Rossignol has consistently delivered high-quality skis, and the Experience 88 TI is no exception. This revamped all-mountain ski is designed for advanced to expert-level skiers who demand versatility and performance. Let's delve into a comprehensive review of this exceptional ski.
Arcade 88: Full Review
In 2024, the Rossignol Arcade 88 debuted with SKI’s Best in Test award as the signature ski in a new series replacing Rossignol’s beloved Experience line. Testers put the Arcade 88 through its paces on firm groomers and soft bumps, conditions where it shines. From wide open slopes to long and winding trails to gladed runs, testers reported a quick edge-to-edge response, which rewarded the skier’s pace and level of aggression, essentially meeting each skier where they’re at.
“This is a carvaholic’s dream,” said tester Luke Larsen, owner of the Lift House ski shop. Tester Nick Loomans gets the Rossignol Arcade 88 on edge to see how they hold up on firm snow. Rossignol designed the Arcade 88 with skilled pros in mind-ski instructors or patrollers who want race-like performance with some freeride versatility for low-tide days on the hill. A full layer of metal from tip to tail in the layup, oversized sidecut, generously rockered tips, and a short turn radius make the Rossignol Arcade 88 a carving machine that’s exceptionally quick and responsive from edge-to-edge.
Rossignol also reinforced the Arcade 88 with vibration-damping technology throughout the ski to keep it stable and predictable at speed and in cut-up snow. Many of the best frontside skis are versatile, but what makes the Arcade 88 stand out is how approachable this high-performance ski feels. Testers recommend the ski to a wide range of ability levels-from intermediates looking to progress to experts who value pop and energy. It’s an equal opportunity carver, particularly adept at short to medium radius turns. “For how well it carves, I couldn’t believe it still had softness for moguls,” said tester Alex Cernichiari.
Minor weaknesses aside, testers agreed Rossignol nailed the frontside formula with the Arcade 88: razor-sharp edge grip on groomers with enough adaptability for varied conditions. “It’s a textbook frontside ski,” said Larsen. “It’s got that classic Rossignol dampness that absorbs feedback, and it’s so easy to roll over and initiate turns with slight pressure.
Read also: Battle Bindings: Performance and Value
Key Features and Design
The Rossignol Experience 88 TI is an advanced-expert level ski that has the capability get you anywhere on the mountain, but still prefers to be on a freshly groomed piste. Sporting a unique use of titanal and a new progressive sidecut, this revamped ski surprised some of our testers with its significant improvements. Rossignol redesigned the hard-charging Experience 88 TI to make it a more versatile all-mountain ski. While it is still not your go-to powder or soft snow ski, some design and material changes have made it a more enjoyable ski in a range of conditions.
Previous versions of Rossignol's Experience line were known almost exclusively as stiff and fast carving skis. The new Experience 88 TI still has most of the carving capability of older iterations. Laying the Experience 88 TI over on edge is what this ski was designed to do. It is right at home on the hard pack and easily carves beautiful turns, especially at high speeds.
The ski ensures full edge contact throughout speedy turns with plenty of camber underfoot and a bit of rocker on the tip and tail. Even though the Experience 88 TI has what Rossignol calls an air tip, we didn't feel any of the minor chatter in the tip further down the ski.
Performance on Various Terrains
Groomers and Hardpack
This is where this ski belongs, ripping a wide-open groomer on a sunny day. Making quick tight turns on the Experience 88 TI feels natural. The ski is quite quick edge to edge and feels powerful and responsive with input from an aggressive skier. A less aggressive skier might experience slightly less performance when arcing turns on groomers but should still expect a fun short turn shape similar to other narrow-waisted skis.
As with most of our skis in the men's all-mountain category, the Experience 88 TI handles high-speed skiing very well. In fact, when you get the Experience up to cruising speeds, it is as consistently damp and stable as the Volkl Mantra M5. The Experience 88 TI can also be fun and controlled when going only Mach 4, and does not require Mach 5 to shine.
Read also: Sprayer Skis: Performance and Durability
Powder and Soft Snow
The newly redesigned Experience 88 TI has a tip shape similar to its more pow-oriented brother, the Rossignol Soul 7 HD. While this makes the ski slightly more floaty and easy to maneuver in powder conditions than earlier versions, it still dives too deep into the fresh. Rossignol changed the shape of the tips in the Experience 88 TI to more closely match their powder oriented line. The Experience is not a great pow ski, but obviously, some fun can still be had in the soft stuff. The Experience also felt too stiff to be playful in the fluff.
