What skis for the Elk Mountains Grand Traverse?

Booker wrote:

The Alpina BC 2500 is just no longer made.

If anyone happens to be trying to track down a pair, I noticed a whole
bunch this past February at:
www.adventureoutfitter.com
Adventure Outfitters
451 Russell Road
(i.e., Route 9 between Smith College & Amherst College)
Hadley MA
413-253-7565

[1]- Conversely it [Fischer SBounds] doesn't climb as well as some, but I generally
use full skins or kicker skins when it gets steep.

According to the Backcountry Magazine article (trust, but verify) the
fishscales now go from edge to edge across the entire width of the
base -- on my earlier model, they don't *quite* extend all the way
across the base. Whether this will greatly enhance climbing ability,
beats me.
What I do know is that your weight relative to the ski length & flex
makes a big difference. I am a bit on the heavy side for my 169cm
Rebounds, so I have great climbing, so-so gliding. My wife is a bit
on the light side for her 159cm Rebounds, so she has so-so climbing,
and great gliding. Therefore, when we ski together on rolling
terrain, we're always out of sync (i.e., one person pulling ahead of
the other depending on terrain)! I wish they would flex test these
skis like they do with their high-end skate skis so that the fit would
be fine-tuned more.

Booker wrote:

Second, some potentially exciting advances in NNN-BC gear this gear:
the new wider "Magnum" version of the binding,

_ Seems like silly marketing to me. I'm not sure how much a wider
plastic plate really helps and replacing a metal lever with
plastic seems dubious. What's really needed is a wider toe bar,
but that would be a new standard. NNN/Telemark as we've called
it over a few beers.

- I was wondering about that too. The magazine writeup seemed so
certain that this was a significant advantage, but I'm having a hard
time seeing how that makes much of a difference. Perhaps it comes
with a stiffer bumper?

the new beefed-up BC X7
boot from Rossi, and the new Venture boot from Garmont.

_ Fah! Where's the stiff carbon cuff and buckle? Skiing is not
hiking, laces just cut the circulation off to your feet without
providing lateral support. None of these boots give you the
lateral support you'd get from most combi boots these days.

- I was not impressed by the old BC X6 when I tried it on, but the
Backcountry mag article actually did test the BC X7 and liked its
turning capabilities (with limits of course). The Garmont Venture was
not available for testing though. I agree that neither of these boots
seems to tap the full turning potential of the bar-style interface,
but they still might be worth a look in the shop.

_ It could work, but I think the problem is getting people over
the hurdle of buying $200+ NNN/BC boots. I think the technology is
certainly there, it's just a question of the market. Most skate
racing boots have more support than your average floppy NNN/BC
boot. There's also the soft bumper problem, but they just need to
make the harder ones available.

- Ditto for SNS-BC, and hence the Solly Raid's short longevity of only
two seasons. I gulped really hard when we paid $200+ for these boots
(times two for his-n-hers), but we've had lots of fun of them
(although I'm not about to retire my AT setups). The other
SNS-BC/NNN-BC boots we tried were way more floppy than our skate boots
-- very disappointing. (And ditto for the few leather three-pin boots
we could find, although we didn't check out the Karhu Serius -sp?)
For those who want a stiffer SNS-BC bumper, I discovered last season
that the old SNS-BC manual bindings came with two bumpers, and the
stiffer bumper is stiffer than the stiffest bumper that currently
comes on the SNS X-Adventure manual binding. I swapped in the stiffer
set on our Rebounds, and am looking forward to seeing whether it makes
a difference this coming season.