Best Skis of the Century from Each Brand, Part 1 (Ep.364)

33 comments on “Best Skis of the Century from Each Brand, Part 1 (Ep.364)”

1. I spy a ’14 Bodacious! Best ski ever!
   – Owner of five pair of OG 196s

2. For Head, if you wanted a defining ski, I’d say the Supershape, which came out around 2005/06, and was the progenitor of the entire Supershape line. It was uniquely suitable to enable a wide range of skiers to carve, by combining a relatively flexible midbody (making it easier to bend) with a torsionally stiff forebody and tail.

3. Accidentally pressed enter before I finished! Continuing….

   ….Now you might wish to discount it as not sufficiently innovative, but it was; it’s just that the innovation wasn’t obvious. Specifically, it departed from the standard design of carving skis of the day, which tended to have a stiffer midbody. That made a huge difference for advancing skiers.

   Also:

   uniquely ***suited***

4. I bet you the Blizzard Black Pearl beat all the other Blizzard models combined all time

5. I think the Rossi S3/S7 were revolutionary with their rocker-camber-rocker profile.

6. Enforcer!!!

7. There is just one answer for any brand ever existed and the skis name starts with HELL and ends with BENTS.PERIOD. #BRINGBACKTHEHELLBENTS

8. And to be clear: JUST THE 122!!!

   • Ben, just making sure of the reborn HellBent from Heritage Labs, the HB122.

9. It would be great to hear your thoughts on the Armada ski of all times. Maybe Locator 112? That would be my vote.

   • LOL, Obviously the best Armada ski of the century is the JJ.

10. Regarding the Mantra, it’s obviously an iconic brand, but I think it’s worth mentioning how revolutionary it was when it debuted. In 2004, there were a handful of wide skis. 1) very-limited-run big mountain chargers with a 30+ m turn radius and a 190+ cm length (eg, Monster 103), 2) powder only skis with no sidecut (eg, Rossi Axiom), 3) foam core skis like the Bandit XXX/B3 and Pocket Rocket, that had sidecut but weren’t particularly adept at getting an edge on less than ideal conditions (I think these skis weren’t as bad as their noodle reputation, but they certainly left room for improvement). If you were decent, but not pro level, a wide ski was a huge compromise if you expected to see some hardpack and even more so if you were hoping to do some carving.

    The Explosive had a strong cult following because it was wide (for the time) and stiff enough to hold an edge on firm conditions and it came in lengths less than 190. This made them Still, as Paul mentioned, they had stopped making them.

    The Mantra could float through powder and then carve gs turns on hardpack and you didn’t have to know someone to find a pair. …and while it was very much for advanced skiers, you didn’t need to be pro level. In retrospect, it just took some blending of ingredients a belief in the market, but at the time it was a huge deal and to this day it’s a template for the most popular segment of the North American market.

11. Asnes Breidablikk BC is currently the best xc ski if you’re thing is taking a dog into super low angle single track trails in the winter. They’re the widest edgeless ski you can get. Perfect for skiing green/blue xc bike trails and if you put 3 pins or explore bindings on them you can tele turn in light powder. Perfect for getting out when you don’t want to do a real ski tour. It’s niche but something no one else is doing.

12. The Atomic Atlas was one of a kind!…and you mentioned the line Prophet 115….would say the the Prophet 100 was gettin even more love out there

13. I think the Völkl Shiro should be on here because it hasn’t been manufactured since 2016, yet you will still see athletes skiing on it in 2025, calling it one of their favorite off-piste skis. To my knowledge, this is unique.

    This fact has even been discussed on Blister.

14. When I was coming up skiing in WI in the late 90s, early 2000s the Atomic Beta was a hot ski. For me, the K2 Fugative was amazing, everything Schmies touched at that time was awesome. I had the first K2 Enemy and they were not very good, the Fuguative changed that for K2. Salomon is the 1080 no question. Line has to be the 1260, it started it all, that might have came out in the 90s, but they were still made in the 2000s.

15. Great episode. Two thoughts to offer:

    1) Is it really possible that no women’s skis could even be in contention? I know the panel was all men, but it seems like quite an oversight to have this discussion and not even consider some iconic women’s skis.

    2) Seems like skis released in the last 5 years or so aren’t really in the running. That’s a shame. The best skis in a given quarter century couldn’t really all be from the first 15ish years of that quarter, right? Would love to hear more discussion about recent skis that could be contenders.

    • The Atomics mentioned were all still currently in production. Agreed on the women’s skis though.

    • Great point. The Rossignol S110W/S7W was in a lot of lift lines (great graphics too). Line Pandora, Blizzard Black Pearl, and Armada ARVW have gotta be some of the best selling women’s skis ever.

    • Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow, Robin. Sascha is joining Luke and me for that one, lots of talk about women’s skis.

16. I’ve never skied the Monster 108, but I have always wanted to find a pair.

    • Managed to find a pair of M108’s via Marshal at Heritage Labs – drilled but never skied. Got them waiting for bindings, but cannot wait to get out on them this season. Love my M98’s so am intrigued. Was pleased to see the Monster 98’s in the pic for this episode, not listened yet so interested to hear what was said

      • Still skiing a pair of M98’s & it’s still my favorite crud and powder ski. I have bought a few others to try EG the Kores but I end up selling them and keeping the M98’s.

    • They’re out there. I have it in 177cm. Such a great ski, but the 98 is the sweet spot for me, my terrain, and knees so it rarely gets any use. Pretty sure jonathon was referring to me during the podcast always looking for a replacement for it. Nothing comes close unfortunately.

      • In response to David’s comment on the monster 108 above.

