Fischer Ranger Ti 108

Words: Sebastian Huber

The name is the same, but otherwise nothing remains from last season’s Ranger ski line. Fischer’s ski designers have gone for a complete redesign of this big mountain ski with an expanded waist width of 108mm compared to the previous 106mm.

The new dimensions (140-108-130) however are a marginal feature compared to all of the technical updates in the Ranger Line: carbon tips, a longer rocker (450mm in the tip, 330mm in the tail), lighter weight (well under 2kg per ski), titanal reinforcement underneath the binding and Fischer’s Aeroshape construction have all turned what was previously a very stiff ski into a big-mountain platform that performs in almost all conditions.

Fischer sent us a pair of Ranger 108 Ti to test, and we took advantage of the early-season snowfall to pack in some runs in varying conditions. The glaciers around Innsbruck were the setting, and due to early-season conditions, some piste riding was necessary to finally get the skis into the sidecountry. Right on-piste we were able to confirm that this “new” ski is an all-round weapon. With a 19.5m radius at 188cm this ski handles surprisingly well on-piste, with more ease than a freerider would expect at this width. But really, who’s interested in skiing on-piste?

In terrain the Ranger shows off its strengths and tackles all kinds of snow conditions, holding its line through powder and chopped snow, while hardpack also presents no problem for this ski (obviously skiing on ice is no fun, and the Ranger doesn’t change this fact). The rocker and lightweight construction with carbon tip create a turn-happy platform underfoot that reacts much more playfully than its predecessor, in particular because it’s not so extremely stiff and race-like as the earlier model. Thus this retooled ski can also be used without problems in a freetouring setup. We tested the ski with the Adrenalin binding—with this setup, short hikes to the next line are no problem. If you ride lifts less and tour more, the Ranger can also be used well with a pin binding system, assuming that your boots are stiff enough to handle a ski with this width, because this is a ski that likes speed!

So if you’re looking for a ski that will play along the whole season in terrain, and then bring you comfortably back home on-piste after the day’s “work” is done, then you can’t go wrong with the Ranger 108. And if you don’t need it quite so fat, the Ranger collection starts at 90mm underfoot.

More information: https://www.fischersports.com/