Volant Spatula (2002-2003)

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As someone who spends a ton of time writing about skis, the first thing I want to note is just how remarkable Shane’s writing is about the Spatula. Shane certainly enjoyed acting like an idiot, but as his lengthy, impassioned writeup clearly shows, he definitely wasn’t one.

And it’s all even more remarkable — his clear and easy handling of these concepts that might sound obvious to many of us nowadays, but that sixteen years ago, were accepted by just a couple of people.

We’ll get to the specs on the Spatula now, but as we do, I’m going to bring back in some of Shane’s commentary:

Blister’s Measured Weight per Ski: 2651 & 2654 grams

Yep, Shane’s ski is officially the heaviest ski we’ve ever tested, beating out the 192 cm Dynastar Pro Rider (2603 & 2604 g), and the 194 cm 4FRNT Devastator (2567 & 2599 g).

And so (as some of you might imagine), I personally was quite delighted to hear Shane talk about how “light” the Spatula actually feels, and I agree with everything he writes here:

“You will also notice that the Spatulas feel much lighter while on your feet than other skis of similar surface area. Try swinging them from side to side while on the lift. This effect is created by the reverse side cut. It gives them a very light swing weight. Normal skis with side cut have a weight distribution which puts the bulk of the skis at the tips and tails. The Spatulas are the opposite. The bulk is at the waist. The Spatulas are a lot of ski and there is a lot down there stuck to your feet. However, they will feel much lighter and more maneuverable than you can imagine.”

The point here is pretty simple: the Spatula is a 125 mm wide, ~2600 g ski that doesn’t feel heavy, because the mass of the ski is underfoot, while the tips and tails are heavily tapered.

And not that it matters, but we’ve been saying for years that tip and tail taper makes more sense (#1) the wider the ski, and (#2) the heavier the ski. And the Spatula certainly meets the criteria for #1 and #2.

But what we often see today is really light skis still being made with a shit ton of taper. I’d kind of like to believe that Shane would agree that this is pretty dumb — keep the exact shape of the Spatula and cut its weight by 600 or 700 g per ski, and I believe it would go downhill far worse than the real Spatula in anything other than light, perfect pow.

Blister’s Measured Dimensions:

As we noted above, the max width of the Spatula is 125.5 mm, and the midsole / recommended mount point of the ski is 125.1 mm wide.

But since the Spatula has heavily tapered tips and tails plus reverse sidecut through the middle, wrapping your head around the dimensions can be a little tricky. So after grabbing a couple additional measurements on the ski and thinking I’d just post a few more than normal, I came to grips with the fact that Saucer Boy would definitely be sitting there yelling LAAAAAME!!! at me as loud as he could … and then I decided to just take measurements of the ski every 10 cm. So here you go, fellow ski nerds (and for the rest of you, the point of this might make more sense in a minute):

Width (mm) – Starting from the Tip of the Spatula

96.7 (mm)   (measured from the bottom of the Spatula’s plastic tip guard)
118.7             10 cm from the tip
120.8            20 cm from the tip, etc.
122.3            30 cm
122.6            40 cm
124.4            50 cm
124.9            60 cm
125.4            70 cm
125.5            80 cm
125.4           90 cm
125.1          Midsole / Rec. Mount Point (97.3 cm from tip / 86.6 cm from tail)
125.0           100 cm
124.4           110 cm
123.4           120 cm
122.4           130 cm
121.1            140 cm
119.3            150 cm
117.3            160 cm
115.1            170 cm
96.3             180 cm
80.4           (measured where the metal edge stops, ~1.5 cm from the end of the ski)

Width – Starting from the Tail of the Spatula

Ok, so what’s the takeaway here? Most of the Spatula is 120-125 mm wide. So while there is dramatic taper at the extremities, that taper is quite subtle through the bulk of the ski. Point is, even on one of the most heavily tapered skis ever made, that taper actually occurs over a relatively short distance, and, even on this “heavy” ski, Shane could still rave about its low swing weight and how light it felt.

Stated Sidecut Radius: ???

This is a reverse sidecut ski that’s designed to float, slash, pivot, and slide, not carve up slalom gates.