        They’re out there. I have it in 177cm. Such a great ski, but the 98 is the sweet spot for me, my terrain, and knees so it rarely gets any use. Pretty sure jonathon was referring to me during the podcast always looking for a replacement for it. Nothing comes close unfortunately.

        • I’ll keep looking, Andrew. There’s a 191com Monster 108 out there waiting, somewhere…

17. Ben Zuber – I’m a huge fan of the Atlas, too. I still ski them a ton.

18. This was a great podcast. I’d throw in an over-arching category to discuss. “What skis saved skiing.” In the late 2000’s early 2010’s , skiing became cool again and snowboarding reached its peak. Suddenly, you saw people ripping groomers and also surfing powder on the same ski…
    Personally, I’d vote for the Rossi Super7/S7, the Line SFB, or the Armada JJ.

    • Good one, Aaron. We’ll likely bring this question up in Part 4…

19. I rode the original K2 Morrison for a couple years, back before the Seth Pistol. It was basically a 203 cm long, stiffened version of the Four, complete with the “if it’s blinking, it’s thinking” piezo dampening system (a distant forerunner of Head’s dampening setup).

    In retrospect the things were planks and far inferior to the later Seth Pistols, but they broke my Super-G addiction (before that my daily drivers were 213 cm Wolf/Blizzard and then Atomic)

20. Love this series idea! Listened to it today on my way for day 2 of skiing in Engelberg so that was good (was skiing on Fischer RC4 The Curv 72!) A lot of this predates my ski nerdery so it’s interesting to hear the views. All sorts of comments:
    1. First and foremost, am I the only one that thinks Jonathan’s pronunciation of Stöckli sounded like Dr Evil? Ok just me then
    2. As you said at the beginning, what constitutes best is a bit all over the place, but hey this isn’t a scientific exercise
    3. Love the reference to the pink Ranger 102 FR’s as I have them with blue Attack bindings which imho looks very cool and it is such a great ski
    4. Rob said about Blizzard that they ‘owned the conversation’ at one point, who owns it now? Also a pity that Blizzard is not in that place in their cycle, at least on the mens side. To Robin’s point the Black Pearl series is purportedly a huge seller, know that’s not the sole criteria, but they have certainly hit something there
    5. Suspect a number of the brands would see this quite differently, Luke mentioned the Stöckli Lasers and could imagine that would be their answer, similarly Jonathan mentioned the Redsters, Nordica the Dobermans etc?
    6. I bought the orange QST 106’s based upon your review Paul and input from Luke, my first fatter ski (obviously not proper fat but was for me at the time), so thanks for that. Exactly why I am a Blister member
    7. You referred to sales figures a few times and in some cases you seemed to have a sense of what they were? I assume these are not published, which is a pity as it would be intriguing to see e.g. bizarrely the number of Salomon BBR’s that I see on our equivalent of eBay makes me think they must have sold a few!
    8. Not sure what you have planned for all the series, it would be great to hear the brand perspectives too, suspect they would come at it quite differently, but you never know
    9. And Luke is dead right with Fischer naming conventions, especially around the RC4 and Curv, even looking at them on their website I am confused about application and differences/similarities. I said it once before tongue in cheek, but actually I think you could do a Gear 30 episode with a hypothetical brand (let’s call them Fischer) on how the hell they think through this naming stuff

    Am already looking forward to episode 2!!

21. a little clarification about the monster series in case anyone is interested. From my strong recollection, it was really 2 very different ski series with a significant gap in years. the original monster series was the one that included the monster 103 mentioned in the podcast and also included an 88(I owned) and some narrower versions I believe in the 70s. This series was from the early 2000s and were easily recognized by the letter i before the width (ie the i88 or I 103) and the technology and labels of liquidmetal. I’m not sure what year, but let’s say around 2008-10 they replaced the monsters with a very different series with a hexagonal colored pattern on black. That pattern was 3D and rubberized. Depending on width, it had white, yellow, red, or blue raised rubber hex pattern on black background. The were relatively light for the time and very short radius for the time. I recollect a friend on the 185cm 115mm wide version carving like it was slalom ski because the radius was in the teens. I also recollect around 2012 asking a head rep if they’d ever make a monster again and he said no way, no one wants a ski like that. A couple of years later (2015ish) my prayers were answered and the most recent monster series was released in the widths of 83,88,98, and 108. Although it was a completely new ski with grapheme replacing liquidmetal in the build and marketing, it was clearly a monster in philosophy. At the time, it was considered the most traditional all mountain ski out there besides the Kastle MX series. And while the MX had a but more top end, the monster had 98% of it while being very forgiving. That hair of tail rocker and a rounded tail allowed it to release super easy and thus ski bumps and off piste with ease compared to the very traditional Mx. To this day, I still ski the monster 98 as my daily driver. I’m likely the person Jonathan was referring to of someone always asking for a replacement. As much as I can ski my bonafide 97, it doesn’t compare on my feet. Although the build feels great, it holds an edge every bit as well, the delayed tip initiation of the increase in rocker and tip taper is something that still bothers me. My old monsters hold an edge on the scratchy parts of a groomer and are as stable as my stockli monstero Ars while skiing face of bell on a bump or powder day predictably and wo issue. I have no use for the rest of my quiver if anyone is interested in some great almost new monteros and bonafide 97s. They are amazing skis but my monsters are the absolutely best ski for me by far.

    • Thanks for the history Andrew as I did not know it and had only recently heard of the 103 for instance. I could easily use my 98’s as a daily driver too, but don’t for now. Have had them in softer snow and was surprised how well they did. Could be interested in your Montero’s but am guessing you are in the US/Can?