Big Mountain Powder Chargers - Heritage Lab C113 and FL113 - Dedicated Thread

[arild]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=7puMdcxeJNE&feature=share

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[Sylvan]

I like these even more than the 187s!

Attachment 449135

^ took my pair into that entrance today, good times. Also, really glad you prefer 194s, was starting to have unhealthy thoughts about adding a little brother.
I haven't been on all the OG chargers, but of the 15 or so skis I've been on in the last couple years, including most the modern chargers, this ski is the most plush at speed (at my 195#), AND doesn't have a discernible top end. Fucking magic.

[mr_pretzel]

Arild where is that?

Which one of you lucky guys is skiing FL113s at chatter creek? Saw a pair in the background on insta

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Took em to the Ghee today for storm skiing. Slowly getting the boots dialed to match these ripping boards. Got them into some billy goat stuff with only a bit of fresh where you could still feel the hard underneath. By afternoon it was going like 2+" per hour and density was dropping. By 3pm it was getting pretty deep and blower on top of cream. Holy shit so fun. We stayed another night hoping to get some more fresh. I still plan to move the mount forward a touch but man these skis continue to impress. Just so fucking fun and chargeable. Even if we get another 6-8" tonight I'll take these skis out tomorrow instead of the "big pow boards".

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[arild]

Arild where is that?

Which one of you lucky guys is skiing FL113s at chatter creek? Saw a pair in the background on insta

Severin; Mosjøen, local hill, 15 minutes from home. Not the most vert, but descents can be varied. Fun stuff.

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[Lord Thomas]

Took em to the Ghee today for storm skiing. Slowly getting the boots dialed to match these ripping boards. Got them into some billy goat stuff with only a bit of fresh where you could still feel the hard underneath. By afternoon it was going like 2+" per hour and density was dropping. By 3pm it was getting pretty deep and blower on top of cream. Holy shit so fun. We stayed another night hoping to get some more fresh. I still plan to move the mount forward a touch but man these skis continue to impress. Just so fucking fun and chargeable. Even if we get another 6-8" tonight I'll take these skis out tomorrow instead of the "big pow boards".

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That terrain looks fucking awesome!

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

That terrain looks fucking awesome!

The past two days were my first ever at Targhee. They have one cliffband zone that holds a lot of snow and has some fun pinner lines and drops from 5 feet up to like 80? 100?!

Today was really deep and the skis just fucking shined again. I really felt like I knew what I was doing out there. Slash, charge, tight trees, open, chop, knee to thigh deep, etc. Mountain killers. I boosted one cornice drop about 25+ feet and perfect landing platforms. Hyped.

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[SWskier]

I can't take it anymore! Preorder in for 194 FL113!

[Sylvan]

I can't take it anymore! Preorder in for 194s!

Sick. Glad to hear it. I may or may not have ordered 194 backups last night.

[SWskier]

Sick. Glad to hear it. I may or may not have ordered 194 backups last night.

Seeing your stoke for these and our similar gripes about Sender Squads put me over the edge. Chewski too.

I was recently lamenting with Zomblibulax about how us trad charger guys are getting left behind. Thanks for taking care of us Marshal!

[arild]

Sick. Glad to hear it. I may or may not have ordered 194 backups last night.

First thing I did when Marshal and I agreed on the design was ordering two. Same with the FL105 192. It's a disease!

support the raddest project going: http://heritagelabskis.com

[Marshal Olson]

Dammit these things bring the grins every time on them.

[chewski]

Seeing your stoke for these and our similar gripes about Sender Squads put me over the edge. Chewski too.

I was recently lamenting with Zomblibulax about how us trad charger guys are getting left behind. Thanks for taking care of us Marshal!

Well now that the sender squads i had for sale are gone i can openly say that the FL113 is notably more "plush/suspensiony/damp" or whatever the kids are calling it these days than sender squads. People know what those are about by now, but the freeride construction by heritage lab is a black hole for vibrations. The ski still has some pop to it but you don't feel SHIT when mobbing through crap snow

[arild]

Well now that the sender squads i had for sale are gone i can openly say that the FL113 is notably more "plush/suspensiony/damp" or whatever the kids are calling it these days than sender squads. People know what those are about by now, but the freeride construction by heritage lab is a black hole for vibrations. The ski still has some pop to it but you don't feel SHIT when mobbing through crap snow

Super glad you like them, chewski!

