Freeride skis
Product 2021
Man
This is a heavy, dominant ski, you need to keep charge of it and have muscular strength and accompanying energy to be able to deform it. Even so this Blizzard Bonafide 97 is a lot more coherent than the Brahma 88.
A powerful rider is able to draw out the best of this Blizzard Bonafide 97. It is a very grippy ski with an edge-to-edge transition is a little slow, with its 97mm waist, but once carving, you can go for it: it grips on hard snow and you can lean at excessive angles. The only glitch is the radius that puts you quickly in the limit as it accelerates fast and you need the strength to curb it, or at least be able to control this pace. Shortening the radius isn’t easy. Increasing it yes! When you try and shorten the radius the Blizzard Bonafide 97 becomes unstable, the tip loses grip and fluidity is lost.
One of this Blizzard Bonafide 97’s characteristics is its noise level: it makes a resonating noise on hard snow and it vibrates at the front. It does make you wonder what makes up the structure.
On the piste as we’ve already said, you can ride at high speed on wide turns that you can easily initiate skidding or carving. We skied it in an upright stance and skidded turns on steep slopes, it is easy, and the tip doesn’t misbehave.
On the other hand, it does have a very powerful tail. You notice it on piste but especially off piste in moguls, as soon as you lean back a little you suffer you need to quickly come forward, the ski throws you.
The Blizzard Bonafide 97 has a tendency to oversteer so you need to have the wherewithal to deal with this characteristic, keep the balance and to come back forward.
This ski’s structure is stiff and has very little filtration, so your legs suffer the consequences. On any icy/hard snow with frozen lumps or bumps or chop it’s a real pain (literally). It’s a ski designed to go very fast and under a certain speed you have to adapt to it.
The tip does its job well, it lifts quickly and pivots fine. We’ve tested skis that turn more easily but it is acceptable. It isn’t designed for turning in a forest though, or short turns. You need time. It is a ski with energy, but you need to know how to tame it. It’s tiring. If you aren’t heavily built or don’t have the technical skills, you finished whacked out. You really have to avoid irregular hard snow conditions. When its smooth you can find a little fluidity so long as you go fast, otherwise it bangs.
We used this equipment over a long period of time
These are our thoughts after intensive use:
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