Skier: Joel Taillefer

Height: 5’9

Weight: 165 lbs

Ski: Line Bacon 108 23-24 in 178

Mount Point: -2.5cm

Bindings: Salomon STH2 13

Conditions Skied: Slushy park, hardpack, soft groomed park

You might be feeling some deja-vu as Twig has already written a Roofbox Review of these skis, but because he did not get to spend a lot of time on these in the park, I’ve decided to give them a second look. It’s been an open secret for a long time that the Bacons are a great park ski, but it’s only with this year’s model that Line has been marketing their park performance, and the upgrades to the ski’s construction with the same Thin Tip, and Fatty Base and Edge as the Chronic line promise to increase their longevity. I’m someone who likes a fatter ski in the park, so I thought that I’d put these to the test as a dedicated park tool. Twig has already written a great deal about this ski’s construction, powder and groomer performance in his review, so I’m going to get right into their park performance.

View Twig's review here: https://www.newschoolers.com/news/read/In-Depth-Review-2023-Line-Bacon-108-Roofbox

Stealing Twig's rocker photos here, because I'm pretty sure my pair aren't any different

Thoughts before skiing:

My experience skiing powder skis in the park before has been that while they can be a lot of fun to press and swerve around on, they make anything over a 540 and any switch up combos into a chore. Before skiing these, I wasn’t expecting them to be a whole lot different. These are chunky skis between their 2200g weight and 140mm tips and tails, and I expected them to be fun, if somewhat awkward in the park. I mostly focus on tech rail tricks in the park, so I was unsure that me and the Bacons would be a good match. Luckily my first day on these at COP proved my assumptions to be completely wrong.

Looking at the skis, my first impression of their quality was good. The topsheet is textured, the sidewalls are very thick and vertical, and the edges are visibly fat. Hand flexing them, these things are soft throughout the entire ski, and even softer in the tips and tails. On an arbitrary stiffness rating, I’d give them about a 4.5.

Jumps:

My first week of skiing was during a warm spell in early March, and COP was in full meltdown conditions. These skis felt very quick and energetic edge-to-edge for such a fat ski, and their heavily rockered tips and tails kept them from getting caught up on any slushy, chunked-up landings. These were great fun to ski between features, and on the few groomer runs I took before getting into the park. I threw a few 540s, 720s, and rodeo 5s on COPs modestly sized jump line and was surprised to find that these felt very light and manageable in the air. Subjectively, I found these to be no harder to spin than my ARV 96s and easier than my Edollos. These skis are not light by any means, but the swingweight reducing Thin Tip seems to work very well. And despite their powder ski rocker lines and soft flex, they were more than stable enough to stick the landings, even on some heavy switch landings 15 ft past the knuckle. I think that this is due to their thick vertical sidewall underfoot in combination with their wider profile. In addition, I enjoyed how smooth their soft flex felt on landings, and they offered enough support that I could land a little tail or tip heavy without washing out or going over the handlebars. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to any jumps over 30ft at the moment, but my guess is that these would hold up well on larger park jumps as long as the landings were soft. I think that people out there learning doubles and hitting huge jumps would likely want a different ski, but for most park skiers these will do great on jumps.

I suck at butters, but these skis have some seriously rockered and soft tips and tails, and I found them to be remarkably easy to flex. They popped nicely out of butters as well, and I was able to get way up on my tips on some butter 3s and 5s off of the knuckles and rollers around the park. If these skis make me feel like I can butter, I can only imagine what someone with better buttering skills could do on them.

I even took these into the pipe. COP is one of the few resorts out there that maintains a 22ft super pipe, and I don’t spend a lot of time in there, but I was able to get some nice mute grabs and 5s (no more than about 3ft out of the pipe mind you) on these and they held up just fine. Slashes and tail butters on the top of the wall were a lot of fun on these as well, but as expected they felt pretty squirrely on the icy patches in the pipe. I don’t think anyone reading this plans to buy Bacons as a pipe ski, but they were great fun to take on some not-so-serious pipe runs.

