Ski Review- 2021 Åsnes Otto Sverdrup BC

[Axamer]

With which boots and bindings you ski the Otto Sverdrup ?

[Nitram Tocrut]

With which boots and bindings you ski the Otto Sverdrup ?

Alpina Alaska BC and Magnum BC with red flexor. Those skis are just awesome!!!

[jyw5]

l switched to my 185cm MT51 today. Its confirmed that even these narrower skis do better on deep snow than the Sverdrup. MT51 is stiffer and the tip really plows through that deep powder.

I climbed 1800ft in 4.7mi today. The general angle where I did 7 laps of 200ft up and down was 15-22 degrees. I broke trail for at least 2 miles. Some areas were knee deep, very dry light snow. We have more than 18inch of new snow in the past week...and still snowing. The snow was even deeper today than last monday when I skiied on the Sverdrup. There is no doubt the MT51 was better...which means the Ingstad and the Gamme would be better in deep snow than the Sverdrup. (I believe the geometry of the Gamme is similar to MT51).

Sverdrup most likely excels on consolidated snow, corn, spring perfect crust, dust of snow over crust, light shallow powder, etc. I feel like the soft rocker tips are unfortunately just not well for current mid winter conditions in AK.

I will compare the FT62 (2019) with the Sverdrup next month when we get spring conditions.

When I go out again later this wk, I will try the FT62 and get another comparison with the Sverdrup. (its still snowing up high and may get another foot of snow through the week).

So far, the stiff MT51 is the best despite the lack of flotation. I think I would do very well on 185cm or 180cm Ingstad in these conditions and probably just fine even with the Gamme.

[CwmRaider]

With which boots and bindings you ski the Otto Sverdrup ?

Bindings: Rottefella Super Telemark Cable.
Boots: Fischer Transnordic 75mm and Crispi Bre.
The Crispi Bre really fit like slippers, and they are more comfortable than any NNN-BC boots I have tried. The soles they have, although they are amongst the stiffest of the presently available 75mm leathers, are however not close to being as torsionally rigid as the Transnordic boots,
The high shaft of the Transnordic also provides excellent ankle support, resulting in very good power transmission from the leg to the ski. The weight seems comparable between Bre and TN (but I have not weighed them).

[lilcliffy]

With which boots and bindings you ski the Otto Sverdrup ?

Sverdrup BC + NNNBC:
- Alpina Alaska BC
- ALFA Guard BC
- Crispi Svartisen BC

[jyw5]

With which boots and bindings you ski the Otto Sverdrup ?

I have the Alfa Guard adv., but mostly just use the much softer Alfa Quest Core. NNNBC

[TheMusher]

l switched to my 185cm MT51 today. Its confirmed that even these narrower skis do better on deep snow than the Sverdrup. MT51 is stiffer and the tip really plows through that deep powder.

I climbed 1800ft in 4.7mi today. The general angle where I did 7 laps of 200ft up and down was 15-22 degrees. I broke trail for at least 2 miles. Some areas were knee deep, very dry light snow. We have more than 18inch of new snow in the past week...and still snowing. The snow was even deeper today than last monday when I skiied on the Sverdrup. There is no doubt the MT51 was better...which means the Ingstad and the Gamme would be better in deep snow than the Sverdrup. (I believe the geometry of the Gamme is similar to MT51).

Sverdrup most likely excels on consolidated snow, corn, spring perfect crust, dust of snow over crust, light shallow powder, etc. I feel like the soft rocker tips are unfortunately just not well for current mid winter conditions in AK.

I will compare the FT62 (2019) with the Sverdrup next month when we get spring conditions.

When I go out again later this wk, I will try the FT62 and get another comparison with the Sverdrup. (its still snowing up high and may get another foot of snow through the week).

So far, the stiff MT51 is the best despite the lack of flotation. I think I would do very well on 185cm or 180cm Ingstad in these conditions and probably just fine even with the Gamme.

Where is this hut? Extremely coincidentally saw that same place on a YouTube movie last night(!) (Bottom pic)

[Nitram Tocrut]

I've been skiing these skis the past three days, steep terrain tours Friday and Saturday and today some flatter tours with a baby in a pulk. Been having so much fun that I wonder if I reaaally need the Combat Natos as well
But they're great reliable skis. .

H Roelant,

I had the same thought about my Ingstad, wondering if I would ever need them again as I was so happy with the Sverdrup. I finally encountered snow conditions where the Ingstad is the ski to go. We had a very brief period of loose snow of about 45 Cm without a firm base. That was too much snow for the Sverdrup. Then we had some freezing rain that led to breakable crust. Again those are pretty bad conditions for the Sverdrup but I wished I had Combat NATO, instead of the Ingstad according to all the great reports on the NATO in those conditions. I think the NATO better complement the Sverdrup than the Ingstad.

