27 years old
165lb
5'10
130-150 days a year
I ski alot of everything but mostly freeski trees when back east and everything BUT groomers out west
I can turn left and right in various shapes and sizes on most parts of any mountain.
Resort
Snowbird on a storm day. hardpack groomers,chopped snow on hardpack, chopped snow on soft pack, and up to 8-12 inches of powder.
Ski
2011-12 Blizzard Bonafide
187cm
135-98-118
sidecut 21.5
Other similar skis owned/skied
186 Dynstar Legend Prorider
177 and 184cm Blizzard "the one"
189 K2 Seth (pre rocker)
192 Atomic Snoop
A got to ski a full morning on this ski, it was very surprising I went into the demo thinking the 185cm Cochise was going to MY ski next year. The problem with the blizzards is they have probably 4-5 different skis that would appeal to most people. It is hard to choose.
Coming off the 185cm Cochise to the 187cm Bonafide the first thing I notice was it was slightly unstable and catchy. The bonafide is basically the Cochise shape minus 10mm at the waist. The sidecut is much deeper. With-in a couple runs the Catchiness became pleasant quickness and tighter turns while still having the abilty to go mach schnell in open areas. It might actually be more stable on edge at speed than the 185 Cochise, it is not however more stable in variable chop when you need to cut speed down in a hurry.
The Bonafide is still a downright charger and was eating up what snowbird was giving is that day. It was a big enough platform to launch some large airs and come away clean, it floated enough to make weird off trail conditions easy, it carved the hardpack as well my own 180cm Bushwacker but with a MUCH MUCH higher speed limit while still being pretty forgiving. the biggest thing for me is on hardpack it did not hurt my legs like the 108mm Cochise's did everyone is different but some wider skis REALLY torque me a framed knees on hardpack, the bonafide did not.
for me this skis out does the legend prorider at its own game. Basically if the LPR and "the one" had a kid, the kid would be this ski except in some ways it better than both of them. This ski outdoes the LPR at everything some really diehard LPR fans may not like the increased sidecut but IMO its is not to turny. It also out does the Blizzard "the one" at everything except really tight tree and bump skiing. Its not to say it cant ski tight trees or bumps but its not as mindlessly easy as "the one"
My dilmmea now is whether or not I want to go conservative and get the 180 because I feel it would be more fun at stowe, but realize it will hold me back on my Snowbird and Jackson trips or just learn to ski the bigger 187 back east so I can have real deal big mountain comp ski for snowbird and jackson and squaw. Either way I think alot of people could find a lenght bonafide that suits their needs as a softer snow all mountain ski.