The “Crazy 88’s” redux and what happened to wider skis?:
First, I’ll say that this is not a new category and nothing has happened to wide skis, they’re still around in great numbers. What has happened though is a dearth of snow in the western regions in four of the last five winters. So what really happened is that skiers who used to regularly or even exclusively ski on skis that were well over 100mm have gradually realized that they may not have had the best gear on their feet much of the time. During these recent lean years, we either skied on hard snow a lot of the time……..or we didn’t ski.
As a result, skiers over the last several years have trickled into the shops and started buying up skis that were 20 or even 30mm narrower than that they had been skiing. Of course they would often keep their bigger stuff for those days when it had snowed but they simply wanted something that would perform better when it hadn’t. So, they started a quiver or added to the quiver they already had. Generally, they went one of two directions. They either sought out a real live “fronstside carver” (example: Head Rally etc) or they went for what I tend to term a “narrow all mountain ski (example: Blizzard Brahma etc). I’ve been writing about this latter category for years now and have come to call them “The Crazy 88’s” because although they range in width from maybe 85-90mm (ish) a lot of them seem to cluster around the 88mm mark. And……..I have to admit, I like the name.......
So……what are these skis anyway? Well, they can be a lot of things but generally speaking they are narrower versions of stuff the manufacturers had already been selling a lot of in the 98mm range and up. What these guys are not, are pure, dedicated packed snow specialty skis that usually run in the 70-76mm (ish). With the 88's the manufacturer would usually take out some of the tip rocker and most if not all of the tail rocker. They would often beef the flex up a little as well and sometimes deepen the sidecut. The goal of all this was to make the one ski quiver a little more biased toward firmer snow while still holding an advantage over the carvers in boot top snow…….and it worked. Some skis in this category have a bit of a bias toward softer mixed conditions while others are biased toward firmer snow. As in most ski categories, you can get just about anything you want.
OK…..so who should be considering these types of skis? The Crazy 88’s are great skis for the one ski skier that likes a little mixed snow once in a while but really doesn’t ski it all that often. This is the skier that maybe skis packed snow conditions most of the time and may see boot top snow once a season. They also may not tackle the most difficult terrain often if at all. For the skier that really does frequent the most difficult off trail conditions regularly, something in the wider widths is probably the better call. Still, even for that skier, one of these can make a useful addition to what they already have. For women, this width ski can handle mid-calf snow easily (lighter skier ya know)
I’ll start posting individual reviews on this category in the fairly near term.
