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SKILOGIK Rave TT 175cm 2013-2014

2013-2014 SkiLogik Rave TT
136-92-122 r=15m @ 175

Manufacturer Info:

SkiLogik LLC
P.O. Box 9480
Breckenridge, CO 80424 USA
+1 970-453-8000 voice
+1 970-368-4400 fax
http://www.SkiLogik.com

Suggested Retail Price (MSRP):

$750 usd retail

Usage Class:

All-Mountain

Rating (with comments):
(1="get me off these things"->10="I have to own a pair")

7+ for powder snow conditions
8-9+ for packed powder groomers and mixed conditions
8+ for hardpack

Ski Designer(s):

David Mazzarella

Manufacturer's Description:

"The Rave TT is a high performance all around twintip adept at everything from hard snow, moguls, steep and deep, to jibbing your neighbor's porch rail. If you do it all and want one ride, this is it. Like all f SKILOGIK's skis, the Rave TT features Black Locust sidewalls for superior edging and SKILOGIK's trademark Vektor 8 (tm) arbon Fiber/Fiberglass construction. Engineered for maximum torsional rigidity, the Rave TT provides excellent edge hold on hard surfaces yet is wide enough to ski great in most powder conditions. The Rave TT is ideal if you're looking for the highest level of performance in an all mountain design." - website 2014

Summary:

The description Dave "Mazz" Mazzarella puts on the Rave TT is accurate. Forget that it's labeled a "twin-tip" - As reviews by other groups have revealed, this is an excellent, award-winning all-mountain ride with excellent hard snow capabilities, crud-cutting stability and pretty decent soft-snow behavior. It rewards a strong, athletic pilot and can take intense pressure in hard snow and mixed crud conditions without any protest or failings, delivering hard-core grip and stable power on-demand. It can be skied with a more passive technique without any problems...but it falls into the stiffer, more torsionally-strong sport category than the finesse-oriented, technical category. Heavier or stronger skiers will immediately take a liking to the Rave TT, while lighter or more passive skiers will find the ride perhaps a bit stronger than they expected. Torsionally infallible with lots of energy, hardpack carving grip and spunk. Fearless crud cutter with decent enough surface area for powder, but feels a bit stiff and non-surfy in fluff, although eats up spring corn conditions with enthusiasm. Bumps are a bit harsh due to the stiffness, but tons of rebound power if you load up the Rave TT and let it release. A bit heavy feeling at slowest speeds, but as others have observed, this feeling disappears immediately once you get up to moderate speed. Excellent example of a modern, high-performance, high-energy all-mountain design for strong skiers with a bias toward frontside. Good balance with a wide performance bandwith for nearly all kinds of terrain.

Technical Ski Data:

Mazz creates an unusual, and somewhat exotic construction of his skis by using a proprietary hardwood core (we think Paulownia wood may be involved...but can't confirm this) with extremely hard black walnut sidewall/edge supports. This creates a torsionally strong ski with good transfer of energy to the edges (SkiLogiks often have pretty impressive edge hold compared to other skis in the same category). The "Vector 8" composite fabric is a mix of fiberglass and carbon laid above and below the wood core. The "Black Magik" bases are carbon-infused, sintered material sourced from Germany. Ski manufactured in China.

Bindings and Boots Used:

Tyrolia SP12 Demo Bindings

Salomon S-Max 120 boots.

Pre-Skiing Impression:

Skilogik makes some of the most attractive skis in the business, with gorgeous, hand-made inlaid wood topsheet artwork. Needless to say, they are eye-catching. The fit and finish was very, very good (essentially flawless), although a final stonegrind with your favorite pattern and edge tune at your favorite shop would improve the factory finish a bit. We skied it "out of the box", as-is and found it needed just some wax and we were off and running. Subsequent stonegrind and tuning made it even more impressive on hardpack. The hand flex is fairly round and stout, and torsionally strong. The ski feels damp and resistant to vibrations. Mounting bindings found the screws to tighten firmly and securely in the wood core and laminates, locking down with authority.

Test Conditions:

Eastern corduroy, packed powder and hardpack groomers, spring corn, boilerplate, ungroomed packed powder with small bumps, shin-deep to knee-deep powder conditions, both smooth and bumpy. Windpack, crust, crud, chalky wind buff, fresh and old powder.

Hardpack and Boilerplate:

The Skilogik Rave TT is one of the more impressive 90mm category hardpack carvers out there due to its very strong torsional integrity, cambered nature and relatively stout flex pattern tip to tail. Not only does it hold an edge strongly throughout the turn with varying amounts of pressure and angulation, it initiates carves easily and naturally, pulling itself into the arc with authority. The Rave TT will satisfy the inner-racer in many skiers who want secure grip at moderate to high speeds on hardpack, but who lack the desire and quiver depth to ride a dedicated racecarver. The Rave TT is definitely an all mountain ski with high-level hardpack grip rather than a race-carver with all-mountain capabilities, which is exactly what it is billed to be. Vibrations at speed on hardpack and boilerplate are controlled very well without affecting the energetic rebound and acceleration available in the chassis, making the Rave TT a blast to crank across the hill on hard surfaces. It is not a blink-and-be-gone type of edge-to-edge carving ski to bang out slalom turns, but prefers a more moderate to larger-radius arc on edge...just the kind of turns you are likely to make in an all-mountain ski sitiuation. The Rave TT can be quick underfoot in tight situations, you just need to get it to flex through its camber and engage the surface with some pressure in an active manner. If you are athletic, the Rave is athletic.

