Yesterday, a buddy of mine and I took a ride on Tug Hill. Temps were around 0 degrees, with a nice, firm base and some loose snow on top. My initial impressions of the Curve XS skis...
1.) There is absolutely no darting whatsoever. I have put 18,000+ miles on stock Yamaha skis on my '02 SXR600, '04 RX-1 and my '06 Apex. I have grown used to darting and skittish behavior from those skis in straight-line riding. Those issues are gone. On a straight trail, just sit and hang on. No correction needed.
2. You can't pussyfoot with these skis. Again, with thousands of miles on Yamaha stock skis, I have become accustomed to constantly correcting, and being tentative in turns. I am used to the factory skis sliding at first, then quickly grabbing and turning harder than expected, causing ski lift. Naturally, I have learned to let off the throttle in turns to get the factory skis to grab the snow. Used to doing this, I continue this practice with the Curves. They acted much like the Yamaha factory skis when doing so.
As I grew more confident in the skis, I started accelerating in turns. My Apex did something it has never done before when gassing it in the bends...it turned. And the steering was linear! The harder I cranked the handlebars, the more it turned...no sliding, no grabbing, no twitchiness...the damn sled just turned PREDICTABLY.
I let my buddy with a 2008 Nytro and stock skis ride my sled. He described the handling as "awesome" and it was so smooth in the turns it was "like butter". He beat me in a race again, but that's another story.
On the way back to trailer, I kept riding the Apex harder and harder...and I am not an aggressive rider most of the time like a lot of you guys are! It didnt seem to phaze the skis and sled at all. It was like "come on...is that the most you can do?" Usually, I dont go much more than 45 mph in the turns. When I glanced down at the speedo it always somewhere between 55 and 60 and I had total confidence and great grip at these speeds. I left my buddy and his Nytro RTX is the dust, and he even said he just couldn't keep up.
Bottom line - if darting is an issue, it wont be with the Curve XS skis.
-if you get these skis, they will handle just like the Yamaha factory skis if you pussyfoot and let off the throttle in the turns.
-if you ride aggressively, these skis are just awesome and inspire a tremendous amount of confidence.
-No, I am not a paid sponsor for Curve skis! I paid $460 for them at the Big East show back in October!