And once again, I’d like to quote Shane as he makes his case against sidecut, because I feel like while he is talking about how sidecut can screw up pow skiing, we often go further and talk about how too much sidecut can suck when skiing moguls and when skiing nasty, weird, variable conditions off-piste. So if you’re bored, try reading Shane’s comments as if he was talking about not a full-reverse sidecut ski, but simply a straighter shape — i.e., a ski with less sidecut:

“First of all, in order to clear your mind and attempt to make sense of all this, take most everything you have ever learned about skiing and stick it where the sun don’t shine. Or at least in the garage next to your shaped skis. Why? Because:

1. Side cut is NOT good in powder.
2. Camber is NOT good in powder.
3. Carving is NOT necessary in the powder.

Simply put, if you want to maximize your abilities in soft snow you do not want to use the same tool as you would on any kind of hard, groomed or compacted snow.”

To be clear, carving hard in powder can be fun, and Shane not only acknowledges that, he notes that the Spatula can carve its way through powder, too; it’s just that it will also do more than carve.

And back to my hi-jacking of Shane’s point about reverse sidecut, most of the “frontside” skis on the market today that are basically recreational race-ski shapes with a ton of sidecut are not good tools for skiing weird mogul lines or in variable off-piste conditions. They are good at skiing groomers, or very smooth, off-piste ice or chalk.

And so to expand Shane’s point a little, if the conditions ain’t smooth and firm / very firm, sidecut isn’t your friend.

Tip & Tail Splay (ski decambered): ~73 mm / 59 mm

It’s interesting how contemporary these tip & tail splay numbers are. Go through our Winter Buyer’s Guide, and you’ll see that most skis that are ~110 mm on up to ~138 mm wide are running tip & tail splay numbers that are in this ballpark.

And one extra note here — one of our Spatulas actually has 67 mm of tip splay, and the other has 79 mm of tip splay. (Their tails have 58 and 59 mm of splay, respectively.) So other Spatula owners might be able to weigh in here, but I suspect that our ski that has 79 mm of tip splay got kinked up a bit … which is why I listed “~73 mm” as the tip splay number.

Anyway, the point still stands. Shane’s 16-year-old rockered ski has tip & tail splay numbers that look entirely current.

Traditional Camber Underfoot: 0 mm

The only thing I’ll point out here is that the Spatula has a very short flat section (see our rocker pics on the last page of this post). Most of the “full-reverse camber” skis we see run a long, flat section underfoot, and their rocker profiles would more accurately be described as “rocker-flat-rocker” than “full reverse camber.” To be honest, that “rocker-flat-rocker” profile probably goes a long way toward upping their versatility on firm snow vs. the versatility of the Spatula. Then again, as Shane clearly states…

“These Skis are Not Versatile.”

I love this so much. Here is the entirely of Shane’s statement:

“These skis are not versatile. I will make no attempts to fool you (as all ski manufacturers typically do) into thinking that you can use these skis in all kinds of snow conditions. They are made specifically for the many types of soft snow. Powder, sun crust, wind affect, deep, shallow, light and heavy. They are not designed to be primarily skied on ice or most types of hard snow. Of course you will frequently find yourself skiing on some sort of hard snow even on a powder day. It may be on the groomer going back to the lift or you may hit a hard patch or a mogul along the way. Not to worry. They can be easily managed in any situation. You just have to know how to do it. The first question that absolutely everyone always asks me is: “Yea, but how well do they work on the groomer?” The most accurate analogy I have come up with is that they work about as well on the groomer as a pair of GS skis work in the powder.”

I spend a portion of every single day reading incredibly stupid marketing copy about skis, written by companies that are terrified of acknowledging the simple fact that every single ski ever made is better at some things, and worse at other things. Oh well. Keep gettin’ them checks, you terrible copy writers. But know that your hero Shane would almost certainly be telling you to grow a pair.

And to everyone out there reading this who still thinks that their 80mm-wide frontside carvers do “okay” / “pretty good” / “fine” in powder … please know that Mr. McConkey would really like to see you try sometime a wider, rockered ski (if not a full-reverse-sidecut ski) in deep snow. It’s pretty fun.

Factory Recommended Mount Point: -5.35 cm from center; 86.6 cm from tail

Shane never even mentions that his extremely unconventional ski comes with a pretty new-school mount point, especially since back in 2002, probably 99.something percent of skis had mount points of -10 to -14 cm. So as Shane talks about weighting both feet and not driving the shovels (as you would a more traditionally-shaped ski), he’s telling you to adopt a more upright, centered stance … and the Spatula’s -5 cm mount point encourages the style he is promoting. Nice.

