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Gear Review
Volkl Gotama Ski
Pain's me to say it
By SquawBrat
Ranked #641 - Alpine Fat Skis
September 3, 2009
It pains me to say this; If you have a quiver and if the Goat has been your daily ski then you might be dissapointed with this version of one of the best skis ever made. I've been on the gold ones for two years and just love them. But when I skied the 2010 version late last year I couldn't keep the tails from washing out on steeper terrain (can't tell if its the tail rocker or the softened tail flex). Perhaps not by coincidence but that was actually a tester comment in the magazine reviews this year. At any rate, its still a first class ski and if it is your one ski quiver then it may have been improved for you based on its powder performance. But if this will be your quiver make sure you demo them on the terrain you call steep. And as with prior Goats, the boot center line is too far back. Hope that helps.
View Details: Volkl Gotama Ski
Helpful Votes: 5 Yes
Change me.
3 Comments Last Reply: April 27, 2010 By: timdonaldson
I have a 3 year old pair of Gotamas (183 CM) and if I could go back in time and buy 10 pair I'd have my one ski quiver for life. I have my superfat rockered ski (Volkl Kuros) for deep days, but the old Gotama was the perfect balance of width and stiffness. Worked perfectly in powder and could carve on everything (at least out west). I worry that too many ski makers (and I worry this is the case with the new Gotama) are putting rocker on every ski for fear of looking like they're not keeping up with the Jones'.
Helpful Votes: 0 Yes
Wow; didn't expect to hear design criteria like that! But it's also a bit consistent with what my shop said when they first mounted my bindings. They said they measure because they can't count on the line(s) being in the right spot (my boot center line happened to be on spec). But what got me is that after reading some threads re ball of the foot placement I checked my Goats and the recomendation was 10.5 cm behind the center of the running length. Based on my foot I had them re-mounted 3cm forward and it really improved an already great ski (for old school all mountain; no park).
Helpful Votes: 0 Yes
I can't speak to the accuracy of the mounting line shown on the new goats, but based on Ingrid's review I trust that it means something on these boards. But in regards to SquawBrat's comment about the boot center line being too far back on prior Goats, I found some very interesting (and disturbing) information after hours of research on this topic. When I was mounting the Gold Gotamas for the third time (I kept ripping my tele bindings out of them), I found a web forum used by ski shop owners/managers to talk shop, and they went back and forth for pages about how to mount Gotamas. The final post that ended all conversation came from a shop owner who finally reached an engineer at Volkl and got the real info--apparently, the graphic designers just plopped an "x" on the boards where they thought it looked good an labeled it as "boot center" with no regard for the design of the ski itself. This apparently deliberate F*up is obvious when you compare a few Gold Gotamas to each other--even in the same length, the graphics often don't line up from ski to ski, and neither do the boot center marks. In order to find the real mounting line, you've got to measure the ski and mark the true center and go from there. Telemarktips.com has some great info on how to do this for telemark bindings--good luck for you fixed-heelers, I have no idea where you should go to figure out how to mount them. That said, the old goats were my favorite ski ever until I broke them (on a drill line...guess that mounting them three times wasn't a structurally sound idea ;)
Helpful Votes: 3 Yes