Review: Elan Voyager Folding Skis

The single most annoying aspect of owning skis is transporting a pair of 1.7-meter planks with sharp metal edges to the slopes without doing damage to yourself, the skis, innocent bystanders, your clothes, the car, fellow travelers, or your general sense of decorum. 

The simple fact is that most of us don't live anywhere near to within a snowball's throw of a mountain resort. And while a lucky number might be close enough to drive to one, the rest of us are forced to opt for trains or planes when it comes to getting that winter sports fix. And for skiers serious enough to shun rental options, this means carting about those unwieldy planks. 

So pervasive is near-universal hatred of carrying skis around, Larry David has even joked about coming up with a solution. But while his idea of skis that “screw together like a pool cue” was seemingly ridiculous, Slovenian brand Elan, with 75 years of ski-making experience under its belt, has, with all seriousness, gone and done something remarkably similar with its new Voyager skis. These are the world's first all-mountain skis that fold clean in half when you're not using them. 

Now, this is no small feat. Mountain skis are, until now, one solid unbroken plank because integrity, coupled with flexibility, is a huge part of what makes them work. If you start cutting them in half and sticking what is essentially an elaborate hinge in the middle, then all manner of things can go wrong as you're halfway down a mogul field. None of them are likely to be welcomely received. 

Fortunately, Elan has form when is comes to ski innovation. In 1993, it made the SCX, or “SideCut eXtreme.” Rather than straight all the way down, the SCX skis were narrower in the middle and wider at the ends, allowing for elegant, fast, sweeping turns. These easy-to-ride “carving” skis were a huge hit, and at the time went a long way toward battling the loss of interest in skiing as snowboarding lured the youngsters in. The tragic mistake was that Elan hadn't patented the design, so all the other brands were free to copy. And, boy, did they. 

Photograph: Elan

Keen to not make the same terrible mistake twice, 28 years later, Elan has not one but seven patents on these new award-winning Voyager folding skis. How do they work? The ski is made whole, then cut in half to ensure a perfect join. Making batches of “half skis” was never going to work, apparently. Then four chunky steel hinges are embedded in the center of each ski, affording it the all-important party trick of folding in half. The binding, which comes integrated as part of the ski, sits on a carbon-reinforced plastic plate that, once unlocked, swings round on a pivot to marry the two halves of the Voyager. This rigid carbon-plastic plate is then locked in place with special clips. 

The plate, made out of a substance that happens to be one of Elan's patents, could end up making more money for Elan than the skis ever will, and they are already looking at other commercial applications for it, as it is this plate that gives the Voyagers their strength. Elan showed me their lab testing data, and the Voyagers are practically as torsionally stable as a “normal” ski. This is very impressive indeed. 

The idea has been expanded for skis Elan made for the Slovenian military in 2015. The company was tasked with creating a ski for soldiers to use in the mountains that could be strapped to a backpack and easily transported in army vehicles. One of the main differences is that the military folding ski, used by Nato, had a heavy metal plate for that stability. Work commenced on a consumer version, and in 2017 Elan managed to make an iteration suitable for ski mountaineering, the Ibex Tactix. But the real prize was a mainstream all-mountain piste ski. Elan started working on the army model back in 2011, so it has taken 10 long years to get to the Voyager.

Photograph: Elan

Yes, yes, that's all very impressive—but how does it perform on the snow? Astonishingly is the one-word answer. I tested the Voyagers for two days in Austria, and they were not only easy to ski, supplying near-effortless turn after near-effortless turn, but also flattering, making my decidedly mid-level abilities seem considerably greater. Equally adept at long carving turns and short, sharp changes of direction, the Voyagers gave no indications whatsoever of the folding tech beneath my feet. So natural was the roll and flex, with absolutely zero play between plate and ski, that had I not known the hinge was there I would never have guessed, and I defy anyone else to notice, either. 

The are a couple of things to note, though. With great fold tech comes greater weight (not a terrible thing on the slopes, incidentally, but if we're talking about ease of transport it's worth pointing out). These, at 6.95 kg per pair for the 160-cm length (including bindings), weigh roughly a kilo heavier than normal skis, and you can feel it. But the trade-off for the folding is more than worth it. 

You will also need to practice a little to get the initial unfolding sequence down so that it’s impressively quick. As people stand and stare—and they will—marveling as you unfurl your skis, it can be a little disappointing to then have these spectators see you fiddle about swinging the plates down and unclipping the special clips (which have been fashioned to only slink home once the plate is in the correct, safe position). Once you have the knack, it's surprisingly fast. Elan's in-house record for fully folded to unfolded and clipped is 17 seconds. You should be able to do it in under a minute. Folding them up at the end of the day, with cold hands and tired body, will inevitably take a little longer, too. 

The skis come in three sizes: 160 cm (which packs to 87 cm), 166 cm (down to 89 cm), and 172 cm (93 cm). And while your can just buy the skis themselves, if you've come this far you ought to consider the optional extras of the (very good) collapsable poles and custom travel bags (one you carry like a holdall, and the other you can wheel about). To give you some idea of the convenience on offer here, we put four Voyager bags complete with poles in the trunk of a standard station wagon, with room to spare for helmets, backpacks, and such. There was no need to drop the seats for extra space, and all four of us got in, in full ski gear, each with their own seat, and drove to the gondola as if we were going to the shops.

This innovation and ease come with costs, of course. The Voyagers are not for skiers with shallow pockets. But it might not be long before we see this Elan tech in cheaper models, and the company has confirmed more versions are incoming. It's also not stopping with the hinge. Elan is working on a “smart ski,” already five years in development, and they have a working prototype. With sensors on the plate and on the ski itself, it will supposedly teach you how to ski and improve your style and technique. And, yes, it is patented.