Flex Pattern

Shane also doesn’t say anything about the flex pattern of the Spatula, but this is quite interesting, too.

Hand flexing the ski, I would break it down like this:

Tips: 7-7.5
Shovels: 7.5-8
In front of Toe Piece: 9-10
Underfoot: 10
Behind Heel piece: 9
Tails: 9

The Spatula is not some pow noodle, which is cool.

We also have talked about this quite a bit on Blister, but one of the things that a heavily rockered ski allows you to do is maintain a more substantial flex pattern through the tips and tails, since the rockered ends of the ski are already shaped to plane up in deeper snow.

As I was flexing the Spatula against a number of far lighter, current fat skis, the Spatula felt quite burly by comparison, but I love the quality of its flex pattern — the tip and shovel of the ski is still accessible (and not noodly-soft like so many current fat skis), and the middle and back half of the Spatula is stout. But I don’t mean “brick-wall” stout; rather, the flex pattern is a bit like that of a really good 130-flex ski boot: you can access / get into the flex of the Spatula (when you hand flex the tails, it’s not the case that the ski won’t budge at all), it’s just that once you do flex the ski (whether the tips or the tails) the flex pattern quickly ramps up and feels quite supportive, whereas so many skis today allow you to “over” flex the ski — especially at the shovels. Kind of in the way that a crappy ski boot will allow you to just blow right through the flex of the boot.

Anyway, this particular quality is an attribute that you often find in the flex pattern of heavier skis, and that you don’t often find in really light skis. (And again, the same is often true of the flex patterns of heavy vs. light ski boots, too.)

Bottom Line (For Now)

Believe me, I asked myself quite a few times what Shane would think of all this nerding out so hard over his Spatula, and whether he’d just say Shut Up and Go Ski. Maybe, maybe not.

But as I’ve read again and again this past week his own writing about and passion for this ski — and his obvious passion for skiing itself — I think he might be happy to learn that all these years later, there are a bunch of us who are still interested in his creation, and grateful for the ways in which he helped open up and evolve this activity we love so much, and the equipment we now use that makes it so much fun.

And now, please pray for more snow. Because I can’t fucking wait to go ski these things.

NEXT: Rocker Profile Pics

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28 comments on “Volant Spatula (2002-2003)”

  2. I’ve always wondered how different is the new K2 Pontoon from the spatula? K2 states that Shane’s legend lives on but that’s about it for specs on the ski. An A-B of the Spatula vs the Pontoon would be cool.

  3. Great article – will re read – SM was ahead of his time obviously and if you want a new pair in the wrapper eBay has them for $3000 – :) This could be fun to seek at garage sales and ski swaps so will keep a secret.

  4. Blister retro reviews – greatest Christmas present ever.

    Would love to see you guys do dedicated reviews on some other classic skis, if only to compare your take to modern skis.

    – Volkl explosiv
    – Salomon pocket rocket
    – k2 pontoon

    I’m sure others can contribute other suggestions.

    Newer is not always better!

  6. Nice. Digging the bindings too, may I suggest a quick bench test,

    Jonathan, you can’t wait to test them, how’s the recovery, is skiing a near term possibility? Or am I implying something that ain’t there in your words?

  7. I am still skiing my Spatulas. I bought 2 pairs 11 years ago. I only ski about 10 days a year here in WA state, but I love them! But on 2 out of the 4 skis, that red thingamajiggy under the boot that the bindings mount on has broken off. Is it feasible/slayable to mount/remount bindings on them without it? If so, what is that thing for? Stiffness?

    • Brad,
      Those spacers were on the skis because the Volant skis were so thin profile. I just measured the thickness of the Spatula under the front binding and they are exactly 10mm. That is THIN. WITH the spacer any adult binding could be mounted on to the skis. This allow for the Adult standard (G1/G2) screw penetration depth of 8mm and 9mm drill bit depth. Nowadays there are some adult skis thin enough to require 6mm screw depth and 7mm drill bit depth. Even this day and age that can present problems as the standard for adult skis and bindings is 8mm. Standard for Junior skis (G3/G4) is 6mm. Tyrolia has 6mm screw kits for the Attack bindings and I imagine the other bindings manufacturers do too. If you were to mount directly on to the Spatula (without the spacer) you would want to ensure that don’t use full-length adult screws that will likely penetrate through the core and will volcano or worse yet potentially pop through the base. So you would need to locate 6mm screws for your bindings or grind 2mm off of your screws (pain in the ass but can be done) Your other option would be use a 2mm spacer. Now there is the possibility that the spacer accomplished 2 things with 1 stone. Maybe it also allowed some additional flex in the system. So maybe you would be safest just using some 2mm spacers. Most shops that deal with race skis a lot will likely have these on hand or at least be able to order them.

