Years ago, when the industry was stagnating, ski companies turned to their knuckle-dragging brethren (i.e., snowboarders) for some design inspiration. Skis soon started appearing with twin tips as default, and with radical adjustments like reverse camber designs. Today, after milking what it could from the snowboarding scene, at least one company is taking its inspiration from another genre altogether: Water sports.
Slated for official release next year, the Salomon BBR skis are the brainchild of the company’s designer Bertrand Krafft (whose nickname is BeBeR, and thus the ski is a shortened version of that at “BBR”). Krafft’s almost eponymous BBR ski features fat tips, rocker and only as much waist and tail as supermodel Kate Moss. It also looks something like a water ski, including a blue-marine color scheme and a wide, shovel-shape tip.
The company says the oversized tip and rocker shape “enable it to float in powder and adapt to uneven terrain smoothly and predictably.” Further, its sidecut, and its narrow waist and tail, allow for a “short effective edge on-piste,” Salomon cites.
Salomon continues in a press release that design inspiration came from the “spontaneity and freedom of action found in water sports.” The BBR ski, the company says, offers the liberty to “carve, cruise, float and play.”
The shape is different, that is for sure. But the ski’s do-all promises — “carve, cruise, float and play” — are hardly a new theme. Will the BBR stand out as something truly new in the ski world? Krafft is the ski designer behind Salomon’s successful X Scream Series and Pocket Rocket skis. The man has a strong track record in creating game-changing ski shapes. Maybe the BBR will be next in line.
The good news is that you can likely find out for yourself this winter. Salomon is just now starting a multi-month demo tour that will span “virtually every ski area of the nation” throughout the winter to give skiers a sneak peek at the new BBR ride. See the company’s Facebook page for tour dates and ski details: www.Facebook.com/SalomonBBR
—Stephen Krcmar
