DPS Tour1 Lotus 124

To give you an idea of how this ski can perform, check out buddy in the green jacket and yellow pants from this season's first installment from DPS Cinematic. It's a great story with awesome cinematography. Look to around the 3-minute mark to see what a way better skier than I can do with the Tour1 Lotus 124s. In pow. In Japan.

The Tour1 Lotus 124. At rest, in all their rugged glory. At 149/124/136, they are big skis. At  1615g per ski, they are also light skis. Big & light all right. Love the simple topsheet aesthetic. Not a whole loot of side cut (as you can see).

Front-end close up. Note that the Lotus 124 has less of a paddle-y shovel. It is more wide all the way up. More like the Lotus 120 than the Wailer. I guess that's why they call them Lotus—same name, similar ski.

Back-end close up. Definitely ski these with a tech program. I've never understood how some skiers can mount weighty binders on a nice and light ski.

Tip and tail rocker is pronounced ~ 439mm tip , 387mm tail. 

Cap construction on the Tour1 Lotus 124s. Minimal camber. 

• World cup race bases
• Narrow profile Rockwell 48 edges
• Full cap textured polymide top

Materials:

• Prepreg carbon/glass laminate
• Balsa core
• Polymide topsheet

The DPS Tour1 Lotus 124 offers the best of both worlds; it's remarkably light on the way up and phat enough and with the dimension to get you up and planing in the pow easily on the way down. As I mentioned above, though I skied them most often last season, thanks to the demo Dynafits, I was able to share the love on a week-long hut trip and gather various people's impressions. The ski made for a great day for tourers differing a foot in height, from 170 lbs to 230 lbs. That's pretty cool. It seems that the consensus with many DPS models is that they make you a better skier. I would add that skis like the Lotus 124s also make skiing more fun.

I asked one of my ski mates to fire me an email with some of his impressions after a day touring in good conditions with the DPS Tour1 Lotus 124. I could edit or paraphrase but, why bother, he put it so eloquently: The width of the ski allows someone of my size (this is 230 lbs buddy talking here) to have flotation and manoeuvrability even in difficult conditions. When skiing, I found the Lotus to be responsive, with easy turn initiation. Although the ski has very little side-cut, by placing a wide point of the ski back from the tip, they become very lively when the front of the skis are weighted. The greater the engagement with the front of the skis, the more lively the tips become. The Lotus created a comfortable platform that surfed through the powder, and bounded through the more challenging snow, the tips returning to the surface again and again. Allowing me to worry less about what lay ahead, and focus more on the groove of the turn.   

This ski is not a quiver of one. Unless you live in powder heaven. It performs "OK" in chop and corn and hardpack, but that's not its intended usage. It's more like the perfect ski for a week of ski touring in the interior of BC. You can push these skis up the skin track all day and still have the legs to take you home.