Scatch BC Review

Well, since I broke my Mantras I have skied 4 days on some demo Scatch BCs.
First of, my stats-
Height 5'11'' (not that it matters much)
Weight 175.

Ski- 185 Scratch BC mounted on the modern line
Location-Breck and Vail
Conditions-Powder, Crud, Groomers, Bumbs. (sorry no park)

All in all I like these skies. They feel really bomber and the bases and topsheets seem to be really tough. They are significantly more forgiving than my Mantras- they seem to dampen out vibrations better, even though Mantras don't chatter. It is hard to explain. I guess it is kinda like the difference between a luxury car suspension (scatch bc)and a sports car suspension (mantra).

So, how they perform in different conditions-

On groomers they perform extremely well. They hold edges and make really nice GS turns. Great performance.

I didn't like them in bumps. I think that this is mostly because of where they were mounted. The modern line is pretty far forward and yeilds quite a tail. I kept having issues with the tails kicking me around when I would transition from one turn to the next in bumps. Bottom line- long stiff tail=not good for bumps.

They performed reasonable well in crud and held lines pretty well. However, there were a few times where the tips were knocked off of the line because of random chunks of crud. Not a major issue. I would attribute this to the mounting location again. I feel that they would perform better in crud if they were mounted standard or even farther back.

Powder- I skied these in 6 inches of powder on friday. They did well, but I did have to leen back a little to keep the tips up in deeper snow. They would be much better if they were mounted back, yet again. Pretty nice float though, and I really wish I could have skied them on a different mount because I am confident that they would do extremely well.

The modern mount did yeild really good switch performance. Skiing switch was suprisingly easy and a lot of fun. However, Switch skiing/landing is the only reason I would justify mounting modern.

So, in conclusion. These skis are really good skis. I wouldn't call them great skis, but again, my opinion would probably be different if skied them on a different mount. MOUNT BACK IF YOU WANT TO USE THEM ALL MOUNTAIN! For the way i ski, I like Mantras better. For some reason they seem more precise and seem to offer better performance.