Crud and Chopped Snow
The Experience 88 TI can bust some crud. Thanks to its layers of titanal, this ski is able to absorb impacts from a variety of snow conditions. Overall, this ski is fairly damp. But the Experience 88 TI is best in the hands of experts when the snow conditions being to deteriorate. Despite a rounder tip and tale, the tip tends to deflect and the tail catches a bit. The Experience 88 TI takes an experienced rider to direct it through chopped up powder and refrozen chunks. Those layers of titanal can take the abuse, but you have to be prepared to as well.
Bumps and Moguls
The Experience is not the best ski we tested in the bumps, but thanks to its light weight and narrow waist, we successfully navigated most mogul fields. The Experience 88 TI may be stiff and ski long, but its narrow waist and newly progressive sidecut allowed our testers to navigate smaller and medium-sized bumps well. Tightly spaced, bigger bumps tended to buck our testers out of control.
Playfulness and Forgiveness
While the Experience 88 TI is not the most playful ski we tested, we put it through the wringer just like the rest of the skis. This ski not forgiving or of flexy, which are two traits our testers generally seek out when searching for a playful all-mountain ski. The Experience 88 TI did not feel dead, but it is unforgiving and demanding. The Experience 88 TI isn't playful by nature, but you can get it in the air. It's just that it takes the job a little too seriously.
Value
Rossignol has dropped the price point on their entire experience line, and so the Experience 88 TI is a better value than it has been in the past.
Read also: Comprehensive Review: Rossignol Black Ops
Final Thoughts
Rossignol has made some significant improvements to the Experience 88 TI and, in our opinion, made a better all-mountain ski. It does certain things well, like staying stable at speed and carving. It's new sidecut profile, slightly increased tip rocker, and light swing weight add to the skis ability in pow, bumps, and playfulness. Experts will enjoy the Experience on groomers and will be able to pilot it off-piste. Less experienced skiers will want to stick to the corduroy.
2019 Rossignol Experience 88 Ti Ski Review
SKI Test Scores
SKI's annual gear test is a week-long affair, during which 30 industry professionals click into more than 150 pairs of skis to weed out the best from the rest. Each year, SKI’s editorial team conducts one of the most rigorous and trusted ski tests in the industry. At the 2025 SKI Test in Big Sky, Montana, 30 experienced skiers from across the country tested 16 frontside skis in real-world resort conditions. To reduce subjectivity, all testers skied each model on the same day, in the same conditions, and submitted digital scorecards evaluating each ski across nine criteria, from hard-snow performance to playfulness to forgiveness and more. When judging the best frontside skis, we place the greatest emphasis on versatility, hard-snow integrity, and carving-three key indicators of a top-tier frontside ski. The Rossignol Arcade 88 earned consistently high marks across all categories, especially these three. Our ski reviews are the result of the largest, most rigorous on-snow test in the industry. We never charge brands to participate and don’t guarantee coverage-our annual SKI Test is a fully independent editorial project designed to deliver objective, in-depth reviews.
About SKI Test
Our 30 expert testers include ski instructors, ski patrollers, ski shop owners, hardgoods buyers, ski technicians, and race and freeride coaches. We handpick this crew for their professional expertise and intentionally include a range of body types, ages, and home mountains to reflect the broader ski community.
Long Term Updates
Philpug: The 2024 Rossignol Experience 86Ti is a carryover ski enhanced with N.G.T. (New Graphic Technology) from last year and honestly I don't see any reason to change it. From the huge performace window to the sublte graphics, the Exp86Ti has been a testers favorite. I will just let all of the long term updates speack for themselves.
Long term update (12/21/21): Have I mentioned that I like what Rossignol did with the all new Experience 86Ti? No? Well I do. The Experience 86Ti is indeed the best of the previous two incarnations, tight and solid built in turn of the original Experience 88 and the mixed snow versatility of the previous generation. How smooth is this new ski? I skied it all morning without ever setting the bindings, they were set on a 5.This new Rossignol had a construction that holds on the hard snow and enters and finishes a turn with the precision of a strong 86 yet doesn’t get hung up in the mixed conditions and bumps. I am not sure you can ask anything more from a ski in this class.
Long term update (12/31/21): I was hoping to spend more time on the 86Ti today, it was going to be a groomer zoomer day ... or at least I hoped it was. We got to Mt. Rose and the sky was blue and the main arteries were manicured, so I was hoping for some high G turns. Well that didn't turn out as planned. We got in one run on the groomers then ran into one of our posses that were hell bent on off piste. The conditions on the Slide side had some serious leftovers and while the 86Ti could handle them, we would be holding the group up. With all that said, in that first run and a short wind buff groomer section was enough to remind me that it was worth bringing the Rossis out. And if I know the same day would happen again, I would gladly bring the Rossis out because as they say sometimes one bite of steak is better than a whole hamburger.
