Okay, maybe I’m a bit late on this considering I’ve had them for quite a while, especially since the 2012 rockered model will be available soon. But, yesterday was the first time I had the 2011 RVL8 Condors out for a test drive. I mean, I’m 30 now and being outside the park by choice for an entire day is something I am starting to lean towards. Before I go and discuss their pure rideability (Is that even a word?) I did get into some natural terrain jibbing and hit a rail a few times. But, for the most part I had intended for it to be a cruising day, which is something I have not really gone out to do at all. Wolf Creek is certainly the place to do it because there is no park and they get on average the most snow in Colorado every year. It is an all natural mountain with no snowmaking (to my knowledge), wind powered energy for the resort, and only organic food (other than bottled beverages) served in the lodges. Even the lift tickets are generic with different words of the day printed on them. So, this was the place for me to test the boards without hiking over and over throughout the day (I’ll leave that to you, Jack). But, let me digress and get back to the boards.
I have never been on KTPs (101cm-wide) and have only ridden ALPs (110cm-traditional R8 width proportion) once. For me, the main transition was that of 5cm in length and several cm in width as well as a less flexier board. All of this factored on the basis that I ride on Revolts 100% of the time in all conditions; park, all mountain, powder, trees, backyard jibs, urban, etc… I am 5’6″ and weigh 140lbs (dropped 15lbs of muscle since the dislocations of my shoulder over the past ten months). Thus far Revolts have been the ideal skiboard for what I desired in all conditions.
My first concern while riding up the lift (I probably should have thought things through at least the day before, but I didn’t even bring any other boards to the resort just in case this was an unsuccessful test), was whether or not I would have troubles getting on edge. I am a pretty active guy, skating 2-3 times a week outside of the summer months and training in the gym regularly with high-impact explosive training workouts. Even with that we all know that getting on edge and working on powder with skiboards can be quite a quad-killer for your legs. My second concern was that with the width and flex, would I be able to ride how I normally do? Everyone has their specific flow on skiboards, or anything for that matter, and would it work out well for me? Or, would I feel incredibly uncomfortable for the day? These, among other thoughts are what went through my mind as I rode up my first time.
To my surprise I came off the lift and flew down the first trail (black diamond) and rode typically how I would in a cruising situation, boards close and parallel while just leaning back and forth. They rode incredibly smoothly on the groomed trail and when any sort of powder popped showed up in random spots I floated effortlessly over the patches as if they weren’t there. Throughout the day I tested them in various areas to see how they would handle, including groomers, light pow (4 inches deep, sugary), trees, steep hard-pack, natural banks to tree taps, buttering at lower and higher speeds, popping off of rollers, the feel of grabs and moving the boards around in the air (shifties and spins), and even hitting a rail (Wolf has one random rail sitting at the bottom by one of the lifts that is super sketch to hit and even in the extremely narrow ride-up these boards made the cut).
Overall, I must say that I was very pleased. Even for my height and weight they rode rather fluidly. After a conscious first run of pay attention specifically to how they felt I cruised run after run without even adjusting anything in how I rode or how I thought about approaching things. I definitely felt the width throughout the day as a much wider base to be on top of, but it didn’t actually affect how I rode. The lean-back method came pretty natural in the deeper spots (keep in mind that it is still early season snow and the resort had 4′ but that was several weeks ago before getting warm temps since). My edges were fresh and leaning far from side to side made it quite easy to get on edge fast and smoothly. The extra flex was of no concern because it made the ride smooth. I was cruising fast and taking sharp turns with ease not only because of how easy it was to get on edge, but because of how light the boards felt because of the flex. Yes, the boards tend to fool your mind and make it think they are lighter when in fact it is the flex. Odd, but refreshing. I was even popping off of high banks, tail-tapping trees, and then landing deep in the transition. Because of the flex it was easy to just sink in and ride out. I even hit a rail several times and the boards seemed to lock easier because of the width (I can understand the park love for KTPs now). Between runs I was buttering around doing 360 nose presses and such, and while they were flexier than what I am usually used to there was no problem at all. I just had to compensate by leaning a little more into the trick.
I really don’t have any complaints. The Condors were a fantastic all-around board. The only slight issue I had and needed to compensate for was when coming down steeps where the terrain was slightly moguly and broken up the boards did not handle as well as a narrower board. I would imagine that had it been powder they would have championed the entire section.
I have yet to test them in deep powder, but that will be on the docket next.
On a scale from 1 to 10, for all around use I give them a 9.5
For reference, I was using RVL8 2010 Receptors and Dalbello Rampage boots.
Rider – Dave Bloom – RVL8 Skiboards Event Coordinator, Assistant Team Manager, and RVL8 Team Rider
