Alpine skis
Product 2019
Man
The S-Max Blast is the latest innovation from Salomon for this 2018/19 winter season. Not yet in the shops. The brand is making its great comeback in competition skiing with products that are aimed at piste/performance. The goal is to be on the podium at the World Cup. The R&D guys at Annecy Design Center (Amer Group) have developed some ski and boot lines that should support their claims. The Salomon Max Blast is not the top end of the range but it is the most sold ski. It received the Test4outside.com FIRST Award because it does everything you could wish for from a high performance, modern piste ski.
We won’t go into full detail about all the different technical choices Salomon have made, but will say that the plate enables the skier’s pressure to be transferred directly onto the ski edges vertically giving a powerful and immediate grip.
On the snow the skis are at one with the snow. There is a bit of inertia on the front of the ski, these skis are definitely skis of substance! After a series of turns you get to know them and their character.
The aim of these skis is to ride on the edges, the curve is enthusiastically fluid, pure joy. They are both soft, incredibly fluid, reassuring and stable. Honestly, when you set off early in the morning and ski the freshly groomed pistes with these Salomon at your feet, it’s like riding in paradise.
Carving turns happen instinctively, and the radius is 17m, but the major bonus with these skis is their versatility to change the radius: all you do is slightly change your fore/aft position, put a little more or less pressure and the flex adapts to the desires of the skier, who remains in complete control. The S-Max rarely takes you by surprise, the only time this could happen is an imbalance to the rear at slow speed: the tail is active and so becomes over-twisting in the turn.
The other major benefit to the Salomon is its grip which is a powerful bite: a real delight on hard snow and with angulation.
Emergency stops or changes of direction if there is a problem, is not immediate, especially on hard snow, you need skill and anticipation…
The range of variations is large, but short turns are better done as skidding turns.
These skis accelerate, stay gripped to the snow with their active ski tips. You can ride very fast and they slide well even on very cold snow. The design and look creates a beautiful object and easily deserves our FIRST Award – we absolutely loved them.
We used this equipment over a long period of time
These are our thoughts after intensive use:
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These skis made me feel like an expert!! Just fantastic to ride on. I’ve skied 5 seasons in Japan on a variety of hire skis and never felt truly at ease on the expert runs. I asked the guys at C’elle Ski Hire in Alleghe to give me the best ski they had. They gave me these. WOW!! My best speed before these was 70kmh and I felt like I was going to die. I consistently skied over 85 on these all over Alleghe for 2 days, and as high as 98. Never once did they lose their edge. I watched people ski past me and thought wow he can ski. And then found myself carving inside and outside of them on expert runs. These are great skis. Thanks C’elle Sport.