Long term update (1/11/22): Welcome to Junuary in Tahoe when the sun will shine for a month and the snow will be groomer zoomers and chalky. This is the perfect playground for the Rossignol Experience 86Ti. Remember where I posted in my intial review as an Insider tip to bypass the Konect? Well, our ski arrived with it so I was left no choice to ski it this way and adapt and adapt I did. It is no secret that when I got a ski over 80 mm I want to be as low on the deck as possible and with the Konect being as tall as it is with a 34 mm, roughly a cm higher than it's flat mount counterpart I made a slight adjustment, I moved the binding back a cm and damn if that didn't do it, back to the Nth that I knew the 86Ti was capable of. I will be discussing this demo issue in another thread.
Andy Mink: Several runs at Mt. Rose on firm groomers with some wind buff spots and sugar on hard spots. No problem! The Exp 86Ti is deceptively quick edge to edge, holds on that edge hard, yet has the flexibility to bop down through some moguls or jump of the edge into skier and wind packed snow in the trees. The 86 skis quietly with little drama even crossing from small wind blown piles to the hard stuff where the snow in those piles used to be. I don't have the experience (get it?) with prior builds of the Experience line but if they were as good or better than this one Rossi should have left them alone. I'm glad they didn't.
Long term Groundhog Day update (2/2/22): I took the 86Ti out for some quick laps at Rose today. As has been the case recently the snow remains firm to hard in most places with minimal dust on crust. I didn't stay long enough for anything to remotely soften. My legs are a bit tired and the 86s were OK with that. Longer, easy carving turns instead of high G turns of which the skis are capable. Some tail swishing, slipping and sliding, in the trees. Just a mellow morning and I wasn't punished for not bringing my A game. It's nice to be on a ski that can literally go from 0 to ?
Wade Holiday: I had the chance to ski this ski with Phil, Andy, Trish and Stephen this week in that same wonderful mid winter snow Olympic Valley is famous for. Some hard snow, many chalky bumps, the occasional groomer to get myself to the next off piste playground. Coming from my stockli dampness, I was worried this ski would be too Lively and Loud, as so many are, but it has a nice quiet composed quality to it, I was very impressed. It's shape is super fun and engaging, the 16m shape skis fun, exciting, but their tip design turns it into a much more versatile 3D snow performer. I loved the tips distinct shape, that smooth early rise without taper that allowed you move it happily through the gullies, bumps, etc that the best off piste runs have to offer. Access groomers, did I say exciting! If you're only going to offer one narrow lasted boot aside from your race product, it better be a good one.
Alternative Rossignol Skis
Coming off the debut of a new flagship freeride ski, the Sender Free 110, Rossignol doubles down for 2024-2025. On tap? A powder version (the 118), and two all-mountain versions: a 92 and (drumroll) the Sender Soul 102. If you’re familiar with Rossi’s ski history, the name will be a dead giveaway. They want to mash up a classic (the Soul 7) with the Sender Free. It makes sense, and 102mm is an attractive waist width this year.
With the Sender Soul 102, Rossignol offers a full “unisex” size line. It’s a trend we love seeing expand this year. The shortest size will be 156cm, and the skis will scale up at 164cm, 172cm, 180cm, and 188cm. The Sender Soul 102 looks like a narrower Sender Free 110. It’s built like one, too, with a matching wood core and metal sheet underfoot (Rossi’s “central Ti”). The Sender Soul forgoes the carbon/basalt weave from the 110, which softens the flex pattern. Lower rocker, taller camber, and a more directional tail aim to make the ski more versatile for all-mountain terrain. Rossi’s aim? “Playful power,” like the Sender Free 110, and an inspiring ride like the Soul 7.
Rossignol Blackops 118 Skis
Rossignol engineers began working with Parker and their other freeride and freestyle athletes to create a suitable replacement. Parker stated: “When I received the first proto they nailed it, and asked them not to change anything. This limited production was continued until the 19/20 season, when it finally became widely available. In the initial year, the ski had a simple black topsheet, and was known only as the “BlackOps”. With the unveiling of the full Black Ops line up, the 118s have been declassified and renamed the Rossignol Black Ops Gamer Skis. Luckily the recipe remains the same.
Damp, muscular, and powerful, but incredibly easy to break free and pivot in soft snow, they're custom made for the hard charger looking to let loose during a storm and hoover up the leftovers the following day. 2023 - Limited Tatum Topsheet (176cm Only)Finding the right combination of playful surfiness and straightline stability in a pow ski is as tough as fishing a Rainbow out of the creek with your bare hands, but Rossi nailed it with the Rossignol Black Ops 118 Tatum Skis. Tatum Monod's signature ride is a straight-up 176 men's ski (have you seen her vids?) featuring a one-of-a-kind graphic by David Habben.
