I’m on a quest to try a variety of skis and figure out if I want new ones. This quest is challenging, as few places rent tele gear. Fortunately, Watta Bike in South Lake Tahoe (run by tele skier Kent Wattanachinda, also an excellent bike mechanic) demos Bishop telemark skis.
Bishop’s special sauce is the “TELEM-ARC TECHNOLOGY” technology, which I assume we are supposed to yell because it is in all caps on their website. It is based around making sure the ski can bend correctly for a tele turn. A tele stance puts the weight at the ball of the foot instead of across the whole boot. As a result, the ski should be designed differently, they say. I rented the Chedi skis.
The skis themselves have an aesthetic blue mountain design with orange highlights. More importantly, they are inscribed with the words “We care that you tele,” which made me feel seen. I am 190 pounds, 6’1”, and I rented the 184cm skis. For those of you who like numbers, these skis have a 130mm tip, 100mm waist, 116mm tail, and a 23.1m turning radius, and they are a relatively heavy 3,630 grams.
It was an old snow day at Kirkwood, as we hadn’t had a storm in about three weeks. Some of the gullies had soft white stuff, and it was warm enough that some bumps and aspects were fun in the afternoon, but suffice to say, I have no idea how these skis would perform in powder.
My first impression is that I really liked turning on them. On the groomers, I felt like I could really carve and there was a snap to each turn. Is this the TELEM-ARC TECHNOLOGY? YES I THINK IT IS AND I LIKE IT.
That said, I had my friends video me and look at my stance. We soon discovered that I basically don’t know how to ski groomers, as I kind of do a hockey stop/slide at the start each turn. You can see that in this video — I’m the first one (with my wife providing commentary on how much she cares that we tele). I think this has to do with how I learned to ski, and also the fact that my go-to skis are Black Crows Camox, which are fantastic at quick turns, but not so great and carving (yes, I will write a review of these later for those of you hungry for more Tele Tahoe content).
With this advice from my friends, I worked on my turns through the morning, really loving these skis on the groomers.
This was also my first time on the BMF bindings. It’s hard to disentangle what is the effect of the bindings versus the skis. I’m in Scarpa Pro TX NTN boots, and usually ride an Outlaw-X or Meidjo binding. The BMF did feel smooth, but the biggest difference is just how easy it was to step in and out. So easy. If I were always skiing at resorts and weight was not an issue, this would be the best binding. It felt smooth to ski, but again, I can’t tell if that was just how much I liked the ski. A minus, though, is that it is harder to share this ski with friends who have NTN boots. Even with the NTN boot, the binding attachment loops behind the boot and holds onto the rear like the old duck bill bindings. As a result, you have to size it to your boot instead of sizing it to the duck butt under the boot, and I can’t just switch out skis on the slope with my friends who also have NTN (something I’ve found that is useful for for my quest — and something you might get to read about in another post).
My favorite run of the day was skiing off the Vista T-bar toward Chair 4 after hiking over some rocks. The sun had softened the snow, and it was one of those runs at Kirkwood where you almost feel you are in the backcountry because no one else was there.
We then skied Thunder Saddle off Chair 4, finding some light bumps first and then dropping a small cornice and into a narrow gully. In this situation, I missed my Camox skis. The Chedis were still fun on the bumps, but less smooth and also harder in the gullies. I don’t think this is fair, as my Camox are uniquely suited to those conditions, but I really noticed the difference and wanted the ski to be slightly easier to turn. I fell twice, maybe because I’m not actually that good at skiing, but I also don’t think I would have fallen on my Camox. It was still, though, really fun — here’s a video of my turns.
Talking with my friends, I think the Chedis turn less well because they don’t have as much of a rocker tail as the Camox, and they are also a bit heavier with a longer turning radius. Given all the chutes and bumps at Kirkwood, I think I prefer the Camox for most runs. However, it really wasn’t that much worse in the bumps than the Camox, and it was much, much more fun on the groomers.
The skis made me want to try Bishop’s Blitzen skis, which have a more rockered tail and a tighter turning radius. I think that might be a better sweet spot for me at Kirkwood.
IN SUMMARY, I REALLY LIKED THIS SKI. IT EXCELS AT THE GROOMERS AND I LIKE HOW “IT CHARGES DOWNHILL” IN WIDE OPEN STUFF, BUT IT IS NOT AS GOOD ON BUMPS AND NARROW GULLIES AS MY CAMOX. I WANT TO TRY OUT THE BLITZEN SKIS NEXT. ALSO, I SHOULD LEARN TO SKI BETTER. ALSO, SKIING IS REALLY FUN AND I WANT TO DO MORE OF IT.
