Preview: 2023 Peak 88 and 98

[James]

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[Tom K.]

I am still trying to figure out what the keyhole technology feature is really doing to the ski.

It's a bit of a marketing hook, IMO.

The skis will live or die based on so many other things.

But a hole is easy to point at!

 

[ScottB]

An example of a "hole in the water you throw money into" Kind of like skis.

 

[Tony S]

An example of a "hole in the water you throw money into" Kind of like skis.
View attachment 167553

That is not at all like skis. I have a rough sense for how much boats cost to buy and own. Not even close.

 

[James]

Skis don’t sink in a storm. Though they can fall off the roof rack.

 

[ski otter 2]

Bode gave explanations/demonstrations, and maybe like you, I found it didn't sink in, at first.

I had to listen to it three times and sleep on it a few times, to keep it from being just gobbledygook, I guess.

Yeah, I can hypothetically sort it out, maybe, but won't know much until I ski it, to see if it does what Bode says it does, on various skis slightly differently.

 

[cantunamunch]

Bode gave explanations/demonstrations, and maybe like you, I found it didn't sink in, at first.

I had to listen to it three times and sleep on it a few times, to keep it from being just gobbledygook, I guess.

Yeah, I can hypothetically sort it out, maybe, but won't know much until I ski it, to see if it does what Bode says it does, on various skis slightly differently.

I kind of have the opposite problem to @ScottB - I have been on skis with soft spots in front of the bindings and absolutely HATED them

 

[ski otter 2]

I kind of have the opposite problem to @ScottB - I have been on skis with soft spots in front of the bindings and absolutely HATED them

The Faction Candides 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0 are soft in the middle (and just in front of the boots), stiff at tip and tail, and that is part of an odd combination that takes getting used to for non-big air freestylers - but it mostly works in a fun way eventually, especially if you ski like Candide, I guess.

So maybe the sum of the parts in this case will be fine also - again, dunno.

 

[ScottB]

But a hole is easy to point at!

I read this and thought, I know another "hole" that comes to mind. I tried to point at the picture of my boat graphically in the post, but couldn't get it to work. Yeah, boats are different, I only have one of those.

Bode gave explanations/demonstrations, and maybe like you, I found it didn't sink in, at first.

I had to listen to it three times and sleep on it a few times, to keep it from being just gobbledygook, I guess.

Yeah, I can hypothetically sort it out, maybe, but won't know much until I ski it, to see if it does what Bode says it does, on various skis slightly differently.

I have listened to Bode twice, and got more out the second listen. Please @ski otter 2 translate "Bodi speak" if you would. Honestly, I am interested in your interpretation. One other comment, the Faction skis don't have any inflection points, quite the opposite. They are softer in the middle, but very torsionally stiff tip to tail.

@cantunamunch, I am surprised you say you have the opposite problem as me, maybe you mean you understand "Bodi speak" and know how the hole effects the skis performance. I was saying I expect to hate the Peak skis, based on how I think the hole will effect them. I was being open minded and allowing for what I think the hole will do, is not necessarily correct. Skis are complicated. What did you hate about your skis with soft spots in front of the bindings?

 

[cantunamunch]

Skis are complicated. What did you hate about your skis with soft spots in front of the bindings?

Maybe not as opposite as all that, then.

Whenever I tried to put strong diagonal pressure on them, they would fold up longitudinally. I could get away with it on true hardpack but they made hero snow miserable. Back seat on soft snow to get any glide whatsoever. Bah.

So, yes, maybe understand "Bodi speak" or at least think I do, and I confess I want to like the ski in spite of having a pre-existing mental image (of a specific talking point). So some opposite after all?

 

[David Chaus]

Maybe they'll start using flipcores as well, to give that "something extra."

I'm of the opinion that the skis may indeed be excellent performing skis, however not necessarily due to "keyhole" technology, or anything particularly revolutionary, but rather due to overall quality of construction and materials.

 

[James]

Maybe they'll start using flipcores as well,

Another example of ridiculous marketing and over speak. A “revolutionary” construction? Hardly. It’s a pre-shaped core. Big wup.
Volkl had very sophisticated pre-shaped cores displayed on shop walls in the 90’s. And they had hundreds of tiny holes drilled in the wood for the resins to penetrate.

