Salomon's 10-80 ski is credited with
fuelling the New School Skiing revolution, their Snowblades
with making it cool to ride without poles and their
line of snowboards matches original pioneer Burton.
How has Salomon done this so quickly?
Well, they do give us a chance to have our say and
this winter you can peek
at what the company has up its sleeves for 2000-2001.
The Salomon Oasis Project, a North American
equipment demo tour, hits first Copper Mountain and
Vail, before heading to the Midwest and East Coast
and give Joe Public the chance to test all the new
equipment.
Bryan Johnson, VP of marketing for Salomon
North America gave his spiel "Riding the latest
gear allows for optimal athletic performance, which
makes the whole mountain experience more fun."
Warning - Technical
stuff coming up!
Boards
The intermediate 350 series boards
have a little more aggressive sidecut, are stiffer
torsionally and can go faster, yet are still affordable.
The advanced rider might want to check out the freeride
series designed by Jason Ford. These boards offer
a stiffer nose for riding in powder, a great sidecut
for doing rail turns at high speed and low speed,
and a stiff body for support when jumping off cliffs.
The 550 freestyle board turns really sharply, allowing
for more hits in a halfpipe, yet has a light wood
core. Salomon also is sprucing up the graphics
on snowboards, though boards with the company's traditional
black base are still available.
Snowblades
The latest Salomon offer is the Buzz 99 model,
a 99.9-centimetre "mini-ski" with twin tips
that allows for great creativity and freedom on the
slopes. The Buzz 99 has a wider platform for more
stability and a longer body for added speed and versatility.
Salomon also offers the 84-centimetre Propeller model,
83-centimetre Street model and 62-centimetre Grom
model for younger or lighter snowriders. A Snowblades-specific
boot - Edition One - is also available, although most
alpine ski boots are compatible with Snowblades.
Snowblades, used without poles, are allegedly 'a breeze
in the moguls and fun for catching air or carving
at high speed', although a foot or so of powder might
pose a problem.
Skis
Salomon's Teneighty twin-tip freestyle skis
are shorter than traditional skis for easier handling,
and have flex, sidecut and design features to maximise
aggressive skiing in the terrain park, pipe and moguls.
The X-Scream series offers a versatile all-mountain
ski with a titanium frame. The Superaxe, in lengths
of 168 or 176 centimetres, is a hard-carving ski.
