Dimensions: 135-76-114@170cm
Radius: 13.7m@170cm
Size tested: 170
Design: Carryover
Last season, with about 40 ski days under my belt, the Pugski crowd helped me decide on a nice set of skis for my skill set and the conditions I typically ski: a pair of 179 Dynastar Powertrack 89s (I will refer to these as the PTs). Those are damp, confidence-inspiring, and very forgiving and playful given their five-point design. The first thing I noticed was how much more confident I felt on these skis. This in turn allowed me to start exploring a lot more of the mountain, including soft bumps and mild bowls, and to improve my skiing a bit, with proper instruction.
Fast forward to this season. With about 65 to 70 ski days under my belt, I want to focus on my technical skills. While good skiers can definitely make beautiful carved turns on the PTs, they are an all-mountain ski not really designed for carving. So I asked the Pugski experts again for advice and decided on the Head Rally at 170 cm. In a nutshell, the idea is that the Rally is a performance ski that can handle variable snow as I tend to encounter, and more important, it is not supposed to be as unforgiving as an FIS slalom or GS ski.
Two things come to mind with the Rally: speed and versatility. After having them tuned up at the default 1°/2° angles, I took them for a week of skiing at Mt Rose. In my six days at Rose, most of the time the snow was firm. There were some nicer, chalky patches, but there were also icy areas here and there. My first impression was, "Wow, these are fast." Putting them on edge is much easier for me than the Dynastar PTs, and they use an energy release system (KERS) that may or may not be a reason for the speed. Honestly, I couldn't tell. But I quickly got a wake-up call. On my second run on these skis, I got a little too fast on an empty and narrow cat track, hit ice on a sharp turn, and crashed. On a cat track!
Actually, the biggest adjustment I had to make as I started using the Rally was skiing flats, including cat tracks. Always use some pressure on corresponding edges, because if you try to run them flat, these skis will engage an edge easily. On steeper terrain, they will go supersonic. So, wherever you are, just turn constantly. Also, stay balanced at the center. Doing this will allow you to back-seat a bit, but a lot less than on the PTs, in my experience. If you simply let yourself go to the back seat, they'll hand your butt to you.
But then it snowed ... and that was my biggest surprise. It was an overnight drop of a few inches on top of mostly hard snow and, in some areas, ice. The runs were groomed before the snowfall. I had expected to go to the car and pick up the wider Dynastars in those conditions, but to my surprise, I felt a lot of confidence on the Heads. For one thing, if you can set an edge (which is easy on these skis), going through the variable chunky snow is a pleasure: you simply cut through it. Also, in soft, small bumps, these were ton of fun. They are light but firm, and easy to pivot, so you can rotate over a bump and then set a solid edge and make a carved turn. Those were the conditions where I liked them the most.
I plan to continue building this review as a long-term report. So far, they have more than lived up to my (high) expectations. I find that the skis encourage but don't absolutely require good technical skiing. I am turning more and edging a little better. One reason, I believe, is the much narrower waist than my PTs, 76 vs 89 mm, not to mention the racing pedigree of Head. In addition, the aggressive sidecut with wide shovels and tails, the lighter (Graphene) construction, and the slight but noticeable taper up front helps make them fun and versatile. They also have decent flotation considering the thin waist. The shovels bite into the snow and engage the ski, even at low edging angles, and the tails support the turns throughout. (If anything, I tend to park and ride, something on my list of things to improve.)
Of course, these didn't magically turn me into a good skier. But they seem like a great tool for me to improve, and I already see some modest progress, which isn't bad for a few days on the slopes with them. More important, I have a lot of fun skiing them, which is what skiing is all about, at least for me. So I couldn't be happier with the purchase.
- Who is it for? Advanced and expert skiers who want a carver with all-mountain chops; intermediates who want to improve their technical skills with a decently forgiving ski.
- Who is it not for? Folks who expect to cruise. This is a sports car, not a sedan. Also, I wouldn't recommend this ski for advanced beginners or lower intermediates.
- Insider tip: For a one-ski quiver in areas with deeper snow, also consider the Titan (our testers particularly liked this iteration of the Titan).
I do think it's a pretty lively ski, with pop (for my limited knowledge of skis). Definitely much more snow feeling than with my wider, heavier, damper Dynastar Powertrack @177.Here is the profie (from my 
