John K

Can you guys recommend similar skis to this? I'm afraid I might overpower these skis (on the 167cm length at 5'6 150lb) which already seem to have a soft tip and certainly more tail rocker than the polarizing stiff tail of the old Backland 107 (maybe you can assuage my fears). I wish these came in a ~172cm range.

When de-cambering these skis with my hands or with a ski strap at the recommended mount point, is it normal for there to be multiple gaps between the tip and tail? In other words, when de-cambered at the mount point, the skis touch in three spots: near the tip taper, the mount point, and near the tail taper (kind of like triple camber almost); where I would normally expect continuous contact from the tip to tail taper points. Is this expected? Can someone confirm? I'm wondering if this will compromise gri...

I'm wondering why anyone would buy the carbon version of this whippet vs the aluminum. On Black Diamond's website, the carbon version is 443g, whereas the aluminum version is 452g. The carbon version packs down to 99cm, whereas the aluminum version packs down to 64cm. The specs on skimo.co seems to corroborate these numbers. It seems the aluminum version is $40 cheaper for a more packable version with almost the same weight (and arguably more durable material?).

Great bindings in the ~300g category. Like another commenter noted, these probably occupy the more stout end of tech bindings, and I'll probably move them to a more wider ski / heavier oriented setup in the future. As a 145lb male, the Men's U-spring never pre-released on me even on chattery terrain (without toes locked out), but on the other hand I never was in a situation where it should've released and didn't. It would be nice to see how the Women, Men, and Expert bindings roughly translate to DINs on o...

These are the best skins you can get on the market right now. The glue is better than G3 skins, the mohair mix glides better than the BD skins, and packs up super well. Used these skins from midwinter pow to hardpack snow/ice. Based in the PNW, so the warmer temps and wet snow did saturate these skins in the late spring, but they've held up in every condition otherwise. Glopped up once, but problem went away after using skin wax. I've never had a problem with the tail clip unlike many others here, but I d...