XCD skis on hardpack at the resort

[aclyon]

Met up with my ski buddy at Kirkwood, near South Lake Tahoe yesterday, for a grand experiment: could we slash and dash the groomers with XCD skis and soft boots?
Long story short: hell yes we could!

Conditions weren't any thing special. We had a huge storm last friday but the powder from that is mostly gone. It was a warm day (definitely above 40F) which softened things up nicely. The groomers on this day could be described as "soft boiler plate". Near the end of the day when the temps went down 5 degrees or so, the variable bits that exposed more ice made the skiing harder, but we still managed.

My setup: Fischer S-Bound 112, NNN-BC bindings, Fischer BCX-GT boots.
His setup: Asnes Falketind (I want those), NNN-BC bindings, Fischer BCX-tour boots.

We started with a couple laps on the bunny hill which were no problem. He is much better at t-turns than me but we were both dropping the knee gracefully enough. I also mixed in some p-turns but didn't feel I had the momentum to really make them fun. I practiced hockey stops and was quite surprised at the edge-hold on the S-Bounds-- they grab as well as any alpine ski I've used. At one point I made the idiotic mistake of going from a hockey stop into a backwards glide (something I do often on alpine gear) and ate shit as the fish scales dug in. Ha-ha.

We then moved on to a longer lift that served easy blue runs. Now the real fun started. My friend was landing incredible t-turns, I was carving up a storm. I started to really trust the edge hold on my S-bounds and cranking up the speed and aggressiveness of the turns. I had to pay very close attention to my edge transfer, it seems easy to grab the wrong edge by mistake if I in any way started relaxing like I would at the end of a run on alpine gear. But each run I gained more and more confidence. I convinced my friend to check out Solitude and The Reut, longer lift lines that serve the steepest blues at K-dubz.

Here we did some lines much steeper than any thing we would try in the back country. He was still landing incredible t-turns but starting to mix in some skidded p-turns on the steeper bits. I could only land the t-turns on the lower angle sections, and at slower speeds. But I had no problem at all pole planting little jump turns in a parallel style. I managed to hit 30+ MPH and was surprised by the complete lack of chatter in the S-bounds. Near the top of Reut there were some soft snowy patches on top of the hard pack, which the 112's sliced through effortlessly. The Falks seemed to have a little more trouble with those variable bits. I would love to hear from someone who has used the Falks for downhill in some kind of snowy/powdery conditions-- I don't mean waist deep but rather more average conditions like ankle deep or dust on crust. How did they perform?

Near the end of the day the temps dropped a few degrees and skiing became exponentially harder. More icey hard packed bits managed to make my S-bounds chatter during grindy skidded turns, but I was super careful and survived. Throughout the 2-3 hours we were skiing we got some priceless complements from liftees and other skiers who noticed what we were doing. The whole experience was incredibly liberating, tooling around the resort with such light gear, and being able to get down almost as fast as on my regular plastic alpine stuff. Getting off the lift was occasionally difficult, I might have even fallen once embarrassingly, but oh well, all in the game.

I thought we would trade skis at some point but we were both having so much fun on our respective setups that there was never a desire for this. Still I'm quite curious to try it all with the Falks, which are much softer and have no fish scales, both qualities that seem desirable for this use-case. I will be doing this a lot lot more, and I'm interested to see just how much I can bite off-- could I do a black run? Off-piste? Maybe a bump or 2?? I don't want to snap the skis in half, lol. And this was all with an NNN-BC binding and a boot with not much stiffness at all. So there is further curiosity about 75 with a cable, or Xplore with my Alfa Frees. I have Traverse 78's with Xplore, but they are 186 cm and the side cut is not progressive at all-- I wonder if they will perform as well.

All-in-all one of my favorite ski days of the season thus far. I might even go the Heavenly today and try some more.

[The GCW]

When I read You hit 30 mph, that reminded Me to check how fast I went this morning in-bounds on a GREEN groomer.

I skied up 3 miles to the Ruby Chair on the backside of Keystone, took the lift up and skied 3 1/2 miles down Schoolmarm on Alfa Free boots with Falketind Xplore and Xplore bindings. I skied up with the stock mid flex inserts and put the hard flexors in for the descent and switched back to the stock flexors for the 1+ mile ski back to My truck. That's a confidence inspiring setup for in-bounds resort skiing.

7" at Keystone today, 9" yesterday, so the groomer was soft and can't help with hard pack edging comments.

I think I'm making tele turns, know I Am but when I look down at My skis it looks like a snow plow with one ski slightly ahead of the other. Barely lower a knee but no dropping. But it feels good.

It's nice You have an opportunity to try a friends Falketind.

I hit 26.3 mph on My 172's.

[fisheater]

Nice skiing guys! @aclyon From your description of your friend’s Falketind, I am assuming it is a white ski with either green markings or red markings, is that correct?
The new Falketind Xplore is a black ski. The new ski is much stiffer longitudinally. I have skied black runs with both versions of the Falketind, the newer Xplore being much better. However, not all blacks are the same. I really wouldn’t want to ski a steep Vermont black with even the new Falketind Xplore unless conditions were ideal. Personally, I like my Falketind Xplore for cross country downhill skiing, soft, ungroomed snow.
I have other skis, perhaps too many, but I did enough skiing on light skis in difficult conditions. It’s not my thing any longer. I did do it, when my ski selection was limited.
I had a Fischer S-112 at one time, I preferred the original Falketind to the S-112. I think the Falketind Xplore is just superior, uphill, downhill, and cross country. Just my opinion.
I hope this helped

[aclyon]

