ON3P Caylor Skis 2012

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

About me: 19 years old, on skis as soon as I could walk. 5'7", 155lbs. skied 100+ days a year for the past 5 years, this year was 126 days, 85 of which were consecutive. And about 100 of those days were on these Caylors.
I like to ski fast, through tight trees, on steep stuff, billy goating in the most sketchy places I can get into, in the air as much as possible, finding trannys, bonking trees, dropping cliffs, doing spinny flippy jibby stuff whenever I can - check out my videos to get an idea.
I have experience on skis such as - 179 K2 Hellbent, 190 Moment Ruby, 179 K2 Fujative, 186 Dynastar Big Trouble, 186 Moment Donner Party, 185 Elan all mountain twin tips, 186 OG Raceroom Legend Pro, 184 Salomon Rocker 2 protos (softer than production), 194 Surface New Life, 191 Surface Live Life, 194 Fatty Puss Dsender.

First Glance: graphics are pretty weird. not ugly or anything, mouths and eyes always looking at me just creep me out a bit. edges are huge, bigger than any other skis I've compared them to. Sick base structure. Rocker profile and shape look sick, both skis are the same. Overall first impression - bomber looks.

On snow:

Pow - amazing! as expected, they rip pow and chopped pow super fast. Rocker makes them very maneuverable and easy to ski while the stiffish flex keeps them stable enough to stomp airs and charge super fast. They like to be in the air, and have a phenomenal POP. Awesome ski for ripping around and popping off everything finding trannys. I skied a couple runs switch in some deep pow, and they killed it. Not as pivoty in the trees as the Donner Partys or Rocker 2s, but it's not enough to slow me down. Very confidence inspiring when ripping near the edge of control in the soft stuff.

Groomed - Pretty good actually, it took me a couple days to get used to them on groomers coming from the stiffer and fully cambered Ruby, but soon enough I got em rolling. They carve trenches as long as it isn't straight up ice. The tips do flap a bit at speed but it's not a big deal, nowhere near as bad as the Hellbent or Rocker 2. I did the good old fashioned test of straight lining all the steep groomers at Red, and felt totally confident on them (obviously I'd rather be on a cambered ski for this).

Used up pow / variable snow - they do it really well, I have no problems ripping and popping around, but I think a bit of taper or maybe a shark nose style tip like the new Wrens along with a mellower tip curve (like the 2011/2012 ON3Ps) would make them a bit better at slicing through funky crusts and weird snow rather than getting deflected which happens on occasion. I'm sure the new rocker profiles on the 2011/2012 skis with help a lot with this.

Completely skied out off piste - not that sick. i can ski them just fine on skied out runs, but they're just too big to be fun in hard bumps and places where you have to turn. I'd definitely rather be on something narrower with less rocker. they do a great job for how much rocker they have though, they hold an edge well, but get deflected quite a bit on bumpy, hard off piste crud.

Air - this is a big ski, but being mounted close to center they have a stable swing weight, I whipped around a few 7's with no problem and back flipped like there's no tomorrow. Being wide, with a medium/stiff flex and ample rocker, they STOMP forwards and backwards in all sorts of conditions. better than any other ski I've been on but comparable to the 194 New Life. once again VERY confidence inspiring.

Durability - BOMBER. I did manage to break the tip on one ski in a very odd incident that involved the tip of that ski absorbing most of the energy from me dropping 10ish feet to a dead stop on a side hill. never the less, I emailed Scott to find out the best way to fix them and now he is hooking me up with a replacement pair. He's the man! Despite that one small hiccup, this skis have held up better than any other ski I've put this much time on and put to work this hard. I spent about 100 days on the Caylors this winter pushing them super hard everyday, and the bases have a couple small scratches - nothing close to a core shot. The edges have no cracks after stomping on rocks from pretty high up. the top sheets have very minimal chipping, and they'd be full of life if I didn't make dumb spur of the moment decisions and break the tip.