But as soon as we got some fresh snow I was back to the Sverdrup full time. Last week I went on a 22 km tour on our farm and neighboring farm to test them in different conditions. According to Åsnes description, the Sverdrup is the most versatile of their BC skis in this range so I tested their words My day was a mix of rolling and flat terrain across fields, tractor wide forest road, snowmobile tracks, open snowfields and so on. There was about 10 Cm of fresh snow over a pretty firm crust and I had to break the trail except for about 1 km on a snowmobile trail. It was pretty windy and I kind to break the trail again on my way back.

I like my skis to be pretty fast when I go on such a ride and I find them to be noticeably faster than the Ingstad and therefore I feel like I spend less precious energy skiing them. As @lilcliffy wrote in a previous post, the Sverdrup were less efficient when climbing steep hills in deep snow. For a short part of my journey involving breaking trail to reach the summit of one of our “mountains” I wish I had the Ingstad but that was the only part. In the snowmobile track, the Sverdrup performed flawlessly as they were faster and they were tracking straight. I used the Ingstad on the same snowmobile tracks in numerous occasions and to what I can recall they were not closely as effective.

As mentioned many times by other reviewers, the Sverdrup are “easy” to turn. Well, they would be even easier if I had a better technique . Nonetheless, they performed great on the fresh snow over crust. But I wished the fresh snow was not as fluffy and could offer a better support and maybe slow down the skis a bit As many Asnes skis, they are quite fast going downhill and that is a challenge for me but probably a lot more fun for more advanced telemark skiers. I can’t wait to try them on corn snow, they should be great. Of course, we don’t always have room for telemark turn and the Sverdrup are really effective on narrower forest roads with tight turns and pretty steep slopes.

From my little experience with these skis I can backup Åsnes prevention about the Sverdrup. I found them pretty versatile around various snow conditions and terrain. They would not be my ski of choice if I was only doing yo-yo or if I was going for a long tour on flattish terrain but they are really versatile skis

[lilcliffy]

Took the Sverdrup on a 7hr glade tour in the Upper Nashwaak last Thursday- absolute dream conditions-
over a metre of frozen base with ~20cm of fresh cold snow on top-
one layer of Green underfoot- grip and glide was superb- snow was dreamy and very fast-
I would normally have taken the Ingstad- and both my tur partners were on Ingstads (195 & 205)-
was able to test the Sverdrup vs the Ingstad-
the Sverdrup was a true dream-
more nimble, tighter turns, smeary, slarvy-
it was amazing- loved it.

We ended up on snowmobile track for ~1km- the Sverdrup was all over the place- even worse than the Ingstad IMO- the Sverdrup was a more efficient XC ski in broken out track- trail-breaking was about the same in 20cm of fresh snow.

As I previously mentioned- the Sverdrup is further dissecting my quiver and isolating poor Helge (I would normally have taken the Ingstad on this tur and been perfectly happy!)

As another note-
one of close ski partners is 6'2" and ~225lbs- he also uses a 205 Ingstad on our local soft snow glade tours-
he finds even the 205 Sverdrup too soft and round in snow of any significant depth-
I can get away with the 205 Sverdrup in deeper snow than he can-
so there are pros and cons to choosing a longer length in this ski...

Will report back later in the season on the Sverdrup on spring consolidated snow-
Still a month left of winter skiing here!

[Nitram Tocrut]

We ended up on snowmobile track for ~1km- the Sverdrup was all over the place- even worse than the Ingstad IMO- the Sverdrup was a more efficient XC ski in broken out track- trail-breaking was about the same in 20cm of fresh snow.


As another note-
one of close ski partners is 6'2" and ~225lbs- he also uses a 205 Ingstad on our local soft snow glade tours-
he finds even the 205 Sverdrup too soft and round in snow of any significant depth-
I can get away with the 205 Sverdrup in deeper snow than he can-
so there are pros and cons to choosing a longer length in this ski...

@lilcliffy you have made some very interesting observation on the Sverdrup. In my last post on this ski I wrote that they were tracking really well on snowmobile tracks but you don’t get the same results. I would think it has to do with the high and stiff camber combined with the short effective edge. Is it possible that you are not completely compressing the ski and that make a big difference on hard snow? I am about 30 pounds heavier so I probably compress it completely. On the other hand, I am quite sure that you are getting better glide on any other snow conditions. I suggested in a previous post that I wished they made the Sverdrup even longer for big guy like me.

You wrote that there is pro and cons to choosing a longer length ski but in your case, if the only major cons is bad tracking on consolidated snow, well that is a small price to pay in my opinion. And anyway, if I had to ski mostly on snowmobile track the Sverdrup and most BC XC skis would not be the best option. I think you made the right choice with the 205

There as to be more reports coming on that amazing skis… or maybe most of those skiing the Sverdrup are too busy skiing to actually report on TTalk