What Bode brings to the table for me (I'm not the typical skiing fan boy for any brand or celebrity), is credibility as a skier who knows how to ski and skis fast. If he tells me the ski works well, I will be more likely to trust him than to trust the myriad of reviewers who told me not to worry and that the then (circa 2019-2020) new Bones was still a good ski at high speeds despite it's short turn radius. It wasn't
, and still isn't, and anyone who says it is clearly hasn't skied it at high speed.
To play devil's advocate, as a tester [for several publications] but
not of that ski
you can make a case that I don't give a XXXX which skis ski well, none of them pay me. I've no dog in the fight. If someone buys Peak, Rossignol or a hand built ski from a garage in Pigsknuckle it doesn't put coffee in my cup*. If my name is on the ski... it does.
That's
not to suggest that Bode [or anyone else] would knowingly sell junk, but that when someone who works for Rossi, Atomic or anyone else says
buy this ski, it's the best ever there ought to be some healthy scepticism
.
I can still 'ski a bit', I train and examine on pretty high level courses but if you are looking for something that works at Bode speeds; skiing at recently retired world cup [or europa cup for that matter] athlete speeds you don't need to read my 'magazine' reviews [or probably anyone else's] , they're not relevant, they're not written through that lens.
*No there are not envelopes with cash in them, I wish. In some cases the reverse, we've bought product for real money to try because it looked interesting and for whatever reason couldn't get a loaner. The only 'interest' to declare might be that I am more likely to have a beer with 'rep A' than 'rep B'.