. The really cool thing about the Gypsy however, is that when you’re on your way back to the lift or skiing hardpack, it performs really well, it carves almost like a race ski, the way we accomplish that is the sidecut of the ski is the same radius as the reverse camber, so when you roll it over on edge you get really good edge content from tip to tail. So people really enjoy that as an all-mountain ski, but I’ll tell you what, when you get it into powder is when you really realize what it’s meant to do.
Seeker: This is our big mountain ski here, this one is meant for charging. This ski has a very very hard stiff tail, and a nice, broad, long early rise tip. This is very stiff in the tail and has traditional camber and a lot of poweer under foot, and is definitely meant for going very fast, stomping landings, and any of the big mountain riding you see guys doing out there. It’s got a broad turning radius, so it needs speed to turn it, which is definitely a good offering for those big mountain guys. It doesn’t have any metal in it actually, we accomplished the stiffness and the power with wood and fibreglass, so it’s actually not too heavy either.
Keeper: The Keeper is for those people who still appreciate aggressive, traditional camber underfoot, but also want the early rise tip and tail for big mountain skiing, powder, backcountry, any of that kind of stuff when you want to shut your speed down and get the surfing feel from the tip rocker and the tail rocker, but then have a ton of power underfoot. For people who appreciate that hybrid design. I like the Keeper as a sidecountry ski, it goes well with a heavier tour binding, like a Marker Baron or a Duke, for the shorter side stashes and tours like that.
Shaman: The Shaman has been a bread and butter ski for us for a long time. It has a cult following because of it’s performance. We’ve got so many people that just fall in love with this ski after trying it, and for a long time they’ve been asking for a skinnier version. So by popular demand we did make an SKNY version, it’s a ninety under foot, whereas the traditional Shaman is a one ten underfoot. This ski is a carver, it has the most sidecut, the tightest radius of any of our skis, so it carves really well. It’s also a terrific powder tool, as you can see, the original is one sixty in the tip, so that allows that tip to really stay up, and the tapered design allows the tails to sink down in the powder, so you won’t get any tip dive, and that also lends itself to a very carvy feeling, the sidecut as well as the tapered design. Now the SKNY is going to handle powder really really well, but it’s more designed for the hardpack. It’s for people who want something that’s easier to roll edge to edge, for turn initiation, and for people who prefer more of that east coast style skiing, stick to groomers, and want something easy to carve.
Nomad RKR: This was one of our top sellers last year. It won a lot of awards with magazines and testers who tried it out. We also made a skinny version of that. I’ll show you the profile here. So the RKR skis more like flat. It’s only 2mm of camber underfoot, so it’s really gentle camber, skis more like it’s flat, and has early rise tip and tail. This is really popular because it’s so versatile, it’s great for any skier, almost any ability level, and any kind of snow terrain. I find it to be the most adaptable ski we have. That’s adaptable to style, adaptable to different snow conditions, adaptable to any different skier. That’s an easy sell, and pretty much makes everyone happy. We made a skinny version because we wanted something again for the east coast or European market. I think the skinny version is going to make a really good park ski as well. Great for buttering, finding transitions, and things like that. It carves really well, which is one of the surprising aspects of it for a rockered ski. All the Icelantics have a good, really signature carving ability that we pride ourselves in.
Oracle: It’s a woman’s specific ski. That’s not to say the guys can’t ride it, I use this as my alpine touring ski, this is my lightweight setup that I’ll throw a Dynafit on. Really, we designed it for the women, it’s lighter, is one of the key points that helps there. We didn’t want to dumb it down. It’s still a performance ski for an aggressive skier, women who are tired of womens skis. We made it lighter, and the overall dimensions are fit for a female body type, but guys like it too. Traditional camber underfoot, a little bit of tail flare, and a nice early rise tip to handle powder and crud, and it makes turn initiation easier. This ski skis short when you want it to feel short, and feels long when you want to benefit from the length.
Pilgrim: This is our frontside carver, our carving tool. What we did this year was flatten out the tail to make it more of a true carver as opposed to being a twin tip. This one we definitely needed to add a skinny version as well. The traditional one, great carver on the groomers, it’s also going to handle crud and some deeper snow. For those who really want a true traditional, skinnier carving tool, we made the skinny version. This is going to be a home run with the east coast and european markets, and I think we’re going to see some racers want to freeski on that one. Testers so far are really thrilled with it, so easy edge to edge, and very powerful.
Denollie: This is our park ski. It’s symmetrical, traditional camber throughout, and symmetrical, meant to be center-mounted for freestyle, park and pipe style riding. Really great for olliing and nolliing, it’s very poppy, it’s strong so it’s very solid on landings, but at the same time you get that buttery feeling out of it. Great response with that one.
Scout: This is actually where Icelantic began. This is a one forty three, and that’s the only length we offer it in. That 143 fat ski is very unique. It’s meant for someone looking for something unique. It’s got a tremendous sidecut to it, so it definitely carves very well. The width is great. For a short ski it still has a lot of surface area. It handles different terrain really well. It can be used as a mountaineering ski for people who want to get into tight spots, people who want to find those leftover snow stashes, juniors, women who want a shorter ski. It’s a pretty cool tool, and the reason we made an SKNY version of the Scout is to accomodate the junior market. We expect to get some aggressive, up and coming younger riders thriving with the Scout skinny.
So that’s what’s new. People will be interested to know that we are starting to go longer. For instance, back to the RKR, this being one of our most popular skis, we did decide to go up to a 191 here to accomodate those taller, or heavier riders who prefer longer lengths.
Explore your mind is what we encourage you to do, that’s what we did, so check us out at www.icelantic.com. Explore your mind.