The problem with the Freeskier buyer's guide

forfun

forfun

Active member
The people who do these tests seem to be obsessed with skiing every ski everwhere except the park, and i see Freeskier as the park skiers magazine, maybe im wrong. For example, the Pontoon is given a 9 rating and they rave about its powder abilities but say you cant ski it anywhere else. Then when they review the K2 Silencer they give it a 5 because it is "skittish" outside the park. They are so fuckin biased towards powder skiing it kills me. The fatypus too is given one of the highest ratings and i guarentee those wont perform in the park. half the pictures in your magazine are of the terrain park but you dont give fair ratings to your park skis because your testers are a bunch of old guys
 
The Pontoon got a 9 for powder and a 3 for everywhere else. Freeskier is warning park skiers to avoid the Pontoon. As for the Silencer, Freeskier says that although K2 claims that it is an "all-mountain park and pipe ski", it can't handle much of anything outside the park. The Pontoon (130 mm waist) is a specialty powder ski, and it excels in that aspect. The Silencer is n all-mountain/park jibbing ski, but it does so poorly. That's why Freeskier gave it a 5.
 
that's why there is an explanation for every ski... i like the stoke factor, it makes it easier to skim and see what was really good, unlike powder, as they just say pretty nice things about every ski they review. definitely not helpful.
 
I totaly agree, i just got my copy the other day and it was a bittersweet feeling the whole time. I was super happy to have the new freeskier but at the same time the whole powder and bump commentary was dissapointing. Freeskier looks like a mag for young audiences but it is still definitly run by old guys.
 
and apparently anything under an 85 waist simply cannot ski well outside the park. for us on the east coast, skis like the TM, thruster, foil, chronic, or invader are our all mountain skis as well as park skis, because guess what, we dont get a foot of fresh snow every night. i wish they would have tested some of the skis on the east too, because an east coast all mountain ski is certainly not the same thing as a west coast all mountain ski.
 
you hit it on the head. That's what pissed me off, i hope there arent kids in the lower NE area or midatlantic that are going with 90++ width skis because freeskier tells them so.
 
well i give freeskeir magazine a 10 i think they put it together really well and for powder skiers and park rats i think the magazine is very well rounded, and you shouldnt care about those rating, because yes they do matter but before buying a ski you always want to double or triple check about them so you shouldnt make your discion of a ski because of what freeskier rated it
 
I also think that it's important to be aware of which companies are advertising with Storm Mountain Publishing. I can't think of any example specifically, but it doesn't seem impossible that a ski could get a rave review simply based on who is putting the most dollars into Freeskier's pockets. That's not to say that the editors are trashing all skis produced by companies that don't advertise with them, but it certainly couldn't hurt the review to have a nice full page spread in the magazine. Maybe their opinions are a little skewed by who is buttering their toast. I could be wrong, but it's certainly something to be aware of when looking at the buyer's guide with a critical eye.
 
if youre so upset, then just don't pay attention to it, and don't use it as a guide for what to buy. The Buyer's guide just gives info about the skis, and a basic breakdown of what they are for. You don't have to buy them because it says its a 10 or something, buy it for what suits YOU.
 
i think that freeskier needs a new graphic designer to revamp the magazine, because black and white is getting really old. theres not enough color in the magazine...look at transworld snowboarding or any of the snowboarding magazines, they are interesting and visually appealing. new fonts would also make the mag more interesting, cause right now it really doesnt get me excited.
 
your a retard, were not bashing powder, were just saying that the reviews arent doing shit for us, only for people who ski powder
 
if you actually read the mag, you'd see that they went to timberline in the summer to retest all of the park skis because they didn't test them enough at vail and they wanted a better test
 
Total bullshit.

Regarding the original topic: The only time they really mention the park is with park-specific skis and skis that excel in the park. There is an incredibly simple explantion for this. Though some are better than others, you don't need a great ski if all you're doing is riding park. When a ski's performance is called inot question, it's hardly ever how well it handles itslef in the park. All skis can slide rails (there's no way for them to test durability in a week), and only a few park skis really stand out. Everything else is about the same, wo why mention that a certain ski rides like 90% of all the other skis out there. You don't. You mention what's unique about a ski.
 
im gonna have to disagree. park skis vary so much if you know what your doing on them. rails do make a difference, especially mounting and weights of the skis. carving on jumps widely varies between skis. another thing is stability when it comes to park. i can ride a ski and have it not support me on landings. flex matters so much wihtin the park. another thing is halfpipe skiing. the flex and sidecut of a ski is way more important in halfpipe than in any type of newschool skiing. hitting transitions, carving angles, edges, pop all thhose things matter along with much more in the pipe. you can tell how well a ski rides in the pipe. and yes you can test durability on a ski in a week. give me a ski for ONE DAY of urban and ill tell you if its durable. if i have a ski in the park and im going as hard as i can on it, i can def test durability. im gauranteeing that i can break a ski in a week if i ski to my full potential on it whether the edges fall out, the core snaps, bindings rip out, skis turn into noodles, or the topsheet rips from the core
 
