Do testers tire of skiing the Head WCR Raptor in the Frontside category, year after dominant year? No, they do not. Making a few laps in the Raptor is a way for testers to re-boot their understanding of edge power and quickness and reframe their understanding of how the lateral and torsional rigidity of a ski boot translates to on-edge ski behavior. Testing the Raptor is a boot tester's race-level staycation away from his daily driver--like taking a spin in a friend's high-end sports car, you know, the kind you'll never own but you still do it just to see how the other half lives. The WCR Raptor is a lot like that--might not be exactly your flavor for everyday skiing, but it will show you how well you could ski, if you owned this Frontside crusher.
Testers have largely forgotten the Raptor of old and fully integrated the WCR design into their current Raptor understanding. For those behind the Raptor redesign curve, the WCR employs a new polyurethane blend that's more elastic in its flex feel and offers skiers a longer-feeling flex range but with even stronger lateral and torsional properties that keep a ski on lock in a surprisingly strong way. The WCR shape is expanded in toebox length and room in the forefoot but in a still-short external boot sole length. Testers in recent years spent a lot of time explaining how they had to adjust to the new Raptor's more user-friendly feel that shouldn't have been as strong on edge as it undoubtably was. Like getting to know and eventually love an automatic in its sport shift mode as opposed to wrangling a stick, or finally admitting that the non-FIS super-shape carving ski is a better match for you than a true race GS--the WCR Raptor makes high performance attainable and comfortable. Now just learn to love that.
Testers were perhaps tricked into testing the Raptor in new, outside-the-box fashion by the 130's Anthracite color way--it's badass like an Audi RS6's Nardo Grey, true, but more importantly, it ain't white. So, maybe testers thought it wasn't the nearly race Raptor but something other-than. At any rate, no matter the visual-psychological connection, testers reported back about how awesome this Frontside veteran was off-piste! It shouldn't surprise anyone that the longer-travel flex feel and more shock-dampening polyurethane material made it better suited to variable surfaces than the Raptor of old, but there it was in multiple test forms.
The thing that really keeps the Raptor's all-mountain wings clipped is its ultra-transmissive hard plastic boot sole, which will communicate firm but irregular surface vibrations and impacts up into the skier, as well as communicate the skier's occasional movement miscues back to the ski. The Raptor WCR may be kinder and gentler than versions of yore but it is not a boot that is particularly forgiving of mistakes. It's a skilled, expert skier's boot and some grey paint isn't going to change that. Though, the slippery sole can be tamed with Head's purpose-built Vibram lifter plates (routing of toe and heel lugs back down to DIN spec after application is required).
The piste is where it's at for the Raptor WCR 130, regardless of its crossover chops. Testers have nothing but superlatives to describe the way it drives a properly shaped and sharp carving ski across a firm groomer, and skiers who want that kind of precision but tuned for unofficial off-trail applications should take a look at the Head Formula LV 130.
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