Freeride Systems & ON3P Vicik Review

Back in November I bought a soft shell jacket from Mike at Freeride Systems after I read a few reviews here. The jacket had the style and features I was looking for and I loved the idea of buying from a startup company that designed, sourced and manufactured in the USA. True to Mike’s description the thing breaths like crazy while still being warm and almost totally windproof. It has a distinctive look that will not be confused with any of the mainstream brands. The only knock is that the hood does not fit well over a helmet but Mike says this is resolved in next year’s model.

Unknown to me a the time but by purchasing the jacket I was entered into a drawing for a pair of ON3P skis. I was shocked when the call came in a couple of weeks ago that I had won a choice of skis from the ON3P product line.

Bottom line, good guy, true to his word, good product, made in the USA – buy his shit!

Ski review - ON3P Vicik 186

Me, 6’ 3” and 210 lbs. 46 yrs old (but still 20 in my brain). Average 40 to 50 days a year with most of my ski time spent is VT plus a week or so out west each year. Usual diet is east coast trees and bumps. I’d say I’m solidly above average but am sure I could not keep up with many on this board.

First impressions - Mounted with black Salmon STHs on the line– great looking setup

Conditions consisted of a thin layer of groomed granular over a firm base (ice to those west of the Mississippi). Has not snowed more than a couple inches in weeks. Trees consisted of mixed semi- frozen crud and bumps combined with huge amounts of blown down limbs from a recent ice storm. Things never softened, temps did not get above 30 degrees.

Fing loved the ski. Fast and realllly stable. I was concerned that short swing turns would be an issue but that was not case. The skis had no problem coming out a fast carve right into a series of short turns as if on auto pilot. No problem at all hooking up on the firm base and arching high speed, swooping 6’ 3” teradactyl turns all over the place. The combo of stiffness underfoot and in the tail with a medium tip + rocker seemed to want to crush anything that got in the way. Did I mention these were but MUCH more stable at speed than the K2 Extremes I’m on now.

We ventured into the trees a few times but they were not much fun given the conditions mentioned above, no fault of the ski. Considering how easy the ski was to turn elsewhere on the mountain I expect them to be perfectly at home in tight trees given more normal conditions.

The only downside to the ski was that on blue east coast ice bumps they had almost no bite. Some might ask why even bother to ski ice bumps? The simple answer, because they were the only bumps on the hill so why the hell not? The first day I skied them with the out of the wrapper tune. On Saturday night I put a nice custom tune on them, 3 degrees on the side edge and detuned the tails just a bit. Left the front contact point sharp. That combo gave the ski a fighting chance and on Sunday it behaved better.

In short, these skis crushed despite unfavorable conditions. I can’t wait to see what they will do in their element.