So what makes an Amazing ski? Conventional wisdom would suggest that it has to fit well. We’re no different – we spend all kind of time making sure that skis fit. I believe that the protocols that we have developed to ensure good fit are more advanced and comprehensive than anything else out there. But there’s one problem. This amazing pair of skis – Kris’s 261 pair – doesn’t fit me. Kris is a solid 175 lbs, and I tend to run under 140. If we evaluate the ski at my weight our protocols would suggest that it is overfit (too stiff) and as a consequence will have too much load on the front end, and will have excessive camber action and be prone to suck energy out of my legs. Well, if that’s the case, sign me up for more. These are the best skis I’ve ever stepped onto, even though I’m nearly 40 pounds too light for them.
 
OK – let’s agree that fit is important, but it’s not as important as other qualities. Nathan and I like to talk about flex “characteristics”- things like pressure distribution, hotspot position, wheelbase length, fore-aft load distribution and changes to all of this through the range of camber action. We’ve spent years working with skis, measuring characteristics and figuring out what types of characteristics work in which types of conditions. Maybe this ski of Kris’s was just really excellent in sloppy May snow....Well, yes, it was. It has been Kris’s best slush ski for the past three years. But it was also his best ski last November in Beitostolen on cold manmade hardpack mixed with a dusting of windblown new snow. The real kicker is that it had a slush grind on it. His slush ski with a slush grind was his best ski on hardpack manmade windblown snow. Amazing.
 
Obviously there’s something that our comprehensive flex evaluation and fit protocols have failed to tell us about a ski like Kris’s 261. I refer to this something as Absolute Quality, and it’s the most important part of ski selection by a long shot. It’s tempting to think of absolute quality in terms of how well the skis are matched to each-other, but that’s not it. We’re talking about a more subtle range of characteristics that make great skis great. I’ve worked on and measured quite a few truly great pairs of skis, and I’m confident saying that no measurements that we take on the flex tester will tell us which skis might be amazing. Nathan and I put Kris’s 261 ski on the pressure distribution mat that we borrowed from Andy Gerlach, and guess what? It looked like a ski. Maybe it had a somewhat “smoother” pressure distribution – less noise on the map than some other skis. But I still don’t think we could identify truly great skis using the pressure map.
 
At a World Cup level most of the skis seem to be picked by hand. It’s not that they don’t care about fit and flex characteristics at the World Cup – it’s that they have the ability to put a whole bunch of skis on the snow and can afford to spend their energy searching for truly amazing skis.  I’m more confident in my ability to pick an amazing pair of skis using my hands and eyes than I am using the flex tester. Some of what I’m looking for is intangible – difficult to describe in words. Some of it is stuff that I simply prefer not to share because it’s the result of handling many thousands of pairs of skis, or of being in the right place at the right time and talking to the right person (both of which I’m happy to take exclusive credit for). Every year as I get to know the inventory and put a lot of skis in my hands I find myself increasingly confident that I’ve “got it”. Based on the feedback I get from customers, my percentage improves a bit every year as well.
 
They don’t make a lot of amazing skis, which is evidence enough that nobody really knows what makes an amazing ski amazing. If they did, they’d be making more of them. But they’re out there, and they’re available. Those 261 skis of Kris’s are a standard 610 with a 28 base, built on the regular production line. The next pair could be yours. All of this is why Nathan and I spend so much time travelling to ski warehouses. We hand-pick our entire inventory, evaluating each ski for Absolute Quality to the best of our ability. We go to great lengths to ensure perfect fit and appropriate flex characteristics, but what we’re really looking for are amazing skis.