Just added a K2 Mindbender 108ti to the quiver for $399 Canadian. Thats around $300 USD. Ill pay top dollar for the right boot but skis are easy to find deals on. Save those dineros for gas and lift tickets.
Ski season starts tomorrow for me. Going up to the mountains finally. Watching this as I'm tuning my skis. Skiing looks good man, even a WC skier kinda looks like a Jerry in their POV footage lol.
I have the Deacon VWerks from last year, and there is huge difference between that ski and the RTM VWerks and certainly my old AC50. The Deacon VWerks is so much easier to turn without giving up any stability at high speeds. It allowed me to go from two skis to a one ski quiver. The Deacon VWerks is so much lighter and more maneuverable than those older models.
For $2500 I’d expect some interesting tech. Maybe titanium edges, or titanal over a carbon fiber core. Cycling is loaded with experimental tech, and I wouldn’t mind some of that creeping into skiing, but a collector's top sheet over a stock ski is lame..
your first BC is the Draco!? interesting doesn't seem like the ski to send to a race back ground carving focused reviewer, but interested to hear your take on it. Highly considering it for my next touring ski
It's live today for members and should launch tomorrow morning 6am Mountain time. It was actually sent accidentally, they meant to send a carving based ski, but when life gives you lemons and all that.
My dad made it sure that the right way to pronounce Volkl when I was young. A friend of his explained to me it basically pronounced Feulkl. And I told my dad the next day I wanted my next skis to be Feulkl. His response was "stop pronouncing it like that, not only nobody understands you but they will all think your nothing but a smartass after you serve them the explanation" 😂 almost 20 years later well guess what... I AM a smartass 😂
My impression is the VWerks skis are generally an experimental test bed for their future technologies at Volkl. Hence the extra price, especially if they are always low production runs. I'm pretty sure that some of the standard features in their higher-end skis started out in preview form in the Werks series which has been around a while. If this is some sort of important anniversary for the company I don't exactly find this product too surprising. My take is this is definitely aimed at Volkl fans with money who are early adopters, not the general public, or anyone for whom cost is an issue. It's a "halo" product.
I tried out some prototype 85mm Head Porsche Design skis in NZ this season. Lots of fun if you got over the tips, but very unforgiving if you got in the back seat - overall not sure if they were any better than the Head V10 I also skied on the same day.
I personally had the V-Werks RTM 84 back in the day and bought 2years after the regular RTM 86, and the V-Werks were way superior, lighter, better in carving and off piste skiing.
I havent skiied these, but i do take a bit of issue with the "i doubt they are 3x better for 3x the price" argument you often see. The law of deminishing returns applies to everything in life, skis included. If you want the extra 5% performance increase of the "best of the best" you have to pay for it. Like a car, the jump between 100hp of a 20k car and the 600hp of a 100k car is enormous. But if you want the best of the best, (lets just say) 1000hp car, be prepared to shell out 1mil. The last couple % of performance of anything always costs the most because they are halo products that hardly sell, and often times dont even cover the R&D fees to get that extra couple %
@@RicketySkiReviews agree completely. Not an attempt to be critical to you. Just question the expected performance increase per dollar for a product that is supposed to be at the upper echelon.
If you use a J hook GoPro style mount, you can tilt it backward so when you lean forward, you'll see down the slope more. Of course, maybe the point was to see how the skis performed.
10:36 - yeah, funny, I was just gonna comment on how you might be the first person after almost 20 years living in the US that will finally make me change how i say the European ski brands. Because for the love of god I was not able to get over the sounds American market uses. First time in skishop, when they said "ee-lan" I had no idea what they meant. Or even "stoke-lee"... none of them were familiar at first, and I had to translate it in my head. Yeah.. VÖLKEL - germans read "V" as "F" and the "Ö" is more like "E"... so it's more like "fel-kel". Technically "Stokli" - If i remember correctly is form German part of Switz, which would mean.. "S" becomes "Sh", and the "Ö" is again more like "E"... kinda: "Shtekhli" Anyway. I have to learn it both ways anyway to be able to communicate around here. :) Great video, btw!
@@RicketySkiReviews Yeah, I think that might have been one of the first ones that caught my attention actually. It's kinda hard with the names.. in Europe we butcher so many American brands as well, so now i feel bad both ways... haha. What's the mountain that you go to in Idaho? I am not familiar with that states' skiing at all. Would like to educate myself a bit on the area.