Sparknotes: This is my favourite ski I've ever been on. Once I got these I stopped riding my other skis. Huge thanks to Scott, Rowen, and Kip for putting together some amazing skis!

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

Wow. These are the near-perfect skis for the huge range of snow conditions we get in the PNW. As soon as there is ANY new snow, they come alive and can make any shape of turn. It was refreshing to get on a ski that allowed me to go where I wanted, how I wanted just by thinking, "hey. I wanna go over here", without having to worry about silly little mechanics. These skis are absolutely a blast to ski in: chest deep blower, set up cream cheese, spring slush, tracked-up evening Alpental pow, all sorts of crusts, or just 2" of fresh over a firm base.

Surprisingly (or not, if you look at the design closely), these do a fair job on groomers too. The ride sort of reminds me of my long old (circa 1980's) 207 GS skis on (non-icy) groomers - they feel very stable, and sort of truck down the hill. They carve trenches on groomers with no jitters at speeds of 45-50 - again, as long as we're not talking hard snow = e.g., surface you'd have on a nicely slipped out race course, midwest/east coast ice, Mt. Baker re-frozen mashed potatoes after a pineapple express... In these types of conditions, be ready for a workout. The long tails (due to near center mount) can become a lot of work in hard, technical conditions. Hop-turning down a steep, bullet-proof couloir will have you panting by the bottom.

Overall - I skied these 75% of my in-bounds days last year (with slightly different rocker profile - see ON3P's website) in the Seattle/Whistler region. The rest of the quiver was only used for tours or hard snow days.

Oh, and the guys at ON3P are awesome. They give a great shop tour. They let me fondle my new 2012 Wrenegades at the factory before they were finished. What other ski company will let you do that???

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

I skied the Caylor most days last year. La Nina conditions made it almost a daily driver. Really intuative ski. The only thing that is surprising is how well a 120mm ski can rip groomers with no tip flap. If there is ANY fresh I will grab the Caylor. Charges well in cruddy conditions.

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

I have to say the caylors are the best powder ski I've ever used, their powder performance is great I can rip through the trees and put down GS turn in powder, on groomed runs they turn like my prophet 100s, ice they grip better than my prophets, moguls you can make them work and they bomb it through crud and chopped up conditions. The reason why I like this ski so much because it's so versatile, oh did I forget to mention you can ski in pow as easily as skiing forward ... ON3P is an awwesome company that produces quality skis and provides great customer services

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

I like an all-mountain ski that is traditionally wider underfoot with a good combo of rocker and camber. Which is what I found in the ON3P Caylor. I skied this on last chair after a long powder day with nothing left in my legs. With a progressive flex and moderate stiffness, these skis handled the long run of crud and groomers it took to get to get to a great pillow zone. Once there, it was clear that the Caylor loves pillows as much as I do, effortlessly bouncing, smashing, and swiveling on command. Plus, the wide tail and stiff tip are great for stomping switch landings.

Comments about ON3P Caylor Skis 2012:

So first, On3p is a great company that provides really personal service to their customers. If you're voting with your wallet as to what companies you want to see do well, you can't do better.

As for the Caylors, they're the best rockered fat ski I have ever used, period. A lot of rockered skis are either too noodly (in an effort to keep weight down) or really dead-feeling (i.e. K2s), which isn't to say damp flex is necessarily bad, it's personal preference. The Caylor is different, it's an unbelievably lively ski. Bouncy is the best word for it. The flex is stiffer than a lot of skis of similar width, so it's one of the chargiest rocker fatties you'll find.

The result is a ski that is ideally suited to bowl skiing, but also excels at pillows because of the liveliness, won't toss you around in crud as much as similar skis, and stable enough if you want to charge something steeper. The stiffness also means reduced chatter on groomers.

Really, no fat ski can do it all - by virtue of the size of the things, they're targeted to a certain kind of skiing. But the Caylor comes very close, because it does more or less everything well, and a couple of things exceptionally well. You'd be hard pressed to find a pow stick that's more fun.