General Performance
I’ve recently been riding the Moment Vice, 184cm. While the Vice is 6cm longer and 10mm narrower at the waist, the Vice and the Frankenski have a similar flex pattern and reaction to landings.
One thing I didn’t like about the Vice (which is a grievance I will likely have with most rockered park skis), is that it tends to flex out when I land heavily on the tips switch and heavily on the tails forward.
I found that this issue is even more prevalent with the Frankenski, since it has softer tips than the Vice. The sections of micro-camber (which act as a hinge point in the flex pattern), also make the ski scrub out when I land heavily on my tips. I found that the Frankenski would flex out and destabilize frequently in these scenarios, more so than any of the traditional camber park skis I’ve ridden recently (Atomic Punx, Scott Jib TW, and Nordica Ace of Spades to name a few). The ski felt unstable and it made fighting off-kilter landings that much more difficult.
Other than the hinge point, I cannot say I felt the effects of or truly understood all the implications of the micro-camber sections. Carving on groomers felt normal, particularly in comparison to the Vice. At higher speeds when I was skiing over the rough, melting glacier, the ski felt damp with very little chatter.
By adding the extra contact points with the micro-camber, I think the Frankenski lost a bit of the surfy feel that made the Vice so much fun to ride around the park and on natural features around the mountain. The additional waist width felt like a lot to me at times, making the Frankenski less maneuverable than the Vice, particularly when trying to perform fast switch ups and rail / jump tricks.
The Frankenski is definitely surfier and looser than a fully cambered ski. That said, given how similar it is to the Vice, I was surprised it wasn’t more playful.
Bottom Line
Moment’s new edge concept has a lot of potential, and I’m very curious to see how this design will hold up throughout a season of riding.
What I’ve found so far is that the Franken-Edge effectively reduces stress on—and should prolong the life of—the edge underfoot by dissipating the impact across a large, strong surface.
That said, I would be interested to see this design incorporated into other ski shapes like the Vice and Moment’s former Reno Jib.
But if a wider and/or rockered jib ski is what you’re looking for, the Frankenski could be a great option to handle a season’s worth of high-impact rail skiing.
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they did this kind of thing with the burton dominant slick a while ago it was good when the board was newish but as the base and edges get beat up the joint between the base material and regular edge would start to hook up as the gap slowly got wider and on the burton board the way that the base material met it actually would hook up unexpectedly and make for a really sketchy ride.
Lance, that was my concern as well. After the six day review period, I did experience some fraying and wear. After a full season, experiencing the same issues that you noted is definitely a possibility.
NIce review man but you’ve obviously never skied the death wish. The camber is all about being surfy.