    • That plastic plate under the binding is only a shim for the binding screws in the case where the skis are too thin. You can chuck that plate and mount straight to the steel deck. Just grind screws shorter if they are too long. I mounted straight to the steel on my Chubbs to get rid of the heavy plastic binding mounting plate on the last gen Volant skis.

      • Thanks Ivor and Pete! Next question, if yas got the time. I’ve got 2 out of the 4 skis with the plate still on. Is there anything I can do to prevent this from happening a 3rd/4th time on them if I remount the bindings? Is it just a matter of using the longest, but not too longest, screws? Or should I just get rid of the plate, if that’s easy enuf. And a historical question: Was/is this a common issue within the rest of the Spatula community? I remember when I got them a fellow owner/friend who had moved on from them mentioned how there was an issue with them breaking, but I can’t remember or didn’t know what he was talking about.

        And, what are some of the skis on the market from the past 5 years that perform like the Spatulas? I know a bunch of folks with Pontoons, but even those cats suffer when its breakable.

        • If you like the plate leave it on and use standard alpine length screws. If they have broken you can remove them and use an appropriate length alpine binding screw mounting right onto the steel deck. You could also stick them back on with an aggressive outdoor rated double back tape.

          I have not necessarily heard about any issues but I never heard of any of the Spatulas break, at least from normal use. That was a solid construction and the ski is so wide it is really quite strong.

          The DPS Lotus 138 and The Spoon have similar design and performance. More versatile in variable snow because of a small amount of sidecut underfoot. And certainly lighter.

  8. Thank you Shane. The Spatula converted me back to skiing from a 15 year stint as a snowboarder. The Spatula changed my course in life. I am now a sales rep in the ski industry and I am not sure this would have happened if not for Shane’s ingenuity. I always felt like I was riding 2 snowboards in powder when riding the Spatula. They were amazing in so many ways. Without going into detail I cornered the market on the Spatula. Shane may have been wrong about 1 thing. The original production run may have been 1000 pair of skis. That is still to this day the MOQ if you want any of the major European ski factories to build you your own ski. The initial delivery was 300 pair but the next portion of the production run likely was for 700, however, those may have not all ended up in the USA. In the spring of 2003, I purchased the remaining 530 pair of Spatulas from Atomic. At that point, I had already sold 60 pairs that I purchased from Gen-X Sports who sold Volant to Atomic. Thankfully, we were in the first season of some really good snow years…03/04 in the Wasatch was a 700″ year which made selling all of my Spatula’s a hell of a lot easier. I had 2 pallets of Spatulas in my garage. It was ridiculous. Anyhow, I would ship Shane 20 pairs at a time who basically sold them at cost. Dave Steiner also helped move skis at Squaw. Andy Gardner was my Alta guy. Ebay is where I sold the rest. It took me about a year and a half to sell them all. I kept a few and yes have 1 pair unmounted of course. What was cool about the Spatula is I would sell one to a friend of a friend and then after the next dump I would get a call from 2 or 3 of that guy’s friends. “I can’t keep up…I need a pair”. The Spatula was so groundbreaking. Thank you guys for doing this review.

    Are you guys going to get out and ski them and review them….snow pending of course? This season is turning more and more ugly by the day.

    • First to Ivor up there in the comments, thanks for distributing these way back when. I think we had something silly like 20 pairs because we wanted everyone to experience the awesomeness. You helped facilitate the game change. There was life before spatulas and life after. Seriously, thanks so much.

      As for drilling, there are/were specific bits for drilling through that metal. I’m not sure if they were distributed through volant/atomic, but they were around and there is one shop I know of that still has some around for the occasional person who wants to mount (mostly likely remount at this point) a pair.

      I still have my pair in the garage and have always thought about putting binders back on them just for giggles. I also know of more than one pair that are still in the plastic. Not the ones on ebay for $2000 or whatever they were asking. Just ultimate fans of the ski that revolutionized the powder skiing industry.

