Ski: Moment Reno Jib, 176cm 
Dimensions (mm): 111-86-111
Actual Tip to Tail Length (straight tape pull): 175.2cm
Running Length / Effective edge: 144cm
Turn Radius: 20.7 meters
Boots / Bindings: Nordica Jah Love 120 / Marker Jesters / (DIN) 12
Mount Location: – 1cm from true center
Test Location: Breckenridge, Keystone
Days Skied: 3
(Editor’s Note: our revuew was conducted on the 10/11 Reno Jib, which is unchanged for 11/12, except for the top sheets.)
Since its inception, Moment Skis, a Reno, Nevada-based indie brand, has cultivated a rather quirky, don’t-take-us-too-seriously aura, and many of the brand’s handmade skis feature busy graphics over squared-off tips and tails.
But Moment is also an equipment supplier to the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team, and a producer of mogul and aerial skis, adding to their already extensive line of twin tips and big mountain skis. So they might not just be clowning around in Reno as much as they’d lead you to believe….
But given the good times vibe, I was expecting the Reno Jib to be a soft, fun jib ski. And as long as I’ve been skiing park, Keystone has been at the forefront of innovative park feature design, and Keystone’s early season park seemed like an ideal setting to test a ski of this type.
Within this seemingly ideal setting, I was disappointed to find the Reno Jib to be an overly stiff and fairly cumbersome ski. Of course, there isn’t a ski in existence that will magically land tricks for you, but the Moment Jib made even pretty basic rail tricks like 270’s on and switch lip slides require excessive amounts of effort. Each of these tricks demand pop and response from the ski in order to get your tips up above the rail, and the ski felt less responsive when performing these tricks.
Moment pitches the ski as being light and poppy, but I constantly felt as though I had to really put my back into each ollie, butter, press, and spin. This ski slacks where a ski like the Rossignol Scratch (formerly labeled the S4), excels.
The Scratch allows the skier to initiate tricks with minimal effort and doesn’t hinder when it comes to quick, agile moves on rails or jumps. Though weight differences between the Moment Jib and the Rossignol Scratch are somewhat negligible, the Moment Jib feels comparatively sluggish, especially when setting tricks. In particular, when doing rodeo 540’s and switch corks at Breckenridge on the third day of testing, the skis seemed to want to stay behind as the rest of my body set each trick.