You can buy a Gucci wallet for $700, a Coach wallet for $175, or a no-name leather wallet for $40. The old Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy marketing to different consumers. The people who buy expensive skis have plenty of discretionary income and want the "status" of showing or saying they got the $2500 ski. Conspicuous consumption in play. By the way, your skiing is fine. You do not have to be one of the best at something to be good at teaching it or understanding the equipment. I will say that I now understand your negative thoughts about Enforcer skis. Based only upon your carving laps in the video, a skier does need to ski much faster (40+ mph) to unlock the benefits of the Enforcer. They very well may feel dead when trying to carve them at 25-30 mph.
> a skier does need to ski much faster (40+ mph) to unlock the benefits of the Enforcer LOL, Elliot is one of the only reviewers who actually carve (ie not just ride the sidecut), and has obviously done it on GS skis. Wannabes on Enforcers are several levels below this, and this take perfectly exemplifies the audience the "charger" marketing is meant for.
@@res_ipsa-REX my enforcers 94 are my daily drivers (aside from my racing skis since I coach in my racing ski club) and they feel very good at 40 mph 😂 you definitely dont need to go at 40 mph for them to do their thing, but you gotta have quite a lot Gforce (of course speed helps a ton with that) or they just will not bend... AT ALL. Couple that with their weight and you have a pretty bulky ski. Quite fatiguing in the moghuls and off piste.
regarding ski footage -- though I hate people with selfie sticks, they get more interesting footage than the chest mounted go-pro. So do helmet mounts, when they capture downrange POV footage. I think the least interesting footage is the shot of the ski tips going back and forth --- even though i like to see it to assess skier ability. Now maybe pretty skies like the Vokls or the black crows would look better than those atomics going back and forth... :p
When you have 250 dollar lift tickets , 2500 for a pair of skis are not that bad comparative. There are just a bunch of rich old people driving prices in the industry. Same with super expensive bikes for chubby ceo`s.
Seems like they took the naming convention from S-works bikes. More than double the cost for possibly 1-2% improvement over their other higher end lines.
When it comes to prices: with the basic Trek Session you get 80% of the bike for 20% of the effort (money) of the premium version. Similar with some skis...
Don't even look at road bikes, pro teams are required to ride bikes that can technically be bought by consumers. They priced these things ridiculously high to avoid actually selling them but folks ended up paying anyway. Now it's like their business model. My favorite was Adam Hansen making his own custom shoes out of carbon fiber and he was required to sell them. They are sold out currently and go for a small €3,500.00 a pop.
Setting the binding to your boots is easy now a days, should be a number in the 300s on the side or bottom of your boot, there is a lever on each binding to release them so they will move backward or forward, on the bindings you align it with the number you found on your boot, then lock the lever.
omg this comment saved my life, thank you so much, they made the lever blend in with the rest of the binding so I thought maybe I needed my screw driver. Cheers!
@@RicketySkiReviews It annoys me when people focus on the "perfect" weight balance when there is no such thing. Especially when looking at a 5 sec clip. Mastery is being able to turn with skis weighted inside/outside/equally and adapting your turn to the conditions.
People don't understand the camera POV never looks as good for the skier as if someone else was filming. Carving always looks weird from the POV of the skier.
I've also gone away from chest cam view because it always looks to me like the skiier is in in the backseat. Additionally, it's easy to forget your eyes aren't always looking the same way as your chest.
One thing I could say about your technique is on camera it doesn't necessarily look like what I would expect from a former racer. I'm guessing your technique has changed a bit from being out west a while ;) I've also found that chest cam GoPro doesn't really make anyone's technique look good...
Your audience, people watching detailed reviews of skis, aren't the market for the Volkl's. Walk into any ski sho in a resort town and look at the ski outfits. Explain to me the techical advantage a Kjus or Perfect Moment or Montec has over Obermeyer or Patagonia or TNF gear. None, in fact, the latter group is likely superior. Yet all over the mountain I see people in $1900+ jackets and $700+ bibs. I guess I look at it like fat middle aged men buying $14k road bikes instead of the $8k version of the same bike that weights a quarter pound more but is otherwise the same -- if it funds the R&D at the company so they conitnue to come out with innovations, so be it! It's funny because we were having this discussion at work a month ago, someone asked what the 'premium' skis were going for, and I said about a 20% premium (I was thinking Stockli vs comparable Rossi/K2/Atomic), and he was amazed it was that little and brought up the bike example. I guess Vockl had a similar realization. Some people want to show they can spend more and or believe there must be value in the price...