 

[GregK]

Faction Candide skis are still stiffer underfoot than their tips/tails, it’s just that underfoot peak is not as pronounced as most skis. The flex stays more uniform throughout the ski.
The Head Monsters were similar to the CT line and ramp up slower in flex from their already firm tips/tails. The difference was that some Monsters flatline in flex underfoot or sometimes even get softer and their torsional rigidity was much softer than the 21 CT.

Most skis are softer at their extreme ends and then ramp up fairly quickly towards the Center of the ski. Increasing Core/sidewall height, changing wood core type or adding carbon/fibreglass and metal underfoot can effect that stiffness.
The Candide core and sidewall heights seem to stay more even throughout the ski, so even when the underfoot sheets of metal end in front/behind the bindings, you aren’t seeing a drastic drop in flex like most skis.

Here’s a typical ski flex pattern(Liberty with a metal strut in the core) vs the 21 Candide CT 2.0.
The Liberty ski is showing the more typical drop off in flex in front and behind the Center of the ski.

So I don’t doubt the Peak will be decent skis, it’s just that I’m not a fan of the marketing. Gotta have “a hook” I guess?

Kinda reminds me of when I was shopping with a friend for cars YEARS ago and the salesperson said that the car “had a 12V battery for easier starting”.

 

[ski otter 2]

... I have listened to Bode twice, and got more out the second listen. Please @ski otter 2 translate "Bodi speak" if you would. Honestly, I am interested in your interpretation.

In the Peak videos, Bode tells the story of how he experienced that hole in terms of racing, both how it felt and timed results. It's experiential-driven, not theoretical, nor hype, seems like. And it was a long term, pent up experience/lesson, not something for marketing - his motivation, held on to.

He'd felt the skis do such and such, focus the forces up through his legs and body at speed, rather than be coming more from the tips and tails. Then he got the timed results over and over, then hung on to those skis, and both transferred that "hole" cutaway to his next brand, and passed on those skis to another racer who also got peak results from them.

For him, trying to figure out just why it worked was a secondary step, not something he dreamed up; just something he was trying to get a handle on, and replicate. Maybe.

So my guess is, from his story and if what he's saying works, that since the cutaway is only in one layer of the metal, there is both enough continuity of feel, transfer and immediacy throughout the ski, and an interruption of the vibration/amplification tip to tail, through the rest of the skis and back. And he's saying that what he discovered experientially about this unlikely cutaway hole was that it sort of harmonically focused or concentrated underfoot the forces he had to deal with racing, underfoot where he could best handle them with the greatest stability and ease. This configuration made it easier to quiet the ski, hold his edge through full carves both on the uphill and downhill side - and win.

Maybe the other metal layer(s), etc., including the core and sidewalls, handled the fore-aft and torsional stability/deflects, etc., while the cutaway layer was partly dampening/focusing and interrupting the feedback forces to concentrate them where he could best handle them: again, underfoot. As if part of the feeling/dynamic became somewhat like a pair of ice skates, he said.

Dunno. Sheesh.

Sorry. That's about the best I got, of his experience and sense, not mine so far - just maybe.

 

[Quandary]

I have bought plenty of skis having never skied them. You mount 'em up and ski 'em, if you don't like them you move on. It's a cost of doing business so to speak and really in the grand scheme of things it's not that much $. Personally I find the process of exploration and trying a brand I haven't skied before great fun. Its way more interesting than a another pair of Nordica's, Salomon's, Volk's, Rossi's etc. YAWN

 

[AngryAnalyst]

In the Peak videos, Bode tells the story of how he experienced that hole in terms of racing, both how it felt and timed results. It's experiential-driven, not theoretical, nor hype, seems like. And it was a long term, pent up experience/lesson, not something for marketing - his motivation, held on to.

He'd felt the skis do such and such, focus the forces up through his legs and body at speed, rather than be coming more from the tips and tails. Then he got the timed results over and over, then hung on to those skis, and both transferred that "hole" cutaway to his next brand, and passed on those skis to another racer who also got peak results from them.

For him, trying to figure out just why it worked was a secondary step, not something he dreamed up; just something he was trying to get a handle on, and replicate. Maybe.

