You’ll recall from Part 1 my firm belief that the mathematically infinite radius of the Spatula showed lots of people (including myself) that a true ‘reverse sidecut’ makes the ski handle fantastically in three dimensional snow. The WooTest won’t be a true reverse sidecut, but it will be moving in that direction, since it’s very close to being essentially straight. This should help keep the ski loose in heavy, rotten powder and stiff, wind loaded snow without becoming the annoying, splits-inducing machine that a true reverse sidecut ski produces. And straight skis comfortably go straight—without hooking—in any and all snow conditions. It should be a good balance of stability and ‘slarveability.’
Keith and I also agreed upon a small tweak to the rocker profile. Both iterations of the Protest are very similar in that they have long, drawn out splays, and just a tad of camber (just a few millimeters that for all intents and purposes becomes flat once the ski is broken in).
The current version has a very slight reduction in the length of splay from both ends of the ski when compared to the original model. The ‘rocker’ portion starts a little bit later and is slightly less drastic. Once again, to maintain good deep snow performance in a smaller surface area, we felt that the older rocker profile would benefit this ski. It’s not much of a difference between the two profiles, but the thinking is that any tweaks ought to move in the direction of better powder performance.
An additional benefit should be that it ought to maintain its loose feel in heavy, wet snow a little better than the current Protest profile would have offered.
A little borrowing from other Praxis models is inevitable when cruising around the shop and seeing all the skis in person. To tailor this ski even more for the backcountry, I noticed that the tail on the current Praxis Backcountry model had a small notch for a skin clip. Keith was down with incorporating this into the Wootest. Pointy round tails are a pain with skin clips, so this will be a welcome addition.
Keith also uses a slightly lighter weight topsheet on the Backcountry model, and thought this would also be an appropriate feature. So the topsheet material will be available from that model.
It’s been a few years since I’d bought a pair of skis from Praxis, so I couldn’t help but notice that all current models come with one continuous, full wrap edge these days. This should make those rock discoveries when breaking trail (and the exhausted ski toss into the back of the pickup at the end of a long day) a little easier to stomach.
The same hybrid wood cores found in the other Praxis skis will be used for the WooTest, as well as the carbon sheet that was previously available as an option.
So that’s the nuts and bolts of the ski, and Keith will have 196 and 187 lengths available. The same awesome PDF file that shows rocker profiles, shape and locations of sidecut dimensions for all of Praxis’ other skis is available here for the WooTest.
The outline drawn around the WooTest is the current, wider Protest design.
Want a pair yet?
How about if you get to choose your own topsheet material? (UHMW matte is most durable, but gives the graphics a little less sheen.)
What if YOU GET TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN GRAPHICS FROM ANY OF THE CURRENT PRAXIS MODELS?
And how about if you get to specify your own flex, and if there are enough orders, that gets incorporated too?
Plus, If you aren’t on the Praxis mailing list and don’t have a 10% off coupon, because you’re an awesome, loyal BLISTER reader, now you do. The coupon code is: BLISTER.
Good enough yet?
Here’s a link to the Praxis site to order your very own WooTest.
Go get’em tiger.
And tell ’em BLISTER sent ya.