You're going to lose more hair than you have subs if you keep pulling them out over hacking at these silly promotions. Although funny and true, keep them out of sight, out of mind, keep your hair.
Just added a K2 Mindbender 108ti to the quiver for $399 Canadian. Thats around $300 USD. Ill pay top dollar for the right boot but skis are easy to find deals on. Save those dineros for gas and lift tickets.
Agreed. Super easy to find a ski bargain. Go all out on boots, liners, footbeds and if you can…..a great boot fitter. 👍🏼
omg great find! I really liked the 99mindbender tis
Ski season starts tomorrow for me. Going up to the mountains finally. Watching this as I'm tuning my skis.
Skiing looks good man, even a WC skier kinda looks like a Jerry in their POV footage lol.
Thanks man!
I see the J Skis Bob Ross edition was $799 - and they are by the guy who used to make Line skis.
oh now that sounds legitimately cool!
I have the Deacon VWerks from last year, and there is huge difference between that ski and the RTM VWerks and certainly my old AC50. The Deacon VWerks is so much easier to turn without giving up any stability at high speeds. It allowed me to go from two skis to a one ski quiver. The Deacon VWerks is so much lighter and more maneuverable than those older models.
For $2500 I’d expect some interesting tech. Maybe titanium edges, or titanal over a carbon fiber core. Cycling is loaded with experimental tech, and I wouldn’t mind some of that creeping into skiing, but a collector's top sheet over a stock ski is lame..
your first BC is the Draco!? interesting doesn't seem like the ski to send to a race back ground carving focused reviewer, but interested to hear your take on it. Highly considering it for my next touring ski
It's live today for members and should launch tomorrow morning 6am Mountain time. It was actually sent accidentally, they meant to send a carving based ski, but when life gives you lemons and all that.
Well at least the music matches the topsheet in how dated it is
LMAO
Hi Elliott 😊 I see how you were loading / extending the downhill ski… visually educational 😊⛷️
Thanks!
My dad made it sure that the right way to pronounce Volkl when I was young. A friend of his explained to me it basically pronounced Feulkl. And I told my dad the next day I wanted my next skis to be Feulkl. His response was "stop pronouncing it like that, not only nobody understands you but they will all think your nothing but a smartass after you serve them the explanation" 😂 almost 20 years later well guess what... I AM a smartass 😂
Haha, its a great sounding name when pronounced properly imo. Your Dad sounds awesome.
@@RicketySkiReviews dad is pretty cool 😁 doesnt think he is tho, wich makes him even cooler
I bought a pair of revolt 86s and they both ski well and look good for 300$
great find!
My impression is the VWerks skis are generally an experimental test bed for their future technologies at Volkl. Hence the extra price, especially if they are always low production runs. I'm pretty sure that some of the standard features in their higher-end skis started out in preview form in the Werks series which has been around a while. If this is some sort of important anniversary for the company I don't exactly find this product too surprising.
My take is this is definitely aimed at Volkl fans with money who are early adopters, not the general public, or anyone for whom cost is an issue.
It's a "halo" product.
great point
Hahaha!!! Ski chakra flowing through your body! Maybe not an epic ski, but that's an epic line.
😂 if a ski could open up my 3rd eye!
Haha, glad you enjoyed it!
I tried out some prototype 85mm Head Porsche Design skis in NZ this season. Lots of fun if you got over the tips, but very unforgiving if you got in the back seat - overall not sure if they were any better than the Head V10 I also skied on the same day.
Oh cool! I'm hoping I can try a pair and notice a difference.
"Go touch snow, I don't know..." -- Haha, loved that. Will use it. :)
haha, idk what else to say
I personally had the V-Werks RTM 84 back in the day and bought 2years after the regular RTM 86, and the V-Werks were way superior, lighter, better in carving and off piste skiing.
I havent skiied these, but i do take a bit of issue with the "i doubt they are 3x better for 3x the price" argument you often see.