So my guess is, from his story and if what he's saying works, that since the cutaway is only in one layer of the metal, there is both enough continuity of feel, transfer and immediacy throughout the ski, and an interruption of the vibration/amplification tip to tail, through the rest of the skis and back. And he's saying that what he discovered experientially about this unlikely cutaway hole was that it sort of harmonically focused or concentrated underfoot the forces he had to deal with racing, underfoot where he could best handle them with the greatest stability and ease. This configuration made it easier to quiet the ski, hold his edge through full carves both on the uphill and downhill side - and win.

To me, this post touches on the big difference between Peak's shaped titanal and K2/Volkl/other manufacturers I'm sure I forgot versions. I know the marketing for the current gen mantras and mindbenders emphasizes the performance benefits of incomplete titanal layers and they are good skis, so it does seem to work.

That said, I very strongly suspect the design process for the various shaped titanal layers started with a brief to reduce material costs in the service of expanding margins while maintaining price point. This isn't a bad thing in my view, but it's not the same as experimenting with weird custom modifications to ski flex to try and produce performance then looking at the impact that has on cost of materials after the fact.

Bode's story for how he invented keyhole tech, and the fact I have to assume they are really going to produce these by punching out a small oval from a full sheet (which will no doubt get re-processed), have me convinced Peak's approach is at least coming from a performance place first.

That said, I refuse to pre-order skis from Bode at this stage given that he also has a "revolutionary" idea for ski manufacturing and if you act now you can invest on the ground floor. I'm paraphrasing that slightly from his Blister interview and it may not be entirely fair, but I don't see how you can listen to it without thinking Bode is at least overly optimistic.

 

[Philpug]

It's a cost of doing business so to speak and really in the grand scheme of things it's not that much $.

There are many people who trip over dollars to try to save pennies.

 

[cantunamunch]

That said, I very strongly suspect the design process for the various shaped titanal layers started with a brief to reduce material costs in the service of expanding margins while maintaining price point. This isn't a bad thing in my view, but it's not the same as experimenting with weird custom modifications to ski flex to try and produce performance then looking at the impact that has on cost of materials after the fact.

I was sort of touching on this above - consider a world where price point is more sensitive to consumer expectations than it is to real performance (or measurable value) benchmarks. In that world, it is more budget oriented to have marketing tweak expectations than it is to run incremental progress R&D budgets. I actually think we live in this world, but let's be kind and say the jury's still out.

The only way to get past incremental progress in R&D is to have intuitive leaps - and for that you need someone with a top tier intuition for a landing zone for each intuitive leap. Lots of bright spark engineers have ideas of where they want to start - but few have intuition about where they might want to land.

Arguably, Bode has that kind of intuition. If nothing else his profile fits the hypothetical profile of someone who might.

My fundamental point is that the Greek play we are given, with Athena played by keyhole and Zeus played by Bode, fits both the marketing-drives-expectations-drive-pricepoint story and the inutitive R&D leap story.

That said, I refuse to pre-order skis from Bode at this stage given that he also has a "revolutionary" idea for ski manufacturing and if you act now you can invest on the ground floor. I'm paraphrasing that slightly from his Blister interview and it may not be entirely fair, but I don't see how you can listen to it without thinking Bode is at least overly optimistic.

The problem is - if he's any less optimistic and enthusiastic, people will read into that and immediately think that he's secretly not behind this project. More than they already do, that is

 

[cantunamunch]

There are many people who trip over dollars to try to save pennies.

Have you ever done a survey of brands / models that start out Meh but climb out of that during the course of one, two, three model runs tops to be category beaters?

The incremental progress R&D model absolutely requires these to exist unless we accept that most incremental progress R&D is just retread of work done by someone else.

 

[nnowak]

That said, I very strongly suspect the design process for the various shaped titanal layers started with a brief to reduce material costs in the service of expanding margins while maintaining price point. This isn't a bad thing in my view, but it's not the same as experimenting with weird custom modifications to ski flex to try and produce performance then looking at the impact that has on cost of materials after the fact.

Not likely. The M6 Mantra, for example, will start with the same size titanal blank as the similar Peak. The shaped titanal layers add more production steps and additional layer alignment requirements and almost certainly are not cost saving measures.