2013-2014 Moment Vice

Ski: 2013-2014 Moment Vice, 184cm

Dimensions (mm): 110-83-105

Sidecut Radius: 21 meters

Actual Tip-to-Tail Length (Straight Tape Pull): 182.4cm

Boots / Bindings: Nordica Jah Love / Rossignol FKS 140 (DIN at 12)

Mount Location: -1cm from true center

Test Locations: Park City Mountain Resort, Sun Valley, Crested Butte

Days Skied: 10

[Editor’s Note: Our review was conducted on the 12/13 Vice. The ski’s design was not changed for 13/14, though Moment made some changes to their manufacturing process for the 13/14 model.]

I remember exactly where I was the first time I saw someone ski park on rockered skis: Josh Bibby on the Horstman Glacier at Whistler-Blackcomb in July 2007, and he was skiing on a pair of K2 Hellbents.

The Hellbents were so alien looking: they were fat, sported completely reverse camber, and they vibrated violently on the bumpy hardpack of Momentum Ski Camps’ terrain park. My inner cynic immediately dismissed them on the basis that they couldn’t possibly be stable. Why would anyone ride those in the park?

Since the Hellbent was released, ski manufacturers have experimented with a variety of different camber designs, many of which have been incorporated into park skis.

With the Vice, Moment has built a ski with the initial idea of the Hellbent in mind, but with a modern twist. The Vice features what Moment calls “Mustache Camber,” which means significant tip and tail rocker along with a portion of traditional camber underfoot, the end goal being to effectively increase stability on jumps and around the mountain, while reaping the benefits of tip and tail rocker around the park.

Stability / Turning

The first thing that I noticed while skiing on the Vice in mid March was how they absolutely trucked through the wet slush at Park City Mountain Resort. Even in the 50-plus-degree temperatures, the Vice’s tip rocker allowed me to keep my speed up between features. This surprised me, because the Vice isn’t all that wide, with a waist of only 83 mm and a shovel width of 110 mm.

The second thing I noticed was how the limited amount of effective edge (thanks to the tip and tail rocker) made the Vice feel short, yet this issue was somewhat mitigated by a longer turn radius.

The lack of stability is a common drawback of rockered park skis, but Moment does an excellent job of addressing this issue by incorporating a longer turn radius through a subtler sidecut. At 21 meters, the Vice’s turn radius matches that of the Atomic Punx in a size 182, which has a much longer effective-edge length given its traditional camber profile. The rationale is that a longer sidecut radius will in turn make the Vice behave similar to a ski with a longer effective edge length when skiing around the mountain, or when carving into and out of jumps.

After skiing on the Atomic Punx for several weeks before switching over to the Vice, I expected to feel the harsh effects of an abrupt transition between two skis on seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum. But I was pleasantly surprised when the longer turn radius allowed me to feel much more at home with the Vice. Even in the wet slop of late-season Utah resort skiing, I felt at ease when initiating turns and carving hard into spins in the Park City jump line.

The Vice was very predictable in these regards, leaving little guesswork in terms of how much lateral pressure I needed to take the correct path up the slushy jump takeoffs for tricks that require more precise carves, like cork 3s and 5s.

The result is stunning: the Vice allows the rider to take advantage of all of the pros of a rockered park ski, while still being able to make turns much like a traditional camber ski would.

Playfulness

As I hoped, the rockered tip and tail made the Vice exceptionally surfy and playful on rails and jibs, particularly making surface switches dramatically easier. This difference also manifested itself when I tried tricks like regular switch-ups and spins off rails, where I felt as though the rocker profile gave me a slightly larger margin for error.

Put simply, I felt as though I didn’t catch my tips and tails on the rail nearly as often as on a traditional cambered ski like the Punx. I was thankful for this feature when considering just how long of a ski a 184 is compared to what I’ve primarily ridden over the past few years (usually something in the 175 cm range). Even though the ski is substantially longer, the additional length was made less burdensome by the forgiving qualities of the rockered tip and tails.

Yet one area where the Vice fell short of my expectations was when I tried to do butters. For some reason, I expected the rockered tips and tails to reduce the amount of effort required to load up my tips and butter onto rails, but this just wasn’t apparent. The flex pattern of the Vice is such that the tips don’t feel much softer than underfoot, leaving no location on the ski to act as a hinge point that would enable the ski’s capability to butter effectively.