For basically no additional weight, the rubber absorbs a lot of the vibration at higher speeds. The details Black Diamond adds its usual special sauce to the core: a rubber layer. “It’s the ski I want when I’m faced with a tight situation, on cruddy snow, or stuck on ice,” our tester says. The recipe makes the Helio Recon extremely predictable, stable, and affordable. Instead, it uses fiberglass, more like a conventional resort ski. A bit on the heavier side (compared to other skis here), it has a poplar wood core and no carbon. While wistful memories of the Carbon Convert still linger now and again, I am only looking ahead as my new best buddy and I are off to grab an apres beer.Our take “This is my can’t-fall ski,” proclaimed one tester of the new Helio Recon. Short of mid winter bottomless (did I mention the 116), I can’t think of any terrain or condition that I wouldn’t grab the Helio 105 and go. In short, there is no mistaking it’s Austrian build. It’s damp and stable, tracks well, holds firm and is energetic and reactive. The harder I pushed the Helio 105 the more it gave back. I never thought I would see the day that a 6lb AT ski would stand up to the abuse of a ski area thrashing. Despite being touted as a high tech, high performance AT ski, it is all that and more. I held nothing back that day and the Helio 105 never let me down. Before it was all over I pushed around chunky crud, smeared and slithered over and around powder bumps and finished it all off arcing through sun drenched bumps just above the base. I expected such a featherweight AT ski to get tossed about like a ship at sea but as I pressed into the front of the Helio 105 they just stayed right on course, no deflection. I never would have known it as the Helio 105 blasted through the denser snow just like all the blower above.Īs the day unfolded there was plenty of powder but also some tracks to contend with while linking swaths of untracked. When we hit the runout of the Bowl I made sure my wife was behind me as we worked one final margin of untracked to the far right that sees a bit of sun. All the while, I was letting out spontaneous howls, yells and whoops of joy. I caught a glance out of the corner of my eye of friends who were parked on top of the rollover as I punched the accelerator and increased the radius of my turns. Then it opened up onto a big apron that rolled over steeper with each turn. Swooping down a wide gully just above treeline, a couple of wind affected turns went by as if they weren’t there, Dropping into some trees, popping off features, arcing little sidehills, all the while playing the terrain at will. Solely by luck, my wife and I were part of the first 50-100 people up Highlands Bowl when it opened. I almost took my Wailer 99 with me “just in case” but tossed them back in the corner at the last second and thought “The hell with it.” I don’t know if it was powder fever or the sense of freedom of not having to think about the well being of clients behind me but something different was in the air. It was also my first full day of the season riding lifts with nothing on my plate beyond ski my butt off. Bluebird and cold with a foot of new snow. My final day on the Helio 105 was a classic Colorado powder day. Was it lack of girth, a bit lower tip profile or a bit too stiff a ski to allow for enough float? I honestly missed the extra girth and found myself working a bit harder than usual to get down the hill. The snow report said 3″ but to my surprise we found 12+” had blown into the lee side of our terrain. I brought along my trusty DPS Wailer 112 “just in case” but left them racked for the day because if one is going to talk the talk then you had better walk the walk. Maybe I was still thinking about my old flame and hadn’t fully committed to this new friendship. Every time I crossed a track I got bucked into the backseat a little bit, making me think maybe the tail of the Helio 105 was a touch too stiff. Sure enough, the powder was there albeit with a few tracks scattered across the slope. I headed out back to tour a lap in one of my usual haunts where I am virtually guaranteed to find powder. They were surprisingly damp for a lightweight carbon ski and stayed glued to the snow allowing the full length of the edge to engage.
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