Gotama vs Pocket Rocket vs Gun lab vs Beast 92tt

I took all my skis on tour last week and here are the results.

All the skis were skied in a huge range of conditions from fresh blower to windblown to crud to melted layer on top of deep powder to ice crusted powder. A good week to test skis.

05/06 190 cm Volkl Gotama with S916 S-Lab Comp Mounted on the mark
This was my first week on these. First impressions are damp progressive flex giving great control at high speed. This gave me a lot of confidence to go hard and fast in variable off piste. I haven't found their weaknesses yet. Love em. I have a concern about have binders this hardcore on powder boards. I had about 6 big stacks on these and not once did the binders release. They were only set to 10. I may swap the springs out for some less hardcore ones.

03/04 185cm Salomon Pocket with 997 6-14 mounted 1.5cms back
I bought these as they were cheap on ebay before i was going on holiday. a great surprise. I Love these. I think they will become my everyday ski. The soft flex makes them easy but they are too soft to deal with hard charging through variable snow. I had a few unexpectedly sharp turns at speed.

05/06 188cm Salomon Gun Lab with s914 fis 20 mounted on the mark
These were left in the rack for the majority of the week. In comparison to the Pocket rockets, i have to say i prefer the pocket rockets ..... I don't think salomon have progressed much on the Gun Labs. They need a much bigger radius to be properly useful at high speed. I'm debating letting them go.


01/02 188cm Nordica Beast 92 TT with 997 6-14 mounted on the mark
Still the old fav's and came out for some good honest mountain bashing and came up trumps again in even flex and ability to deal with the crud. The gotamas are giving them a run for their money though.



Overall, Gotamas stock is rising fast, Pocket rockets make a high new entry, Gun labs are dropping fast but the beasts stay steady near the top.

I have skied on 3 out of the 4 skis you reviewed. My feelings were somewhat different.

183 Gotama - I only skied a few runs on these. They did feel very easy to ski on. Relatively soft for a Volkl. I would like to try these again, perhaps in a 190.

185 Pocket Rocket - I used to own some blue noodles. Very light and easy to turn. Though they did feel a bit jittery at speed and lacked edge hold on hard snow. I did find that they felt better when I moved them back about the same amount (1.5cm) from the suggested mounting point.

188 Gun Lab - I found this ski to be a big improvement over the Pocket Rocket. It has the edge hold and stability that the Pocket Rocket lacked. I also prefer the added width. Although I only demoed it for a couple of hours, it excelled in all conditions and it felt better the more I skied it. I really didn't want to bring these back.

JMHO