This year I'm happy to announce that I'm racing on Hagan skis. Hagan is a small ski manufacturer in Austria and makes a full line of top quality back-country skis. The new sticks are lighter & wider than than the Atomic tour races that I used last year and have a more aggressive side cut. My new pair are the 2011/2012 x-races but have a custom x-lite top-sheet. Strait out of the plastic the first thing I noticed is how incredibly light they are. Low and behold their combined weight is 1,396 grams or just 698 grams each. I couldn't wait to get them mounted. This year I was able to get slightly used pair of Dynafit Low tech bindings for a deal I couldn't refuse and mounted them as soon as I could our local shop the Ute Mountaineer. With bindings the whole setup weighs just 1751grams! I had just a week before the CS Irwin Race in Crested Butte so I threw them on the bench and added a few layers of wax and looked at the factory tune before heading out for dawn patrol. Like most skis they came razor sharp with a fair amount of structure in the base. After throwing the true bar to check for edge angle I was surprised at just how precise these skis were built. The skis came with a constant edge bevel and were just a tad edge high tip to tail.
I woke at 5:30 for dawn groomers on Snowmass Mountain. It was a quick 47 minute lap from the Mall to the top of Sam's Knobb. I was surprised at just how light the skis felt on my feet and was able to practice a few kick turns near the top and was shock at the lack of swing weight this skis have. Sure anyone can make a ski that is light for the up hill so i really wanted to see what they would do on the down? Thankfully I had 2000 vert to to test them out. The 22.6 meter sidecut puts this ski on the agressive side and I was able to carve medium and short radius turns with relitive ease. With only 64mm underfoot they were resonsive too. Loosing myself in the skiing I launched over one roller off balance because in the air I felt like I had nothing on my boots. It was like the skis weren't there.
So how do the skis race? They are light enough for the winners of both the Men and Women's Race Divisions. A big congratulations to both Marshall Thompson and Stevie Kremer both of Team Hagan. As for me I found them light on the ups and super responsive on the downs. I was very happy with 21st place after going into the race with no expectations. Now back to the skis.....Like any 160cm ski they kick turn well but are stiff enough to bust crud & wide enough to float the powder pockets that are found in many a back-country race. And man can they take a beating. The first decent I found myself head over heals twice after hitting rocks and going over the handlebars. The CS Irwin race had very minimal coverage and with snow that was sugar with no base. I was sure that I had more than a dozen core shots mid race but after each lap when it was time to put the skins on I noticed I didn't have a single one. I did do some significant edge damage under the ball of my left foot were I went full gas and full weight onto a rock on the second decent. But if you were to put me on any ski I would expect much more damage than the bump that was produced. Plus the edge is still in the ski which is a testament to its strengh. The most important thing to note is the ski didn't break. If I had to use two words to describe these skis it would be light and strong. All in all I'm excited and happy with the ski change for this year and look forward to many more laps on the x-lites and the x-races, I'm even proud of the new suit to match the skis which is on its way.If you would like more info on the skis check out this link to Hagan Ski-USA
Until the next Race I'm off to pray for snow and train. -Ty-