Comparing them to the rolls Royce of ski suspension or whatever blister is calling them says a lot about the construction!

support the raddest project going: http://heritagelabskis.com

[bry]

Sick. Glad to hear it. I may or may not have ordered 194 backups last night.

[emoji91][emoji91][emoji91]

Maybe someday the blister crew can test out and induct the FL113 into the hall of suspension.

[Marshal Olson]

Well now that the sender squads i had for sale are gone i can openly say that the FL113 is notably more "plush/suspensiony/damp" or whatever the kids are calling it these days than sender squads. People know what those are about by now, but the freeride construction by heritage lab is a black hole for vibrations. The ski still has some pop to it but you don't feel SHIT when mobbing through crap snow

how is the body healing up? Hope yer back on snow!

[chewski]

how is the body healing up? Hope yer back on snow!

Yeah i got out the next week and wore my dad's full ACL reconstruction brace as a precaution but had no issues. Tried to ski all this week but the California mayhem stopped everyone from getting up any mountain roads for over 6 days. Wanted to try the fr132's but will be definitely giving the FL113's some more action this weekend

[Whiteroom_Guardian]

Ok so got out on the 187s FLs again today with the mount moved up to -10 from -11.5. Ranged for 2-3 inches on some older snow up to 10" of blower on soft cold north facing base. Took a minute to adjust. I think the more forward mount may make them a bit of a more all arounder although I didn't really have any complaints before. Easier to swing through bumps with the mount this way, but still plenty of ski up front to really get over the front and charge. I love just pointing these fucking things into chop/hidden bump mine fields. Just fucking go for it and hang on. So sick.

I don't think there is a correct answer on mount point. Case by case, skier by skier basis. If you were only taking these on giant lines of untracked off a heli or something. Then -11.5 all day. A bit more manageable for skiing mixed bag at a resort? More forward seems appropriate, quicker to turn. That's just my $.02. Damn I just wanna go shred these things again right now. Again I have no desire to take out the big 124 underfoot full rockered volkls anymore. I just want to ski these no matter how deep.

[arild]

So, six days on the FL113 194s. Biased, yes. If only out of pride.

Height/weight: 177cm/92kg nekkid.
Mount: -11 (will discuss this a bit later), P18s.
Boots: Lupo Pro HDs and Nordica Dobermanns.
Location: Norway's navel and Sweden's armpit
Temps and conditions: +1 down to -24 Celsius, ice,crud,chop, pow.
Tune: factory edges, waxed with an even mixture of graphite and CH7. Scraped after a few heating cycles, still luke warm. Brushed with nylon, seven passes each. Fast as fudge, needs some top up before my next outing.

Chop: my favourite. It's what I mostly get when actually looking for powder at my local hill, and chop really is the condition where these skis excel. Damp and snappy, astonishingly forgiving when you fudge things, while crushing everything in your path. Slarving chop is a lot of fun. Best chop ski I've ever had under my feet.

Pow: wind affected, fresh, consolidated 3D; they work. Very well. Take all that works for chop and put it in there. 132s are probably less reliant on speed to make it fun, but all you need really is speed. They'll probably submarine on you until you pick that up but the tips are so stupidly dependable, you know they'll emerge very soon. No friction or drag from the tails at all, and that was pretty high on my parameter list.

Crud/ice: well, once you get them on edge, stupid fun going balls out and carve the heavy bastards. Some speed is needed, though. Honestly, looking forward to the R87 comps for these conditions.

What do I look forward to? More pow and chop, obviously. When we get consistent above freezing points,slush and corn will be pretty fun, too.

So, mount: I'm a pretty forward oriented driver, and with the Lupo Pros, which are very upright, -11 works extremely well, especially in fresh,dry pow. They do lack some feel and precision, and I've found that I like skiing the FL113s with the Dobermanns a lot more. If fresh pow was more of a common thing for me to ski, I'd move back to -12, but since that's not the case, I'm staying at -11.

Tune; being factory, the edge tune is really aggro, and I've found that I'm redoing the base edge to a more mellow -1.5 degree, keeping the side edge at 89 degrees. This to improve slarviness,at the same time not killing off any edge bite when you want it. Probably won't put any real effort in detuning tips and tails.

So, the FL113s are pretty much my dream skis. Fun,fast, damp, snappy and stable. Shape is solid, construction is immense.

I know many in this thread have more days on them than I, but wanted to share my thoughts.



