Featured Image: by Oskar Hall
Lengths: 155, 163, 171, 177 cm
DIM: 127-96-117 mm
Radius: 15 m @ 163 cm
After just one ride on the stable yet playful Dancer 2X—this year’s category winner—you might guess the goal of The Faction Collective. Its common objective: to make progressive, quality skis in a sustainably-minded manner.
Always known for high-octane freeski spirit, Faction doubled down on a cutting-edge development team and shifted production to Europe’s most elite factories five years ago. With the Dancer Series we get true Faction flavor in an all-mountain flat tail. The brand has always delivered in spades with its twin tips, but the infusion of freeski DNA into the flat tails is delivering a winning cocktail—FREESKIER has awarded Faction a number-one category ranking for four years running. The surprise? All of those winners are flat tails.
The Dancer 2X is the embodiment of Faction’s forward momentum. Backed by durable Austrian construction powered 100 percent by renewable energy, the Dancer 2X pairs a sustainably-harvested poplar wood core with two full-length, razor-thin sheets of Titanal—perhaps thinner than any other ski in the performance market—balancing stability at top speeds with light weight and playful character. Its unique blend of radius and rocker promotes versatility to ski the entire mountain, in all conditions.
Though Faction is now a mid-sized player in the industry, it’s nimble enough to move new ideas through the pipeline quickly and efficiently. With product maestro Daniel Tanzer, Head of Hardgoods, leading a team of design and engineering experts, Faction has been calculating and calibrating skis precisely on the first try, almost always requiring just one prototype. That’s saving time, money and the environment.
“We do it all internally—I’m biased, but I feel our math is on another level,” says Tanzer. “We haven’t done any rework on 150 ski sizes.”
That’s nearly unprecedented. Supporting that precision, the Certified B Corporation brought on a former Volvo engineer—a Swede named Sara Asmoarp—to restructure its supply chain with quality and sustainability in mind, bringing auto industry standards to the ski biz. Faction now locally sources its raw materials from European suppliers and proudly works with Austrian manufacturing partners. The company is seeing a tangible return on investment, with warranty rates dropping to at-or-below industry average, despite production numbers climbing.
That potent mix of product savvy, the speedy dreams-to-reality development cycle, and the emphasis on quality and durability are elements that make Faction’s new collection worth considering. Pair all that with a ski test gold, and Faction’s made a strong case for the Dancer 2X. Our testers all agree, this ski gives you the instant feeling that you have something very special under your feet.
Take it from Elisabeth Gerritzen, 2021 Freeride World Tour Champion, whose got a free-flowin’ grace we could all aspire to. “The Dancer is my ski of choice when riding technical terrain and variable snow,” she says. “The skis are stiff without sacrificing fun, and they’re very predictable. Dancer enables me to feel extra confident when I’m skiing faster than I reasonably should.”