The law of deminishing returns applies to everything in life, skis included. If you want the extra 5% performance increase of the "best of the best" you have to pay for it.
Like a car, the jump between 100hp of a 20k car and the 600hp of a 100k car is enormous. But if you want the best of the best, (lets just say) 1000hp car, be prepared to shell out 1mil. The last couple % of performance of anything always costs the most because they are halo products that hardly sell, and often times dont even cover the R&D fees to get that extra couple %
I guess, but I think it's valid to critique a skis overall value, and let consumers know when they're cresting over that "diminished return" horizon.
@@RicketySkiReviews agree completely.
Not an attempt to be critical to you. Just question the expected performance increase per dollar for a product that is supposed to be at the upper echelon.
If you use a J hook GoPro style mount, you can tilt it backward so when you lean forward, you'll see down the slope more. Of course, maybe the point was to see how the skis performed.
10:36 - yeah, funny, I was just gonna comment on how you might be the first person after almost 20 years living in the US that will finally make me change how i say the European ski brands. Because for the love of god I was not able to get over the sounds American market uses. First time in skishop, when they said "ee-lan" I had no idea what they meant. Or even "stoke-lee"... none of them were familiar at first, and I had to translate it in my head. Yeah.. VÖLKEL - germans read "V" as "F" and the "Ö" is more like "E"... so it's more like "fel-kel". Technically "Stokli" - If i remember correctly is form German part of Switz, which would mean.. "S" becomes "Sh", and the "Ö" is again more like "E"... kinda: "Shtekhli" Anyway. I have to learn it both ways anyway to be able to communicate around here. :) Great video, btw!
Have you seen my rant about Blizzard? The company itself changed the pronunciation to better appeal to western Americans, it makes me crazy .
@@RicketySkiReviews Yeah, I think that might have been one of the first ones that caught my attention actually. It's kinda hard with the names.. in Europe we butcher so many American brands as well, so now i feel bad both ways... haha. What's the mountain that you go to in Idaho? I am not familiar with that states' skiing at all. Would like to educate myself a bit on the area.
Hyped for the review!
Hope it lived up to the Hype!
Was that Master Chief's Voice??
omg true
Love the content!!!
Thank you!
You can buy a Gucci wallet for $700, a Coach wallet for $175, or a no-name leather wallet for $40. The old Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy marketing to different consumers. The people who buy expensive skis have plenty of discretionary income and want the "status" of showing or saying they got the $2500 ski. Conspicuous consumption in play. By the way, your skiing is fine. You do not have to be one of the best at something to be good at teaching it or understanding the equipment. I will say that I now understand your negative thoughts about Enforcer skis. Based only upon your carving laps in the video, a skier does need to ski much faster (40+ mph) to unlock the benefits of the Enforcer. They very well may feel dead when trying to carve them at 25-30 mph.
> a skier does need to ski much faster (40+ mph) to unlock the benefits of the Enforcer
LOL, Elliot is one of the only reviewers who actually carve (ie not just ride the sidecut), and has obviously done it on GS skis. Wannabes on Enforcers are several levels below this, and this take perfectly exemplifies the audience the "charger" marketing is meant for.
lol.. the enforcer becomes “very sloppy” at 40+ mph.
I think we agree to disagree @@kiramuro
@@res_ipsa-REX Enforcers are basically the posterchild terminal intermediate ski.
@@res_ipsa-REX my enforcers 94 are my daily drivers (aside from my racing skis since I coach in my racing ski club) and they feel very good at 40 mph 😂 you definitely dont need to go at 40 mph for them to do their thing, but you gotta have quite a lot Gforce (of course speed helps a ton with that) or they just will not bend... AT ALL. Couple that with their weight and you have a pretty bulky ski. Quite fatiguing in the moghuls and off piste.
regarding ski footage -- though I hate people with selfie sticks, they get more interesting footage than the chest mounted go-pro. So do helmet mounts, when they capture downrange POV footage. I think the least interesting footage is the shot of the ski tips going back and forth --- even though i like to see it to assess skier ability. Now maybe pretty skies like the Vokls or the black crows would look better than those atomics going back and forth... :p
Great suggestion
When you have 250 dollar lift tickets , 2500 for a pair of skis are not that bad comparative. There are just a bunch of rich old people driving prices in the industry. Same with super expensive bikes for chubby ceo`s.