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[chewski]

So i got out on these for about 4.5 more hours this last trip. My main goal was to ski the fr132 on a bluebird pow day yesterday, and that was a resounding success that i posted about in its own thread. As a refresher i am 6', 180lbs and skiing the 187 fl113 at -11cm.

The first three hours were at mammoth on saturday. This was the first time i was able to get up to our mountains after being stopped by road closures due to the 10' of snow we received over 5 days the previous week. It had been sunny for two days, the winds were unrelenting, and a new storm rolled in that day, causing me to boogie out of town and up to june lake right before the roads closed again. Truth be told, i was shocked how shitty the snow was after 10', tracked or not. It was just hard, uneven bump city. Add to that the low visibility of the new storm rolling in, and i was on the struggle bus skiing these. On the grabby styrofoam they were pretty hooky, and i had opened up the base bevel from 1 to 1.5* but did not detune tips/tails. They definitely needed it.

With the poor visibility i was getting bucked by pretty firm bumps and afraid to open up the speed down the fall line like these need to stand a chance. I was not having fun.

Today i got another 1.5 hours on these in deep chop and crud before packing up the family and hitting the road. Yesterday was a great pow and soft chop day on the fr132, and i knew there was a lot of chop left over that was going to settle into firmer crud and i really wanted to test these out in their proper element.



I gotta say these are slightly above my current ability level to ski well. Half the time i can put it all together and really get them to sing in conditions that would rattle most other skis. The other half of the time i am focused as hell trying to stay on top of these. With some skis i hate this feeling and sell the skis, but sometimes a ski really makes me want to learn it and improve on it. This ski is the latter for me still.

The skis i have used for the last 5-6 years in these conditions are 189 billygoats or 186 bodacious, and i know i could have skied more easily on those skis today. But when i really really focused on staying on my outside shin and flexing my ankle and staying in the FALL LINE they would start to sing and i want to be able to do that all the time. But with quite large, set up bumps underneath that foot of chop (the previous 10' of storms got tracked and set up a lot before the new storm rolled through), i would get bucked off center fairly often. Whenever my balance got thrown i would start skiing back and forth across the hill instead of staying in the FALL LINE. I keep capitalizing this because it dawned on me: they are literally named FALL LINE 113's and they need to be skied accordingly. Once i committed to that i had more success and each lap got better and better until i would inevitably hit another hidden bump and get bucked.

More practice is needed if it's firm or bumpy, but in the steep semi tracked pow and the softer chop they were awesome. Float seemed good and i definitely trusted them less than the fr132 the day before, but the tips would punch through piles and come up predictably. The one other time i really had to focus on balance was when transitioning from tracked out troughs to deeper piles, but it's definitely doable and requires more commitment and speed to smooth it out.

Honestly these have been a bit humbling but still fun. Bumpy runouts are still videogame easy. If i can clearly see the obstacles i can learn to stay on top of these better and have a blast. When visibility sucks or the surface below the pow/chop is firm but hidden, then i am gonna need some more leveling up. But i'm working on it. Glad i got these out some more

[Buster Highmen]

While I'm still pasha of Outer Slackistan for deferring mounting these sweet sticks, I finally got around to it.
In short, directional crud busters that carve and slarve.

The C113 at the Altar of Lot4

Review to follow.

[pfluffenmeister]

@chewski:

Keep me in mind if you decide to sell your FL113s.

[J. Barron DeJong]

So i got out on these for about 4.5 more hours this last trip. My main goal was to ski the fr132 on a bluebird pow day yesterday, and that was a resounding success that i posted about in its own thread. As a refresher i am 6', 180lbs and skiing the 187 fl113 at -11cm.

The first three hours were at mammoth on saturday. This was the first time i was able to get up to our mountains after being stopped by road closures due to the 10' of snow we received over 5 days the previous week. It had been sunny for two days, the winds were unrelenting, and a new storm rolled in that day, causing me to boogie out of town and up to june lake right before the roads closed again. Truth be told, i was shocked how shitty the snow was after 10', tracked or not. It was just hard, uneven bump city. Add to that the low visibility of the new storm rolling in, and i was on the struggle bus skiing these. On the grabby styrofoam they were pretty hooky, and i had opened up the base bevel from 1 to 1.5* but did not detune tips/tails. They definitely needed it.

With the poor visibility i was getting bucked by pretty firm bumps and afraid to open up the speed down the fall line like these need to stand a chance. I was not having fun.

