I am not lucky enough to have skied both. I will pick up the new BG at some point this year. I tried out all of the Jeffrey's in their different waist-widths last year (102/110/118) and came to the conclusion that I prefer more directional skis. Planning on buying the 186 length and not the 191, though.
I think the two year model turnover is tough. It would be cool if we could get a table/chart of how each model's ride characteristics have changed since the last model update for a point of reference. This would help us decide whether or not we want to pick up whatever iteration we are on.
Right now we get some explanatory text that looks like (pulled from the BG product page on the website):
From this I'm gathering/guessing
- Improved groomer performance might be staying due to flatter tails?
- Lowered camber might mean a more pivoty right overall, a bit less performance on the groomers perhaps? Maybe a bit more fun in off-piste terrain due any increase in pivoty-ness.
- Pushing RES farther into the tips means more contact area in the front of the ski, I think (more float, higher swing-weight?). Not 100% familiar with how messing with RES affects how skis ride.
Would be nice if somewhere we could summarize where/how the ski will perform better/worse than last year's iteration. Ideally, a ski gets better everywhere after going through an iteration, but realistically there are always trade-offs being made.