Mixed Conditions:

The real forte of the Rave TT is its ability to pretty much handle any kind of conditions on any day all over the mountain...other than epic powder days where you would be crazy not to reach for a dedicated powder ski from your quiver (or your buddy's quiver when he's not looking). New snow, old snow, smooth surfaces, rough surfaces, dry snow, damp snow, steeps or low-angle slopes don't really phase the Rave TT. It keeps on trucking through nearly any condition and never seems to indicate it doesn't like the situation. We likened it to that friend everyone has who is never phased by anything going on....steady personality no matter what happens. The Rave TT, with its cambered profile and shaping design, traverses any mix of snow types and surface conditions with predictable power, stability and authority, letting the pilot concentrate on where they want to go on the terrain, and not the surface covering that terrain. Confidence is the name of the game when riding the Rave through cut-up snow, tracked-out conditions, mixed density snowpack and nearly anything else. If you have lots of odd snow conditions and surface conditions, the Rave TT's design works really really well. This ski rewards a skier with a sense of purpose and direction rather than the floaty-go-lucky passive rider. The more you press the Rave TT, the more it delivers. If you ride it passively through mixed conditions, you will be perfectly taken care of, but you might feel like you are getting more feedback about the surface underfoot than you are used to with softer skis. Keep the power on through such conditions and you get high-performance response and handling with plenty of acceleration, enthusiastic authority and stability.

Bumps:

The Rave TT sits on the stiffer side of the flexibility spectrum, and with its hardwood sidewalls, can provide a stout, somewhat impactful ride through tight bumps. Large, roller-type bumps are a different story...delivering a rowdy, high-energy experience with the Rave TT. Basically, if you imact bumps instead of rolling through them, you will feel impact. If you roll through the bumps, you will get a flex-and-acellerate experience. Since the tips and tails are "twin-tipped", there is negligible hang-up in the bumnps, making navigation and agility fairly easy unless things get so tight as to cause the forebody of the Raves to flex past their absorbsion limit and into the abrubtness zone where the pressure is delivered to the skier without delay. The Rave TTs never feel like they are folding or "giving out" in the bumps, but they aren't silky bump skis either since they are somewhat strong-flexing skis. At slow speeds in the bumps, they can feel a bit heavy compared to some all-mountain skis, but again,this feeling disappears quickly once you get up to a moderate speed. Power, energy and control are all right-there, with the comfort factor being the only real shortcoming in the bumps.

Powder:.

The Rave TT handles powder conditions like many other cambered all-mountain skis with little rocker - A bit directional and not very "surfy". The geometry of the surface area of the Rave TT floats evenly and with good balance fore-to-aft in 3D conditions, providing as much flotation at a 90mm waisted ski can provide. There is no odd sinking, tip dive, tail dive or difficult behavior to contend with...just the feeling of having a cambered frontside-oriented ski in deep snow. The camber makes the Rave feel directional in powder, prefering to "carve" its way through the snow rather than surf and drift its way along. There is a bit of delay in changing vertical depth in powder because of the camber, but it always obeys your commands. Years ago, this would have been a perfecty fun and useful powder ski, but we are all spoiled now because of the more rockered, reverse camber and minimal camber powder ski designs out there now showing us how effortless powder skiing can be with the right tools underfoot. The SkiLogik Rave TT is perfectly good in powder conditions you would expect to encounter while using an "All Mountain" ski, but since its bias is to deliver high-performance hardpack and mixed condition behaviors, it gives up the surfy feel in powder we now all take for granted from dedicated powder and soft-snow skis.

Analogies: ("This ski is like...")

A strong and sporty cross-country hunter-jumper horse, eager to be pushed on a vigorous trail ride. Content to trot along a a meager pace, but best when encouraged into a spirited romp.

Quick Comments:

Strong and grippy.
LIkes speed and high pressure situations to show off its capabilities
A bit abrupt in tight bumps.
Carves better than its classification.
Could not care less about surface conditions and cut-up surface textures.
Lots of rebound power and energy underfoot.
Cool looking.
Faster is better....trail junk is ignored.
Seemingly unlimited grip and strength under pressure.
A bit heavy-feeling at slowest speeds..but this goes away instantly after 15 mph.
Goes anywhere with confidence...no reason to hesitate anywhere.

Things I Would Change About This Ski:

Probably nothing. Great as-is for what it's intended for.

Short Answer When Someone Asks "What Do You Think About This Ski?":

Great all-mountain ski for athletic skiers, heavy skiers or racer-at-heart type skiers who want a grippy tool for hardpack and fearless crud-busting when things get cut-up an skied-out. Decent enough for pure powder, but it really shines in frontside and mixed-surfaces. Less elegant and finess-like than some other all-mountain skis, but it is built to have more power under the hood than others. The more you drive it, the more it delivers.

Advice To People Considering This Ski:

Take a demo ride on a pair, they feel true-to-length. If you want a fearless crud-buster frontside-oriented all-mountain ski with a high speed limit and you like to drive your skis, you might love these. If you like a more finess-like ride and are passive, you might find it a bit strong for your taste...or it can up your game level.

Other Reviews:

FreeSkier:
http://freeskier.com/gear/products/skilogik-rave-tt-ski-2014

EpicSki:
http://www.epicski.com/products/skilogik-rave-tt-all-mountain-skis

RealSkiers (subscription required)
http://www.realskiers.com/MEMBERS/2014-skilogik-ski-reviews.html

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