Today i got another 1.5 hours on these in deep chop and crud before packing up the family and hitting the road. Yesterday was a great pow and soft chop day on the fr132, and i knew there was a lot of chop left over that was going to settle into firmer crud and i really wanted to test these out in their proper element.



I gotta say these are slightly above my current ability level to ski well. Half the time i can put it all together and really get them to sing in conditions that would rattle most other skis. The other half of the time i am focused as hell trying to stay on top of these. With some skis i hate this feeling and sell the skis, but sometimes a ski really makes me want to learn it and improve on it. This ski is the latter for me still.

The skis i have used for the last 5-6 years in these conditions are 189 billygoats or 186 bodacious, and i know i could have skied more easily on those skis today. But when i really really focused on staying on my outside shin and flexing my ankle and staying in the FALL LINE they would start to sing and i want to be able to do that all the time. But with quite large, set up bumps underneath that foot of chop (the previous 10' of storms got tracked and set up a lot before the new storm rolled through), i would get bucked off center fairly often. Whenever my balance got thrown i would start skiing back and forth across the hill instead of staying in the FALL LINE. I keep capitalizing this because it dawned on me: they are literally named FALL LINE 113's and they need to be skied accordingly. Once i committed to that i had more success and each lap got better and better until i would inevitably hit another hidden bump and get bucked.

More practice is needed if it's firm or bumpy, but in the steep semi tracked pow and the softer chop they were awesome. Float seemed good and i definitely trusted them less than the fr132 the day before, but the tips would punch through piles and come up predictably. The one other time i really had to focus on balance was when transitioning from tracked out troughs to deeper piles, but it's definitely doable and requires more commitment and speed to smooth it out.

Honestly these have been a bit humbling but still fun. Bumpy runouts are still videogame easy. If i can clearly see the obstacles i can learn to stay on top of these better and have a blast. When visibility sucks or the surface below the pow/chop is firm but hidden, then i am gonna need some more leveling up. But i'm working on it. Glad i got these out some more

Forgot to drink piss before heading out?

[chewski]

Forgot to drink piss before heading out?

A fatal mistake not to be repeated

[Buster Highmen]

While I'm still pasha of Outer Slackistan for deferring mounting these sweet sticks, I finally got around to it.
In short, directional crud busters that carve and slarve.

The C113 at the Altar of Lot4


Review to follow.

Me:
6'
180+
ex racer, 1973 freestyle champion, turns a lot.
default skis: 200 cm 2007 DPS Lotus 120s.
boots: Roxa R3 130 TI 310 mm sole length.

Mounted -12 on a 194 cm instance of the C113.

The flex is mostly round with a little more bend in the forebody. The sidecut of 133-113-122 is a slight pintail, but not as much as I'm used to.
The graphics are catching and kind of hide the pintail. Love the Erlenmeyer.

The day was mostly groomers with an inch + of PNW cream, bombing around the lower Alpental area. I made a few trips up top and hooked up with he who shall not be named to mine some good pow out the high t.

These boaters ski much more directionally than my Lotuses. The forebody bites aggressively when pressed and the sidecut holds a nice rounded carve. I was able to load up the tails for that acceleration out of the turn I like a few times. I suspect I'll get a better feel for them after a few days. The overriding impression is a ski that likes to point it. At speed, ok, only 40mph or so, there's no tip flap. They like to lay arcs of Noah caliber.

One lap I made up top was going down a slope that had been skied right around freezing and them set up overnight. Not quite frozen chicken heads, but some rough chop. They skied very positively, directionally and securely, transferring more of the texture shock to my legs than my Lotuses, but plowing through the debris and not getting knocked around as much as the Lotuses do.

Now, I'm a slarver, conditioned by years of riding the 120s despite years in USSA lowering FIS points. The thing I liked about the C113 is the ability to slarve the ski like a big fatty while it still has the feel of a more directional piste ski. A nice balance.

It's a lively ski but the forebody has the burl to punch. I don't really like the term playful and I'm not sure it's really what one would call a charger either since it has excellent snap out of the turn. It is for certain a much, much better groomer/pack ski than the Lotuses.

I did get to ski a couple of runs in deep, soft, PNW pow and they surf well. The pintail does allow the ski to be levered down from the heel to slow down and check speed before the rollovers. I didn't handle them so well in some tight finger chutes, augered one and took the crash of the season.

In short, these are a much better pack slope ski than my Lotuses and work well in the deep. They are just sweet on the directional front, a solid crud buster with deep snow finesse.