Nice skiing guys! @aclyon From your description of your friend’s Falketind, I am assuming it is a white ski with either green markings or red markings, is that correct?
The new Falketind Xplore is a black ski. The new ski is much stiffer longitudinally. I have skied black runs with both versions of the Falketind, the newer Xplore being much better. However, not all blacks are the same. I really wouldn’t want to ski a steep Vermont black with even the new Falketind Xplore unless conditions were ideal. Personally, I like my Falketind Xplore for cross country downhill skiing, soft, ungroomed snow.
I have other skis, perhaps too many, but I did enough skiing on light skis in difficult conditions. It’s not my thing any longer. I did do it, when my ski selection was limited.
I had a Fischer S-112 at one time, I preferred the original Falketind to the S-112. I think the Falketind Xplore is just superior, uphill, downhill, and cross country. Just my opinion.
I hope this helped

They are the newer, black, Xplore model. He hasn't touched a resort slope in decades though. Mainly an XC/BC guy. I, on the other hand, spend much of my week in plastic with heels bound on heavy, often metal core skis, since I'm a ski instructor, and because I like alpine resort skiing. The 112 was honestly quite easy to handle after a few runs-- I felt I had complete control. Based on what you're saying, it seems I'd be able to rip pretty hard on the Falketinds. For me a black run is off piste steep, bowl drops, moguls, tight trees etc. Probably a bit of a level up from a Vermont black.

And yeah, NNN-BC-- I'd like to mount a ski with Xplore like the Falketind or S-Bounds, since I feel the Traverse 78 is not taking full advantage of the bindings strengths. But after my experience on pretty floppy boots with the BC binding, I'm less inclined to care about the binding and more focused on which boots I like the most. That said, the Alfa Free is a sick boot, and I want to try it in-bounds.

Thanks for your input! It definitely helps. The Falketind also has no fish scales, so I could go backwards a bit as I like to do hehe. Will try to nab some end of season when they go for sale a bit hopefully.

[aclyon]

When I read You hit 30 mph, that reminded Me to check how fast I went this morning in-bounds on a GREEN groomer.

I skied up 3 miles to the Ruby Chair on the backside of Keystone, took the lift up and skied 3 1/2 miles down Schoolmarm on Alfa Free boots with Falketind Xplore and Xplore bindings. I skied up with the stock mid flex inserts and put the hard flexors in for the descent and switched back to the stock flexors for the 1+ mile ski back to My truck. That's a confidence inspiring setup for in-bounds resort skiing.

7" at Keystone today, 9" yesterday, so the groomer was soft and can't help with hard pack edging comments.

I think I'm making tele turns, know I Am but when I look down at My skis it looks like a snow plow with one ski slightly ahead of the other. Barely lower a knee but no dropping. But it feels good.

It's nice You have an opportunity to try a friends Falketind.

I hit 26.3 mph on My 172's.

Yeah my Garmin watch records the speed, and seems to be pretty accurate. I won't be straight lining the 112's for more than a short stretch though, I think around 35 will be the top speed.

Lots of love for the Falketind around these parts. Gotta try my friends.

[fisheater]

@aclyon pretty good deal on a used FTX right now in Tele Turn Around forum.

I used to ski what you’re talking about, except in Utah. Not so much anymore. All my buddies are too old to ski, I ski solo now, and a notch down from what you’re doing.

[aclyon]

@aclyon pretty good deal on a used FTX right now in Tele Turn Around forum.

I used to ski what you’re talking about, except in Utah. Not so much anymore. All my buddies are too old to ski, I ski solo now, and a notch down from what you’re doing.

Yeah, saw that, it's an excellent deal, but 196 is too long for me. At least for the intended use case. I'm 5'9" 165#. The 112's I have are 179. I've had my eye on the 180 Falketinds. I know in these parts there is favoritism towards longer skis. But I know what I like for downhill, and it tends to max out around the low 180's.

[chris_the_wrench]

Met up with my ski buddy at Kirkwood, near South Lake Tahoe yesterday, for a grand experiment: could we slash and dash the groomers with XCD skis and soft boots?
Long story short: hell yes we could!

Did you bring alpine gear with you in case it was a bust? Ive been wanting to try this but Im too vain to visit the bunny hill, I applaud you!

[Oldbie]

I've done this a lot this year, mostly because if I don't get on machine made snow, I'm not going to get to ski very much at all this season. It's been a blast.

[mca80]

And yeah, NNN-BC-- I'd like to mount a ski with Xplore like the Falketind or S-Bounds, since I feel the Traverse 78 is not taking full advantage of the bindings strengths. But after my experience on pretty floppy boots with the BC binding, I'm less inclined to care about the binding and more focused on which boots I like the most. That said, the Alfa Free is a sick boot, and I want to try it in-bounds.

I have not used Xplore but don't underestimate DH capability of nnnbc, provided you have the right boot (and to echo your sentiment about boot importance, which I believe is spot on). Also the red stiff flexor in nnnbc helps a ton in this (seriously) and if your technique is proper you're pressuring ball of foot and engaging the rails of nnnbc which makes up for lack of torsional rigidity in the boot (to the extent that I believe Paul Parker and/or other writers of telemark technique books in the 80s/90s suggested it was potentially better than 75mm). From reports I have read the Xplore boots are all generally stiffer in the sole than nnnbc counterparts in all respects. Not my thing because I want to go fast on flats when not breaking deep trail and you need fore-aft flexibility for that.

Also depending on your objectives, you could consider a Nansen. If @fisheater can get some DH on his at a resort on green/blue runs he could compare it to FT for you. The way he talks and skis it, the FT sounds like a great ski for me but I already have it sort of bookended by owning a Nansen and Rabb.

P.S. best comment I ever received was getting off the lift, young kid on the chair behind me said "mister, your ski is coming off at the heel."