Rossignol Black Ops?

[noslow]

Loving those Sender Free 118 with the Strives. Great color combo!
That weight should be good and probably a hair lighter swingweight than a BO 118 at the same weight. They’d probably be similar in feel to my latest BO 118 set at 2445gr average.

Bet there will be more difference between different pairs of the Blackops 118 or Sender Free 118 than between those 2 models. Still lots of heavy models of SF 118 it seems and only ones that I’ve seen around 2400gr have been the original BO 118.

Felt I could tell a difference between the latest set and my old set that were 2520gr/2475gr and I moved back a hair(.25”) on the mount.
Forumskiers were indeed around 2530gr each and less than 10gr between left and right iirc.

[noslow]

Forumskier-You’ll have to go on Soothski.com and compare the flex patterns of the BO 98/BO 118/K2 Poacher.
BO 98 in even the 182cm is stiffer everywhere(similar tip/tail) than the 184cm Poacher and the 192cm even more so. The BO 118 is just stiffer tip/tail than the 182cm BO 98 but similar everywhere else. The 192cm BO 98 similar tip/tail but stiffer everywhere else vs the 186cm BO 118.

Think the 192cm BO 98 will vastly outcarve the Poacher but will be very forgiving in bumps like the BO 118. I’d use forgiving flex vs your loose description of what you’d get in the BO 98 in bumps etc.
Skis like a Prodigy 2.0 or especially Poacher with its increased taper and rocker will be definitely easier to pivot but will much less precision on edge than the BO 98.
Good mix of a Mantra type ski with a twin tip.

The 21 Faction CT 2.0 was your “Monster 98 twin tip” with its almost 2400gr weight in the 188cm/186cm tape length. They haul!
Even the 183cm/181cm tape CT 2.0 are 2300gr.

[JRainey]

As the original Renegade reviewer I think I'm qualified to compare to BO118.

In a funny twist of fate, the last pow day of the season in St Anton on the BO118 was almost 10 years after I had a very similar day on the OG Renegade, on the the exact same runs (might have been their last great powder day).

Both with 3 feet of snow and dense. The day of the Renegades was maybe a little more upside down. I can still remember it like it was yesterday...

I would say the biggest difference between the two isn't the camber, but the shape. Renegades are straight with taper, BO semi-straight with no taper. Renegades ski sideways and BO rides the edge.

In practice this doesn't really change all that much about how you ski them. BO is still pretty straight and not twitchy or carvy, super easy to redirect, but they don't really drift.

Like that day 10 years ago, so many of my greatest renegade moments have been seared into my memory. That drift is heaven.

But what you give up in drift, you gain by having monster trucks under your feet.

I had to give up on the Renegades because in fucked euro snow, they were too harsh. EHPs got picked more, then the Kusalas basically replaced them.

Now, some of my new favorite memories with the BO are about pulling Gs across the fall line, and not giving a fuck how much speed I pick up. No need to break out of edges, just go fast and flow.

My thought about the BO camber vs the Renegade, in dense snow, it's like there is no camber. Fat tips, fat tails, easy flex in the middle, camber is not something I think about. The times where I caught a crust under the powder and hooked up would be the only concern, but that was more of a tune and ski awareness thing (also shape related). So you can think of a camber as an essential part of the "suspension", but I could abandon my old caveman logic, "camber? bad!"

Because they are so symmetrical, and the mount point is so forward, I don't think the Renegade has much advantage in the speed department. Pintails suck, plowing around like a bass boat with a massive outboard motor. Parallel to the snow makes you fast, and BO can do that. When the tips go under do the samurai sword Renegade tips help? Sure. But even in dense snow I wasn't feeling much snag with my BO tips. Even the Renegades weren't as good as the EHPs.

Like the others mentioned, they are not trampolines. I don't think you could have that incredible damp feeling and still keep a lot of rebound. But they do respond when you load them up. If you hit a pow bump at medium speed they would pop you higher than the OG renegades, at high speed the renegades might flex enough to best them.

What I like about the rebound is that it's easy bending, but you feel it. Like if you load the tails, the camber goes away easily, but it eases you into it. So when you want to use that loading to get back forward, it always available. The renegade you have to roll back to a set point before the tails start to load.

So are they better than the renegade? No. Yes. Maybe. But they have the same newskool freeride DNA, so it's not like you need to adjust too much.


Pucon, Chile - "Big Bang" Freestyle Fest - 2010. Note the white bases. Pre-production pair #29. This was the first (and only) pair of skis I've ever paid full retail for. 4frnt hooked it up early for the southern Winter (thanks Jeremy!)

Oh, and these where mounted in Chile which was a mega-fucking-mistake, and after the first mount blew out, they were mounted at -3 from TC and they ruled. Until they ripped out again motorcrossing under the Sublette chair (zen and the art of mogul motocross), then I got pair #87 which was just never quite as good.

[gaijin]

Awesome write-up, JRainey. I appreciate the in-depth thoughts. Now, to put your imagination through an exercise in hypotheticals... can you imagine choosing the BO over the Ren in a Japanese forest of untouched snow where the majority of turns are drifting at speed?

I'm really splitting hairs here. BO seems like a cool ski, though.

[mr_pretzel]

Awesome write-up, JRainey. I appreciate the in-depth thoughts. Now, to put your imagination through an exercise in hypotheticals... can you imagine choosing the BO over the Ren in a Japanese forest of untouched snow where the majority of turns are drifting at speed?

I'm really splitting hairs here. BO seems like a cool ski, though.

The renegade is one of my favorite skis and I’ve skied the BO a lot too. I would never take the BO to japan over the ren.

[gaijin]

That’s my hunch.


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[JRainey]

If I was dealing with deep snow where I wasn't really hitting the bottom I would say renegades. I don't even care if there's a track or two to cross. It's more about does the snow provide the suspension.

If you having to rally crud and luge tracks in and out of said deep snow fields, then I think the blackops would increase the percentage of the decent that was dreamy.

I don't really ski tracked out snow on powder days as I'm in early and out early, in a place with low competition. So I don't need a pure powder ski that's a crud destroyer. We are just generally dealing with harder base surfaces and a lot sluff debris in runouts. The rossis (SF110 and BO118) have really increased the comfort level when it's 5cm on top of that old sluff debris. But the crud performance of the BO was so good, I'll gladly ski it during the dryer times where I'm "milking it".

I would stay if you're looking for something more forgiving without feeling less substantial, the blackops are it.

I can't say this enough, they are soft in the strangest and best possible way. They hand flex stiff, yet they are super easy to bend while skiing (all the way under the binding), but you could ski through soft avi debris at 45mph and not even flinch (and hard avi debris and survive).

I had a blast reconnecting with the latest version of the Hoji this year, and would actually like to try the new renegade as they seem like real floaters. I need to remount my OGs if I want to ski them (GW and Longer BSL), but I think I might go for it for next season, not needed, but just too feel young again.

[forumskier]

That’s my hunch.


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BO118s are definitely not the skis I'm going to grab if I know it's deep untracked. The opposite. I grab them when I know it's going to be tracked, and turning into mashed potato piles. Or when it's soft, but not deep. I usually end up finding some untracked lines with them, and they do fine, but they aren't anything special in those conditions.