How We Test Skis

We don’t just put more than a hundred pairs of skis at our testers’ disposal and let chaos reign. Participants are divided into groups, which Michał Szypliński, director of the Independent Ski Test, names after wild animals. So we have pumas, snakes, wild boars, lions and so on.

We use four sets of criteria, matched to what the skis are designed to do. Giant Masters, Giant Slalom, Cross-Turn and Slalom share one set, but we do not assess performance in gates for Cross-Turn. All-Round and Women’s Skis share a second set; All-Mountain has a third, and VIP a fourth. The variety of designs in VIP makes explaining each ski’s character especially important.

We try to test the models in each group in the same conditions and on the same sections of piste. For all-mountain skis, we also seek out more demanding conditions: piles of pushed-up snow, firn and moguls. For safety reasons, we do not encourage testers to leave groomed, marked pistes. After all, this is where most users of these skis will do most of their skiing.

The formal test programme runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., with each group working through set tasks on its assigned skis. After 2 p.m., we switch to what we call the “smorgasbord”: for the next two hours, anyone with enough strength left can ski whatever they like. If the weather turns against us, test director Michał Szypliński adjusts the programme to suit the conditions.

In theory, each participant can take as many runs on a pair as they need to assess it properly. In practice, we usually take two or three long runs. If doubts remain – or, for example, a tester thinks a ski wasn’t prepared correctly – it can always be retested, including during the “smorgasbord” session.

We repeatedly remind participants to assess every ski in their current category on the same pistes, carrying out the same manoeuvres over the same sections. There are always more pairs in a category than there are skiers in the group testing it, so waiting for a particular model is very rarely necessary. Participants are strictly forbidden to help themselves to skis from other categories, under penalty of first a yellow card and then a red one. In the test’s history of more than a dozen years, we have twice had to ask participants to leave because they refused to follow the rules. There you have it!

Committed skiers, group leaders, ski-shop representatives, former racers and ski instructors. They are united by a shared passion for two planks and a desire to discover new products months before they reach the market in autumn.

Some participants have been joining us for more than a decade – ever since we began organising our own event. We started because we were dissatisfied with our ski-test collaborations with major magazines from Germany and Italy, whose results appeared in the early years of NTN Snow & More. Today, we regard the decision to create our own test as an excellent one, and we are convinced that our results are the most objective – and, we also believe, the best.

Over the years, we have earned the trust of the Polish ski industry, because company representatives know perfectly well that we do not fudge the results. In fact, many of them come to the Independent Ski Test as observers every year.

Not long ago, I had an interesting conversation with a ski instructor in Andermatt and several other friends. We considered a purely hypothetical question: which ski area would we choose if we had to ski in just one place for the rest of our skiing lives? To everyone’s surprise, I chose Kaunertal.

Why? Snow conditions in Kaunertal are usually phenomenal and, what is more, remain so well into May. The variety of pistes is enormous, ranging from gentle, wide slopes to the Ibex – the steepest piste in Austria. Several slopes are deliberately prepared exceptionally firm for athletes training slalom, while the off-piste possibilities are simply outrageous.

Kaunertal is also rarely – very rarely – crowded. One reason is the demanding drive to the glacier along a road that featured in one of the James Bond films. I personally hope that the road is never substantially upgraded, because it does an excellent job of deterring casual visitors.

Finally, beside the upper glacier car park, we have a wooden hut at our disposal. This is where the skis are exchanged, and the service technicians do not have to work outside in freezing temperatures or blazing sunshine. All of this makes the glacier ski area almost ideal for the needs of the Independent Ski Test – and for mine. Add the extraordinarily friendly and helpful piste staff and resort management, and we have a fantastic home base that we have no intention of changing. What is more, Kaunertal itself is beginning to take pride in hosting our test, which makes us genuinely proud as well.

Each brand can send its own technician or leave the work to the Super Serwis team from Warsaw – at 1 Potocka Street, should you need the address. The vast majority choose the latter.

Every year, the Super Serwis crew adjusts bindings throughout the test. At the end of each day, they touch up the edges by hand, wax the skis and prepare them for the next day. Occasionally, more serious damage – to a binding, for example – calls for some improvisation.