The Rossignol Pure Elite 120 returns this season unchanged but that didn’t stop it from winning the narrow all-mountain category, again, just like last year—and that makes perfect sense to us.
Yes, it’s unanimously loved for its beautiful exterior, visually, but testers say that beauty is much more than skin deep, heaping tons of praise on the interior creature comforts of this any-terrain, any-speed tool of mountain domination. It’s surprisingly easy to slide on for a 120-flex, testers agree, with a smooth and silky glide to enter the boot that then disappears during buckle-up and leaves testers with a firm-enough grip on the foot and leg without any slippery slop reported. Testers agree that the Pure Elite 120 sits right in the middle of the narrow class fit spectrum. Its fit scores in the toebox, forefoot and instep were all dead-center in the narrow all-mountain group. So let it be said for the record, a boot doesn’t have to be the narrowest to be the best of the narrows. Some testers wished its heel pocket was tighter, but of all the easy fixes available to a bootfitter, that’s one of the easiest, so we’ll let it slide this time.
Testers say a boot this sort of luscious, lipstick red better ski as good as it looks—and apparently it does based on the fact that its highest scores were in the performance metrics. In fact, it maintained a perfect 10.0 for its stance and balance as well as logged another perfect score for edge power. Testers say it doesn’t take a skier as flashy as the boot to enjoy what it’s got to offer, saying it has huge bandwidth to suit a wide array of skier abilities and styles, from the aggressively game intermediate up through top semi-pro, best-on-the-mountain types. That is, so long as they get along with the 120-flex, which testers say is every bit of that but properly cushioned against the shin with a progressive flex feel that comes to stop without folding, pinching or feeling abrupt.
The seasoned expert is who the Pure Elite 120 is made for, clearly, because our very good skiing test team loved how tactile and nimble it was underfoot, claiming it had an extrasensory feel for the snow surface. But they also said it drove an edge like the hammer of Thor, no matter what width ski they were on and no matter the snow surface or terrain. Testers called it one of the most-balanced and well-rounded boots for both fit and performance at the test. They did say it responded best to an assertive pilot who knew what she was doing but they allowed that it didn’t punish mistakes or general laziness and green circle lollygagging, calling it a perfect all-day, all-mountain boot for all comers.
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