 At Ellis Brigham we take ski testing really seriously and this involves two different ski tests. The first one is done early in the season. Everything's put through its paces and compared we make the decisions what we're going to stock. Later on in the season we bring staff out to Austria. Here the staff test all the skis that we've decided to go in the range. This means we can make sure we've made all the correct decisions but it also means that when you come into any of our stores the staff there can give you personal advice. They know exactly how the ski skis because they've been on them. The Navis Freebird pretty much mirrors the Navis or Mountain Navis. It's just the touring version of that ski so a lighter ski made of slightly different materials, reduced materials in the ski as well just to make it lighter for ski touring. So it's still kind of classic in its style. We still have the tip rocker. We still have a little bit of early rise in the tail as well just to allow the ski to pivot but again it has a long classic camber in there. With the touring ski there's just there is early rise in the tail just to stop any kind of wash out when you're ski touring on the most of the technical steep terrain as well but just an amazing you know such a versatile amazing ski touring ski for pretty much every eventuality. It's a it's quite an easy ski to use but it's also a really good ski to use in more technical terrain. If you do want a ski touring ski which is slightly wider this is 102 underfoot it's a fantastic ski. If you're skiing steeps it's really really really you know just a powerful ski as well because it's quite solid in the tail and just really light as well, much lightweight but we maintain that ski ability as well with good core materials. Simple construction so the core of this is a blend of poplar and polonia which is a lightweight kind of wood which we use in there. A little bit of fibreglass as well and a reinforced titanal plate under the binding for extra reinforcement. So it's a great ski if you're skiing more technical terrain steeps in kind of like chamois style skiing and that's where it excels nice and lightweight but a really powerful ski as well for you know technical terrain that you're going to be skiing on. Hi I'm Simon from the Fort William store. I went out for a bit of a tour on the Black Crow's Navis free birds. I had a great time it's it's such a fun ski. I really enjoyed kind of it's lightweight enough for the tour up and then for the ski down you've actually got a really good performance underfoot it's nice and wide. I really enjoyed the kind of flotation of it but actually still the carbability of it. I think you can spend a lot of time touring off-beast but also maybe spend a day on the runs with your friends as well. I like the fact that you could kind of choose to go with a pin binding or more of a frame or a shift or something like that. Yeah just I think it's really capable. So I went out for a ski and kind of found I was skiing through a lot of chop a lot of powder. In the powder I had great flotation I really enjoyed that in the chop it felt super stable and I found a couple of ice patches as well and unlike a lot of touring skis I found it didn't chat too much it still felt quite engaged. I really enjoyed kind of you know carbability and there's like it felt really solid. I think this is a great ski for somebody who is going to be going out and kind of wanting to find out a bit more about touring a bit more about backcountry skiing and just you know really wants versatility without kind of sacrificing that performance.