All mountain skis
Product 2021
Woman, Man
The design and look are well in this year’s Black Crow spirit: geometric lines in sober tones that we find contribute to the recognizable brand signature. But what interests us most is what are they like on the snow!
The Black Crows Justis is a ski that pivots extremely easily when flat, especially in deep snow that is bumpy with crusty tops, and hard snow from old snowfall. We tested it in 183.1, a bit long for our testers, but the pivot was still found to be easy. There’s efficient planing thanks to a reasonably progressive tip, front rocker and also a slight rear rocker. There is also a fairly large lift surface (side-cut). You therefore manage to have easy entries into classic curves in deep snow, and to make small turns without any effort.
The tail doesn’t grip, on the other hand it lifts, the entire ski lets you ride on top of the snow. So, you can produce very niceturns. Despite its double titanal plates and its thickness, we didn’t notice any poor weight distribution or heaviness.
Of course, the Black Crows Justis is not a ski made purely for touring or competition, nor for those who want to get to the top of the mountain faster. It is an all mountain ski that you can go fast with. The most forward part of the tip tends to tap lightly, but it doesn’t affect the ski’s behavior at the front, which absorbs vibrations well. Riding over a series of hollows, bumps, irregularities, it hugs to the terrain pretty well, and doesn’t spring back. We adored this aspect of its personality.
When it comes to turning on hard snow, you feel the edge is kicking in underfoot. You would’ve thought, given the flighty aspect of the front and rear (rocker), that you would have a very short radius … and no! A 21-meter radius, and you really feel it underfoot. So plenty to be able lengthen the turns in deep snow or elsewhere.
The Black Crows Justis isn’t very forgiving if you are a little off-balance as the edge is so active, even with this length of ski (183.1cm), it is a little bit shorter when you take the rocker into account. You still have to be precise in your placement, and the grip is very good.
The question still remains about turn variation, since the active edge is quite short, we didn’t really manage to vary the radius in a smooth and fun way on the edge
The Black Crows Justis is very safe, you can ski it at high speed on the radius for which it is designed. He takes but suddenly, it is difficult to get out. It’s very firm underfoot, which has the advantage of having a good sense of security and of feeling very well what is going on. A more powerful and / or heavier skier can vary and deform the ski in this central part which can, with energy, produce different radii of curves.
The skidding is extremely easy. The transition from edge to edge, despite the 100 millimeters (in size 183.1 cm), did not seem clumsy and not particularly slow to us.
The finish of the ski is decent, if not good enough. The rear has a small titanium plate which, when hit on the ground, prevents damage or even taking off the heel.
This Black Crows Justis is reminiscent of some double-tipped backcountry skis. Most of these types of products targeting “young skiers”, with a lot of lift in the tip and tail, don’t have much in the middle or have exceptional alpine behavior. Whereas with the Black Crows Justis, we believe that you have a ski that holds up more at an alpine level. You can ski it faster, it deforms less and there’s less inertia. The front and rear sections aren’t lifted that high. The Black Crows Justis is therefore a great evolution of this type of ski with better performance on the piste.
We used this equipment over a long period of time
These are our thoughts after intensive use:
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