Rails:

I like to do a lot of more technical rail tricks such as double swap combos and spins in and out, and l expected those tricks to take a lot more work on the Bacons than they might on a dedicated park ski. Fortunately, that was not the case. I was able to land all of my old tricks (and some new ones) on COPs various rails, including a number of double switch up combos on the famous Lube Tube. In addition, these skis felt great on surface swaps. They do have some camber, but soft flex underfoot and generous rocker made these skis feel very loose, and the light swing weight made quick swaps possible. Spins off of rails posed no issue either. COP has a sorry excuse for an up rail installed right now, and I was able to spin 450s out of it on these no problem.

These are about 10mm wider underfoot than the 95-100mm park skis I usually use, and they did feel somewhat harder to scissor and engage switch ups on than my usual skis, but not to the point that it stopped me from being able to do any tricks. In short, these skis performed very well on rails, to the point that I think they would be a good choice even for people that primarily ski rails.

This is largely irrelevant to their actual performance, but I find that fat skis make sliding rails feel better. Anyone that has slid a double kink on 125 underfoot skis will know what I mean. There is something very satisfying about the way that a fat ski feels underfoot on rails, and these delivered that feeling in spades.

https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/1090304/bacon-blips-mp4

Hard Snow:

As expected for a ski this wide and with this much rocker, these skis did feel pretty sketchy on hard, icy snow. I took them out one night at COP after a drastic temperature drop, and while I could still handle them, there were moments where I wished I had a narrower ski. I think that EC and Midwest skiers might not enjoy this ski as much as I did unless they saved them for days with good snow conditions. This isn’t an issue with this ski in particular, but with any wide and heavily rockered ski.

Durability:

So far, I have 10 full days on these in the park and have been happy with their durability. These have a textured topsheet with a tiny bit of cap (or bevel?) above the sidewalls and whenever I get a topsheet chip it tends to only peel a thin layer of plastic off of the top leaving the graphic intact. As of now, the topsheets are holding up much better than most skis I’ve used before. So far, I have one minor edge crack underfoot on my lead ski. Typically, I would have more than that on each ski by now, so I have high hopes that these will last a while in the park. I got a park detune from the shop, and gave them a second good detune underfoot with a gummy stone before riding them which likely helped them to hold up, and I recommend that you do the same. I will update this review after my season ends and if anything changes, but for now it seems like Line’s updated park ski construction is very solid.

Comparisons:

Armada Edollo, 180

The Edollo is at this point a classic park ski, and one that is quite similar to the Bacon in several ways. Both excel at buttering and have wider platforms than normal, with the Bacon being a further 10mm wider underfoot. The Edollo is slightly stiffer underfoot and through the tail, and with no tail rocker it is a more solid ski on landings, although the Bacon was plenty stable for my purposes. The Edollo clearly holds up to Big Air jumps and whatever doubles Henrik is doing these days, and I wouldn’t expect the Bacon to be ideal for those uses, but that will only matter to a select few park skiers. Surprisingly, I felt that the Edollo took more work to ski on rails than the Bacon. The Bacons are 10mm wider in the tips than the Edollos, but their swingweight felt noticeably lighter and as a result they were snappier and easier to swap and spin on. Both are an excellent choice for more playful park skiers, with the Edollos being better for those who love big jumps and the Bacon being better for more rail focused skiers. The Bacons were also much more fun to ski on groomers, being quick to engage turns with and feeling more energetic in general. And if you plan to ski all mountain, the Bacon is a better choice, no contest.

Conclusion:

The Bacon surprised me by proving a very capable and fun park ski. They were stable on jumps while being easy to flex and butter, and simultaneously quick and loose on rails. I had a lot of fun on these and ended up preferring them to my (very solid but uninspiring) ARV 96s. To make a comparison that few on this site will understand, riding these felt like switching from a traditional plastic rollerblade to a flexible softboot like Remz or an old K2. They might not technically perform better, but they make everything in the park feel more fun, and open your eyes to new tricks and ways to approach features. I think that these would make a great choice as a dedicated park ski for anyone living out west who prefers a wider platform, and as a 50-50 park / all-mountain ski, these are one of the best options from a big brand.