Ugh, you're right, but it makes me sad
I know that mountain, do you ski Tamarack much?
not in a while, but I used to ski it a lot. VERY underrated imo.
Seems like they took the naming convention from S-works bikes. More than double the cost for possibly 1-2% improvement over their other higher end lines.
Yeah totally!
When it comes to prices: with the basic Trek Session you get 80% of the bike for 20% of the effort (money) of the premium version. Similar with some skis...
Don't even look at road bikes, pro teams are required to ride bikes that can technically be bought by consumers. They priced these things ridiculously high to avoid actually selling them but folks ended up paying anyway. Now it's like their business model.
My favorite was Adam Hansen making his own custom shoes out of carbon fiber and he was required to sell them. They are sold out currently and go for a small €3,500.00 a pop.
Omg, both of these stories gave me sticker shock
Kes-lee
Now that's two ski companies whose names you learned to pronounce this week!
you're only kind of right
It looks like conditions were pretty good..
Yeah totally, pretty nice start to the season!
@@RicketySkiReviews Good to see..
You can buy custom skis for half of that price. It's just a fashion statement.
Custom skis for 1200 dollars? You have my attention. Can you post a link?
@ianholmquist8492 It was an exaggeration. Folsom sells their skis for $1650
Setting the binding to your boots is easy now a days, should be a number in the 300s on the side or bottom of your boot, there is a lever on each binding to release them so they will move backward or forward, on the bindings you align it with the number you found on your boot, then lock the lever.
I'm not a fan of the size-adjustable demo style bindings. I have found that many of them have a lot of slop to them
omg this comment saved my life, thank you so much, they made the lever blend in with the rest of the binding so I thought maybe I needed my screw driver. Cheers!
There's a sucker born every minute
True
I think your skiing is fine. It does make me think of the opportunity to do a gear-instructional collaboration with an instructor.
Bro, it's very difficult to watch your skiing while driving a vehicle. I find myself following your turns. LOL! Not a suggested practice.
haha I was leaning in my office chair while I was editing
FWIW, I see the ex-racer in your turns. Not the PSIA instructor... Very different definitions of carving.
Thanks! I never did Psia, just USSA level 100/ race referee, but appreciate the comment either way!
@@RicketySkiReviews It annoys me when people focus on the "perfect" weight balance when there is no such thing. Especially when looking at a 5 sec clip. Mastery is being able to turn with skis weighted inside/outside/equally and adapting your turn to the conditions.
People don't understand the camera POV never looks as good for the skier as if someone else was filming. Carving always looks weird from the POV of the skier.
I've also gone away from chest cam view because it always looks to me like the skiier is in in the backseat. Additionally, it's easy to forget your eyes aren't always looking the same way as your chest.
It's true, I try and ski with a 2nd shooter, but it's not always possible or practical for getting videos out in a timely manner.
One thing I could say about your technique is on camera it doesn't necessarily look like what I would expect from a former racer. I'm guessing your technique has changed a bit from being out west a while ;)
I've also found that chest cam GoPro doesn't really make anyone's technique look good...
k
Volkl i sez...i stand corrected German voice over man
The voice sounds so cool in the video
Your audience, people watching detailed reviews of skis, aren't the market for the Volkl's. Walk into any ski sho in a resort town and look at the ski outfits. Explain to me the techical advantage a Kjus or Perfect Moment or Montec has over Obermeyer or Patagonia or TNF gear. None, in fact, the latter group is likely superior. Yet all over the mountain I see people in $1900+ jackets and $700+ bibs. I guess I look at it like fat middle aged men buying $14k road bikes instead of the $8k version of the same bike that weights a quarter pound more but is otherwise the same -- if it funds the R&D at the company so they conitnue to come out with innovations, so be it! It's funny because we were having this discussion at work a month ago, someone asked what the 'premium' skis were going for, and I said about a 20% premium (I was thinking Stockli vs comparable Rossi/K2/Atomic), and he was amazed it was that little and brought up the bike example. I guess Vockl had a similar realization. Some people want to show they can spend more and or believe there must be value in the price...
Great point.
Go look up Balenciaga's skis they are selling 7000 dollar skis
OMG, y
You're going to lose more hair than you have subs if you keep pulling them out over hacking at these silly promotions.
Although funny and true, keep them out of sight, out of mind, keep your hair.
Lol