Rossignol’s recreational race carvers have been some of the best in the business for quite some time, and the 2023 Rossignol Hero Elite LT Ti is one of the best of the bunch. Built with a strong and stable beech wood core, the skis also get two sheets of metal, including one V-shaped titanal laminate. Their Line Control Technology also filters in here from the race room, making the ski strong, smooth, and stable no matter the speed or the power that you put into it.
ROCKER PROFILE
Camber
CORE MATERIALS
Line Control Technology
PREFERRED TERRAIN
Groomers
From a shaping perspective, the Elite LT Ti carries with it a 71-mm waist width, which is a slightly wider platform for racing skis, but it makes a lot of sense when you consider the intended audience is more of a high-end recreational skier versus a current racer—there's plenty of skis from Rossignol for those skiers. Having a bit more ski underfoot makes sense for the former racer who’s looking to recapture a bit of glory, but who’s also not looking for the super-narrow race shapes that we see in the World Cup races and events. In the 177 cm length, the shape produces a 17-meter turn radius, which is short compared to race skis, but in this realm, that’s considered the Long Turn. This allows skiers to really fine-tune the shape of turn they prefer to make, since Rossignol basically makes three different skis just like this, but all with different radii.
Jamie O’Brien put his former-racer skills to the test with the Hero Elite LT in the 177 cm length. He notes that they ski true to length, and gave them top marks of 5’s out of 5 for overall impression, versatility, forgiveness, playfulness, quickness, and maneuverability. These are some impressive scores for this ski for these categories, especially given the high-performance carving nature. While he did give it a 5 for versatility, I’m thinking that’s more for versatility of turn, rather than it being an all-mountain ski. His low score of 3 out of 5 was for flotation, which is more in line with a one-dimensional ski such as this. “This ski does it all! The sunny skies of March provided all the surfaces to test this ski and it delivered. Held fast on top of the mtn on our glorious eastern hardpack, got playful in the middle in the sugar, and plowed through the deep mashed potatoes at the bottom. For the expert skier that loves to cruise the whole mountain.”
This type of versatile performance is very impressive for a ski at 71 mm underfoot. We actually see a lot of the Rossignol Hero Elite skis here at Stowe, and most of the skiers on them take them all over the mountain, so seeing these as more than just on-trail carving skis is not out of the question. Due to the shape, slightly more forgiving flex, and the high-end construction, Rossignol does a great job making a ski that’s equally at home railing GS turns on ice as it is turning appropriately in bumps and chunkier snow.
