Sunday, May 25, 2008

Salomon Tornado Ti Z14 Lab Skis 2008/09

Salomon Tornado Ti Z14 Lab Skis 2008

Stunning, stunning, stunning. I adore these skis, they are unbelievably versatile, stable and possess great snow touch.

Sporting a full wood core with Titanium reinforcement, a LAB binding from Salomon's Race Department plus the slalom race plate from sister company Atomic's race division for one of the best all-mountain blasters ever.

I tested the Lab Tornado in a 178 cm and it is just awesome on the hard stuff when it is groomed and very firm - there is a real sense of GS-like grip and arcs without the need to go at 50 mph. In the mush and crud of spring they were strong and stable, on the divine spring snow of last season the LAB's danced through with graceful arcs and giving me a huge grin as they tore down some GS turns on the Grand Vallon in Val d'Isere.

There can't be many better skis out there for the all-mountain skier of an expert to pro level. The Tormando's are the perfect teaching ski, responsive when you need and fun when you get a moment for yourself. For holiday skiers, if you love skiing everything, enjoy a good turn of speed then there is little else out there to splash your cash on that could compete or better the Lab T's.

Skireviews.co.uk rating - 97/100

One of my favourite skis of 2008-09. Superb versatility, carve, control plus they look very good in real life - until the "Tornado" tag started to look very battered after a couple of days, hopefully Salomon will sort that out. Perhaps a little more upper-end, on-the-limits power and control would see them score a 100!

The manufacturer says this about the Salomon Tornado Ti Z14 Lab Skis 2008:

X-Wing cut and fly. Groomed, crud, powder.
Nothing stops X-Wing, the new high-performance all-mountain ski designed to defy all snow conditions and all types of snow.
All-mountian high-performance (75 mm) the expert one ski quiver.

No comments: