![]() ![]() Its combination of high flotation, great grip and zippy rebound is unusual and unusually welcome. This gives the Steadfast a sense of agility and water-bug rebound that works to the skier’s advantage in tight quarters like trees or moguls. Being less hefty helps the Steadfast feel quicker edge-to-edge than one expects a 90mm-waisted ski to be. In short, it behaves as if it included sheets of metal in its recipe when in fact its one of the lighter skis on the rack. Nordica pulls off this coup with a combination of fiberglass laminates and a baseline profile with just enough rocker in the forebody to soften the effect of its fairly stout longitudinal flex.Īs its name implies, the Steadfast won’t wimp out when conditions turn brick hard or the speedometer edges up into the red zone. Nordica demonstrates that there’s another way to achieve these iconic properties while limiting their use of metal to the mounting plate. There’s little doubt that our top 3 finishers in this sub-genre achieved their podium results for edge grip and stability at speed in part by using full layers of titanal above and below the core. It’s not built for motocross it’s made for the track, with a wider body that’s easier to stand on than the archetypical Carving ski. The relatively rigid Fire Arrow 84 Pro isn’t all that interested in switching to 4-wheel drive and plowing into piles of cut-up pow. Instructors are bound to love this ski because it cuts such a sweet carve, but that doesn’t make it the most suitable tool for their charges. ![]() The Pro is at its best when its pilot sets up a metronome beat, rolling edges side to side in symmetrical arcs.īalanced, damp and comfortable at speeds beyond the normal recreational range, the Pro is perfect for those early morning runs when even the broadest boulevards are traffic-free and you can let your motor run. Like it’s even burlier big brother, the 84 EDT, the Pro isn’t as interested in adapting to terrain as it is in conquering it. The more you know about how to carve a turn, the more you’ll appreciate the performance of Nordica’s Fire Arrow 84 Pro EVO. While other Frontside skis with this much girth have pretentions of traveling all over the hill, the Fire Arrow 84 Pro knows what it likes: hard snow and high speed. We’re pretty sure there’s a top speed limit where the Fire Arrow 84 EDT EVO will begin to become unglued from the snow, but we’ve never heard of anyone attaining it. They’ve earned a reputation for stability at speed and tranquility on bulletproof boilerplate, the primordial, men-from-boys qualities that define greatness in this genre. ![]() While the Carving category isn’t as popular as it once was, Nordica may sell out of their Fire Arrow models before the snow flies. Similarly to sister brand Blizzard, Nordica now has elite performers up and down their line. When Nordica does deploy metal, as in their extraordinary Helldorado, their performance moves to the head of the class. The technical foundation for this achievement isn’t so much their touted I-Core construction, which replaces one or two vertical wood laminates in the core with milled foam, but their sublime fiberglass sandwich structure that creates a glass ski with the torsional bite normally reserved for models with twin sheets of metal around the core. It’s no exaggeration to claim that they’re making the best lightweight All-Mountain skis today, for men and women. Now that it has a permanent home, it also has emerged as a major player. Nordica’s sustained importance as a boot brand allowed the ski line to survive a rocky adolescence. By the time Nordica was re-acquired by its original ownership for dimes on the dollar, the Kästle brand had been euthanized and replaced with the first Nordica skis. As Benetton managed to do with all their sport properties-they single-handedly destroyed the in-line skate market with their shred stewardship of Rollerblade-they drove Nordica and Kästle directly downward. It began when the self-important sweater-maker Benetton owned Nordica-an investment they would live to rue-and decided to acquire the venerable Austrian ski manufacturer Kästle. Prior to this happy development, Nordica skis had endured a checkered history. Nordica’s opportunities as a ski brand took a fundamental turn for the better when the Tecnica Group bought the Blizzard factory and shifted Nordica production over to their new, refurbished facility. ![]()
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