S/Lab W/Prolink Shift Binding $975
Salomon is in a unique and uncommon situation for the coming season. They are entering year-two of a cosmetic cycle, so the look of the skis remains unchanged. However, they are introducing an entirely new core material – an in-line change as of January 1st.
This new core has been in the works for at least two years and has been extensively tested in the prototype phases of development. The main objective here is cost-savings and material waste reduction – just like when they replaced the thin-ply carbon topsheet a couple of years ago. For many years Salomon has utilized Nomex cores. Nomex fiber is a Dupont product, developed in the ‘60s, and Nomex honeycomb is used throughout industry as core material in a variety of applications. The new core is manufactured in-house, and looks a whole lot like Fischer’s air core. Nomex is pretty expensive material, and it wasn’t designed specifically for skis. By designing and producing their own core, Salomon can engineer exactly what they want and also control costs.
The timing of the in-line change is opportunistic. Last fall, after a series of patent dispute hearings, Salomon settled a patent dispute case with Rottefella to make changes to their binding plate system for the coming season. This settlement allowed for Salomon to continue selling the skis that had been produced, and allowed athletes to compete on the new skis. But for next year an element of the plate system has been redesigned (no incompatibility results). Salomon was obligated to sell all the existing inventory by a date this spring, after which they could no longer continue to sell the original binding plate. This resulted in the need for Salomon to introduce new product article codes for the coming season. Given the complexity of the logistics system that manages ordering, production, and inventory for a company like Salomon, this move to new article codes is a pretty big deal. And since they had the new core ready to go, they went ahead and introduced the in-line change since it would also be covered by the new article codes.
As a result we have nothing new in the cosmetic, a minor change to the binding plate, and an entirely new core in the ski. We haven’t skied on the new core yet, but we’ve seen and handled them. It is apparent that the new material adds some energy to the camber. I have heard that some early production utilizing established mold settings was resulting in higher resting cambers (VSP values in the Salomon measurement world). The skis I’ve looked at most closely are the new skis that Jack Young picked up at World Championships, and they have pretty normal sticker values, but a considerably different and more elastic feeling camber action, particularly around half weight camber heights. We might say that the new production feels more “reactive”.
The word from Jack has been that the new skis have been really fast. He doesn’t notice a big difference in the camber response, but he keeps picking the skis because they are fast – especially at race pace.
I know that Salomon took their time; they could have rolled out this core change a year ago with the introduction of the new cosmetic and the binding plates, but they didn’t feel that the performance profile had been sufficiently well proven. Under the circumstances I’m excited to see these new skis and get them on the snow. Early reports from racing are very positive, and I think this change and the accompanying boost to dynamic action has the potential to be a really good evolution for one of the best established race skis on the market.
In addition to the inline change to the core, there is one important piece of camber evolution to note. Salomon has always had a single camber and material concept for their skate skis, featuring a rearward loading bias, and a long pressure zone in the rear of the ski. Prior to last season the racing guys worked a lot with shortening the pressure zone in the rear of the ski on the universal model, and they started to roll some of this characteristic into the summer production. While we didn’t go deep on this new camber variant, we were able to take a few pairs for testing and found them to be really outstanding skis.
In general its well established that somewhat shorter pressure zones respond well to impulse and high speeds, and hence are featured on many top level racing skis. Salomon has held the line on their normal cambers in the blue and red models, which makes sense in the more extreme conditions targeted by those models. But the universal ski with the shorter tail pressure has a unique and playful feel under foot. Some of that comes from the rolling action of the tail camber which feels like it “delivers” you into the bridge of the ski – this is the same phenomenon that leads to the decisive and digital kick sensation of the Fischer 902. On a skate ski this results in a ski that lands you right in the sweetspot for acceleration and doesn’t require you to press into the camber in the same way that a longer pressure zone in the rear requires. The skis also accelerate like a race car when you step on the gas, and overall have a light and active feel. I can genuinely say that the single ski I’m most excited to test for the coming winter is a short-tail-pressure Salomon Uni ski with the new core material. Buckle up, buttercup!
Everything else from Salomon is status quo for the coming season. The binding plates will be all-black instead of having that white insert. The model offerings remain the same, and the cosmetic is unchanged. The under-the-hood evolution of these skis is exciting, because otherwise our feeling has been that the development cycle has stagnated a bit. They introduced this construction and camber concept in 2018 and in the seven years since then it’s gone from being a clear trail-blazer, to being pretty average. I’m excited to have something a bit sauced-up to work with.