2021 Stockli Nela 96

Aside from being totally and completely gorgeous, these things rip. The 2021 Stockli Nela 96 is the total package-beauty and brains. This is your supermodel with a doctorate, your sports car with all-wheel drive, your Olympic athlete who doubles as a human-rights activist. What a great effort from Stockli for this year to really create what we think is the ultimate lady's ski. Built and modeled after the men's Stormrider skis, the Nela 96 shares some construction traits, but is offered in different shapes and sizes. The 96 is the widest Nela for this year, and has a fantastic build and quality that is surpassed by nothing out there. The wider the ski in the Nela line, the more dramatic the taper and rocker, so these have the most-ideal for floating through the fresh and not looking back. Most of that taper and rocker is found in the tips, with the tails remaining pretty similar through the widths. As a result, the Nela 96 retains strong on-trail performance thanks to the flatter tail that holds tight to the turn throughout. As far as the perfect ski is concerned, we'd have to put in a strong vote for the Nela 96.

We often talk about how that mid-90's width is a great place to be for true all-mountain performance, and we stand by that claim, especially with the Stockli Nela 96. When a ski tries to do all things well, usually something is left behind. Too much metal, and you lose maneuverability. Too much rocker and you lose edge grip. As a result, ski companies try to tweak and adjust things here and there in order to strike a balance between performance characteristics. Something usually gets lost in the shuffle, but not so with the Nela 96. This thing is firing on all cylinders. When you hand-flex a Nela, it's impressively smooth and consistent. While not the stiffest ski on the planet, it flexes appropriately to its build and turn radius. With a 15.8-meter arc at the 164 cm length, these things are shorter turners, and the flex allows you to access the whole sidecut. One of the benefits of this is that you're able to do so at a variety of speeds versus some other high-end skis that have to get up to speed before you can really utilize the entire arc of the turn. In the Nela 96, perfect turns can be achieved at any speed.

Built with a light wood core and a Titec topsheet, the skis are actually impossibly light for having a full-metal laminate. The fact that the laminate is the topsheet sets Stockli's build apart from the rest of the competition. It does so in two ways. First, having the heavy layer on top means that Stockli can focus on making the rest of the ski's core as cohesive and precise as possible without having to worry about wedging another layer in there. Second, having the metal on top means that it's the first part of the ski that gets your energy, thus reducing the friction of distance from your foot to the edge. This is the precision that makes Stockli a bit pricier, but a whole lot better, than most other skis on the planet.

For the ultimate in Swiss-made precision and quality, the Stockli Nela 96 is here for the most discriminating of skiers. Yes, they're more expensive by a decent margin, but you get a lot of performance and quality for your cash. Smooth, light, and incredibly agile, the Stockli Nela 96 is going to blow some minds this year, and we can't wait to watch.