Top 5 trends for 2015 skis

1. Freeride skiing – the freeride market is still booming. Brands are fighting to produce the best lightweight skis, using new materials, while still delivering good downhill performances. The trend is for freeride skis with open spaces within a multilayer-woodcore. This creates a balancing act between performance on the descent and lightweight for the climb.

2. Five-point geometry – the taper (broadest point of the ski) is moving further down to the middle. The camber/rocker is being reworked to get playfulness combined with better edge grip.

3. Wider skis – there will be a rise in wider skis next season: powder lovers after fatter skis will love the new 136mm freeriding skis while ski tourers see plenty of 100mm skis.

4. All-mountain skis – the search for the perfect all-round ski to work on and off the slope continues and the competition is growing. There is a fine tuning of high performance all-mountain skis and the trend is mostly for 80-85mm skis combining rocker setups with leightweight cores and a lot of technology to drive control and edge grip.

5. Racing/on slope is not dead – it’s not the big focus but this segment is still important to 2015 ski manufacturers. Rossignol and Atomic are presenting new gear here and some brands are offering at least one model without a rocker to appeal to those who really want maximum rebound and charge on slopes.