FUCK YEAH!

nobody ever looks at this... freeskier is the biggest ad whore magazine in the world. everyting in there is an ad.

they are the DEFINITION of corporate whores... dont believe anything you read in the mag. you think those reviews are real? like they'd talk badly on a company giving them 8 thousand dollars per page

 
look at what ads are right near where the review is... and how positive they are... look for something you know is shit, but paid for an ad... read between the lines its there!

 
are you dumb, of course ads have something to do with the review the company is getting, and yes you deffanatly can have differences in park, you can tell if it has the pop, if its to soft in the tail or nose for landings and you can tell in about a day if its gunna be durable or not, so yeah they could have done a much more extencive park ski test but they didn't
 
that's why there are 235 armada ads and only one of the armada skis was selected for the "editor's pick". you're incompetent. freeskier went out and skied a bunch of skis over ten days and each person gave their 2 cents about what skis they thought were the best and what skis they thought were the worst. any sort of test like this is inherently bias and, therefore, flawed. there's no way to make a "perfect" ski test. in my opinion, freeskier did a pretty damn good job. like someone said earlier in this thread, when they felt that park ski testing was being neglected, they rounded up a summer trip to timberline to give the park skis a fair test.

also, for all you east coasters bitching about how they tested the skis in vail and not holliday valley... what do you expect, for the magazine to duplicate this test in every region of the country? that would be very cost inefficient as well as plain stupid.

when the rubber meets the road, freeskier is just trying to guide people in the right direction when choosing skis for the next season. if you think that a ski test should decide what skis are perfect for you as an individual, you should probably go make sure you tied your shoes correctly, because you're probably retarded.
 
^ in no way am i suggesting that they do a test in every part of the country, but the test really doesnt do any justice to anyone who doesnt ski out west, honestly. for the to say a ski with a 78 waist should never be taken out of the park (the SPK) is complete bullshit, because here on the east, that ski would kill it as an all mountain ski because it would be way quicker edge to edge than the mantra, which they claim to be the perfect ski to have on the east coast.
 
If you realize (which you don't) that buyer's guides are influenced by the advertisers then you would know that ski tests, reviews, etc are completely biased and don't tell you anything for real. None of them do period. Wanna know what they are going to be like for you? Go demo them first.
 
As far as testing durability, If you skied one ski for a week you could test it. But you have to remember, they have 130 pairs to review.

I do admit that I overlooked the possibility of reviewing for pipe, but they can't write a page for each ski. They say things like quick or sluggish believing that the reader is smart enough to infer about the amount of pop a ski has. Could they say more, yes. They probably wanted to say more. The problem is that they don't have the resources to ship out a 500 page buyers' guide.
 
no one said they needed to test any skis in holiday valley, just dont print in your magazine that is a FUCKING INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE (that includes the east coast you shithead), that you cant ski anything under 85 for all mtn. and to sum it up, we ski ice all year and u guys ski pow all year, thats mainly why im pissed
 
not to mention freeskier or anyone who skis west coast doesnt know jack fucking shit about wat skis are good for east coast so dont even talk about it. and east coasters... dont use freeskiers buying guide, its not a bad guide its just not ment for us.
 
yea i agree with you and ive noticed that in last year's freeskier buyers guide, they should give it two seperate ratings, one for east coast and west coast, because we obviously dont get as much fresh powder as they do out west and we usually have to ski crap
 
Think about it.

All buyers guides / ski reviews are full of shit. They always have been and they always will be.

Lets face it the ONLY reason that magazines do a buyer's guide issue is to give there advertisers / hopefull advertisers an editorial blow job so they will buy more ads.

Only you can decide what the right ski si for you. Only you know how you ski, and what you like.
 
Very true, but you have to consider that you probably have only paid $12 for 5 years of subscriptions and the reason they are so cheap is because of the advertising. I don't put too much faith in a buyers guide for the the reasons you stated, but I do enjoy getting magazines for free
 
WOW.... Hopefully.... consideration will given to us ice coasters someday. BTW - for what it is worth, what I bought last season for a "western ski" is now, surprisingly, my every day, every where ski. (83mm under foot)
 
^ i've skied 85 mm underfoot for the last two years, full seasons in the East with the exception of two weeks in Tahoe and one in Whistler. Where, of course, I developed a skinny ski complex.
 
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