Black Crows Nocta: Deep Nimble Turns

The Black Crows Nocta were designed by French freestyle legend Julien Regner. They're big, fat and double rockered. As you can can expect with a ski that's 125mms under foot they float like like crazy and turn on a dime.

I got a chance to get some turns on these bad boys on ski trip to Disentis, CH this winter where Sarah Frood hooked up with our old pal and Black Crows skier Christina Bjork. For deep storm days spent lapping the trees I can't think of a better ski. They have lots of float in the tip which makes for easy turn initiation and they don't when landing or ploughing through pillows.

Unlike some other double rocker skis though they have a good side cut and meaty tail that doesn't give out on you when needed most like when the snow turns to crud, hard or you just get caught in the back seat. The ski is very well balanced and center mounted for a light rotational feel and ease of manoeuvrability. Whether you're slashing, spinning, stomping, switching or just plain shredding turns big or small you'll love these boards. I would happily pull these skis out on all but the hardest of hard pack gnar days.

In the words of the designer: “With a short underfoot camber which allows you to forget the size of the tips and the length of the ski, you have a very playful ski even on hard snow and the short turn radius brings back the body angles and the sensations of snowboarding in the early 90s.” - Julien Regnier

Wow! How can you argue with that. The "body angles and sensations" of early 90s snowboarding is what stole my early childhood ski buddies away from the sport. I'm happy that a ski and brand like Blackcrows is helping fight the good fight by bringing fun and cool back to our beloved sport.

I spent the last half of the season on the Blackcrow Sevun. More on that soon:)