Accoutrement: K2 Sidekick Backcountry Ski

January 19th, 2013 • BY Kelly Bastone

If you prefer untamed snow over buffed groomers, here’s your daily driver: The K2 SideKick ($880) floats effortlessly through powder, zippers through tight trees and chutes, and delivers enough edge hold to feel steady on the corduroy. It’s the ideal “quiver of one” for any gal who’s dedicated to hiking the sidecountry and laying down first tracks. In fact, the only way to unleash more fun in fresh snow is to hire a helicopter.

Built for backcountry conditions, the women’s-specific SideKick pairs a rockered tip (30 percent of the ski’s overall length) with a cambered midsection and flat tail capable of biting into the hardpack. It’s fat—108 mm underfoot—so obviously it excels in the flotation department. But it’s also supremely maneuverable, thanks to an aspen wood core that gives way to lighter, softer paulownia at the tip and tail. That construction reduces the skis swing weight and allowed us to toss it at will around trees and bumps. The SideKick feels like a sports car, not a barge.

That agility makes it a giggle-good time in tight glades that demand precision steering. Want to avoid a downed aspen? Dart into an untracked line? Scrub speed before plunging over a cliff? These boards turn effortlessly and get it done.

The SideKick is also an easy rider on powder days, when it cruises so high in the snow that it actually postpones fatigue: Skiing it seems to require a lot less energy than muscling through the drifts on skinnier boards. Its fantastic flotation is due in part to the design of the tip, which puts the widest point (139 mm) farther back on the ski to help it surf atop the pow. Squeeze the throttle on open powderfields, and the SideKick feels like a rocket. Its responsiveness and stability proved confidence-inspiring at faster speeds.

Because it’s lighter than many skis this fat, the SideKick is the ideal tool for forays beyond resort boundaries. As long as you don’t overload it with an anvil-heavy binding, it won’t slow you down when hiking or side-stepping to distant glades and bowls.

There is a tradeoff to the light weight. The SideKick gets kicked around on lumpy, refrozen crud. Sure, it can handle rough seas, so long as the captain stays balanced and in control, but there’s no metal inside this ski to help it blast through tough conditions. Instead, bamboo stringers and a layer of braided fiberglass provide stability without extra ounces. It’s a great formula for all conditions except uncooperative, lumped-up snow.

And on groomers, the soft, rockered tip sure does flap about, but that hardly seems to compromise the ride. Even on crusty, snowgun-made groomers as hard as asphalt, the SideKick got a grip.

Bottom line? This is one of the funnest skis we’ve found for off-piste locales.

 

 

 

Kamagra oral jelly Online something to buy the most convenient way. He doesn’t demand from you any actions except how to visit the website. And in separate with goods necessary to you to put the end. To specify your address and to wait for the supplier to whom you will give money.