Skiers looking to make some serious turns out there need to check out the 2020 Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti. For pretty much all of us, a true World Cup race ski is just too much. Companies have been doing a great job over the years in making race-type skis that are more accessible to the masses. This is right where the Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti comes in to play. Whether you’re a beer league star or an early-morning groomer ripper, these skis are built to carve. They’ve got pretty short turn radii, with the 174 carving a 14-meter arc. This is pretty quick, so be prepared to be on edge pretty much all the time. Slight tip rocker helps get into the turn, but not much else. These are certainly best suited for the smooth and groomed, and on those mediums, they are simply amazing. With a 78 mm waist width, they’re on the wide side for a carver, but are still torsionally stiff and ready to hold some serious edges. Our testers generally loved the hard snow carving ability of the Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti, and the market is certainly there for skiers looking for a recreational racer to create some serous G-forces.
Ryan Daniel is one of our testers with a racing background, so he’s a great person to have on the Elite Plus. He skied the 174 which has a turn radius of 14-meters, and Ryan picked right up on that. It’s definitely got some slalom heritage in it, but the wider waist makes it seem like an all-around carver. Ryan gave the Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti 4’s out of 5 for stability and forgiveness. The tip is wide, at 130 mm, so this makes for a more flexible entry to the turns. With a shorter radius, you can feel the whole ski bend, creating a round, clean arc. Ryan calls it “a lot of ski for such a short ski” meaning that the Hero Elite Plus Ti has a ton of stability to it. In order for Ryan to get the best performance out of it, he “had to give it everything he had to hold an edge.” So it’s got a pretty high-performance ceiling, and a lot of skiers who don’t have a racing background could find some challenges.
Marcus Shakun also skied the 177, and being a tall guy, he obviously found it to be short. As such, his scores of 5 out of 5 for quickness, maneuverability, and torsional stiffness are unsurprising. Also receiving high scores of 4 out of 5 were stability and overall impression. If you’re overall impression is that these skis are stable and quick, that’s a good thing when it comes to a carving ski. Given its width at 78 mm underfoot, skiers might be inclined to use it as an all-mountain ski, but it’s really more at home on the corduroy. “I took it off-trail and it wasn’t forgiving—too stiff in the tail. It’s not versatile, it really is a front-side carver for advanced and expert skiers.” Fair enough! But in its element, the Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti is “really fun and lively on-trail and stable at all speeds!” For a carving-specific ski that excels in race courses and on firm groomers, what more could you ask for?
The build and performance level of these skis are pretty fantastic for their intended purpose. While certainly not a powder or mogul ski, these boards are perfect at carving deep, round turns on hard snow. They’ll hold an edge and rip the groomers to shreds, so if that’s what you’re looking for, it’s hard to go wrong with the 2020 Rossignol Hero Elite Plus Ti.