      They changed how I skied. We skied them everywhere. Corn, groomers, chunder, mt hood in the summer… when I could only afford one pair of skis I made them work all over the place.

      These skis are still relevant today and if you have the balls to buy, mount, and snap into a pair you won’t be sad about it. You’ll probably get the same condescending looks that we got when we first slarved around on them.

  9. Great story and review. It brings back many memories. When Shane brought in his notes he also included a page of surfboard reviews from a surfing magazine and said he thought the ski should be shaped like a surfboard. Shaped to plane in a liquid medium which is how powder behaves. It took an American visionary and an American company to break down the dogma in the ski industry that was dominated by European skiing. The original versions built be hand in the Volant factory as it was being decommissioned were much lighter than the versions made at Atomic. They insisted on adding lots of fiberglass (weight), not understanding how steel worked in skis negating the need for structural fiberglass layers.

    We also learned how rocker alters the design requirements for flex as the skis are “pre-flexed” before you even start moving. We had to stiffen the tail half of the ski to balance it and prevent excessive wheelie behavior of an over-bending tail. We luckily hit the sweet spot with the first production skis.

    Shane wanted to build a next gen Spatula when he lost support from Volant/Gen-X and moved on to K2. We were in the throws of applying for patents on the design so he tried to concept the Pontoon to avoid future patent infringement. He mentioned afterward the Pontoon was not nearly as good as the Spatula.

    Shane and I had discussed ways of improving the Spatula after its first release. The primary direction was to add a tiny amount of shallow sidecut underfoot to make the ski more controllable on hard snow and risky conditions like the top of a ridgeline traverse or top of a chute. But not enough to compromise the overall powder benefits. We never had the chance to do that in the Spatula. But those attributes were designed into the DPS Lotus 138, basically a gen 2 Spatula. Shane said we did good with that design.

    We did make a couple pair of 172 length Spatulas for the next year’s shows that were intended for smaller skiers and for women who were interested. My wife loves the one pair I mounted. The other sits unmounted as another memory of Shane. Then came the collapse of Volant in North American when Atomic acquired them and their intellectual property. Atomic didn’t pursue the patent. Spatula was abandoned by the industry.

    I can only wish Shane was still around to inspire us with his ideas, his humor, his antics. A great man.

    Peter Turner, former R&D Manager, Volant Sports. Current Ski Designer and Engineering Manager, DPS Skis

  10. Brad,
    I don’t know of anything you can do to keep those spacers in place. The good news is it sounds like from Peter’s comments that the plate isn’t doing anything other than acting as a shim or spacer. So if you lose the other 2 eventually its nothing to worry about. As far as the skis breaking…well that’s another story. While I have never seen one actually fully broken, they do eventually crease behind the rear binding. I think this will happen to all of them eventually with enough skiing on them. A bigger heavier person may speed this process up. Eventually, the steel top sheet will develop a crease (or crack like fissure) behind the heel of the binding. This happened to several pairs of Spatula’s that I owned (and skied 100 plus days). I also saw this several others skis. So they won’t last forever. It sounds like the DPS Lotus 138 would be a good replacement for the Spatulas. I also know that Liberty made some skis that were very similar in profile to the Spatula but even wider (148mm underfoot). Full reverse camber and reverse sidecut. I only ever saw 1 pair but they must exist. The original Armada ARG is also something that will ski similar. Armada had some other models too that might fit the bill but I am not sure what models. I am sure someone on here could chime in on the Armadas.

    • Late reply here, but I want to emphasize something Peter Turner said about reattaching the plate with an outdoor-rated 2-sided tape. If I had a pair of these and were concerned I would probably:

      1. Mark out the current position of the plate

      2. Carefully remove it, with the help of a heat gun if needed, though with extreme care to avoid overheating the ski itself. the goal is to help the plate delaminate without delaminating the ski. Keep in mind that the epoxies used in skis can embrittle over time, so you don’t want to overdo it here.

      3. Re-attach it in the location you marked in (1), using a double-sided acrylic tape like Nitto 5015. There may be better choices for outdoor use, though.

      Basically, this is the same routine that racers used to go through when ice started to get under our Derbyflexes (anybody else remember the Derby? I still have an old pair of DH planks with a pair somewhere).

  14. Rode these badasses today at Bridger Bowl in 13+ “s. still my favorite ski. also own the pontoons and I grab these off the rack every time. Ski exactly as described.

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