The 2025 Bishop Chedi

• Lengths: 164cm, 174cm, 184cm
• Sidecut: 130mm - 100mm - 116mm
• Radius: 19.4m (@164cm) 21.2m (@174cm), 23.1m (@184)
• Profile: early-rise tip, camber underfoot, flat tail
• Weight: (per pair) 3270g (164cm), 3450g (174cm), 3630g (184cm)

Shape, Flex, and Construction

The Chedi’s construction, like the rest of Bishop’s line of skis, strikes a continuity with other modern telemark-friendly models. Not unlike Voile’s free-heel ready Endeavor, the Chedi has a damp poplar core that grants a welcome free-heel flex, and can keep a telemark binding in place over repeated use compared to featherweight but weaker wood cores. And, like Voile’s model, the Chedi employs standard camber underfoot along with an early-rise tip and a standard, flat tail: A tried-and-true formula that still takes to a telemark turn exceptionally.

Even at 100mm underfoot, the Chedi is nimble, skiing quickly foot-to-foot. Owing to the Telem-Arc Technology developed by owner and designer Dave Bombard, Bishop’s skis have a large, pronounced front mounting zone that bubbles significantly with high side walls before tapering quickly to a flatter heel zone that is not reinforced for a binding mount.

This design marks an evolution in Bishop’s offerings. As Bombard told me last spring, “the Chedi was the first ski we came out with. Early on it was more like ‘oh, that’s the shape I wanted.’ It wasn’t really specifically a telemark ski. Like every other telemark ski, you could mount it alpine.”

Bombard eventually repositioned his skis as telemark-specific models after considering a rear mountain zone was unnecessary for free-heelers. “A few years after that I was like ‘we could actually take advantage of the fact that we only need like this much of the ski as the deck, right? Where all the force goes through,” Bombard says, pointing to the front of the ski.

“No force goes through the back. So I was able to really change the design where we reinforce the front mounting zone a ton but then allow the tail to taper a lot earlier so that’s really unique for our skis,” Bombard concludes. Bombard also designed the skis with a sidecut pattern and longitudinal construction that also takes into account a telemark binding’s strain on the engaged, uphill ski. Bishop’s skis thus strive to flex more naturally for a telemark turn.

I chose to mount the skis roughly 3cm aft on the front mourning area with 22 Design’s new resort binding, the Bandit. Tuning the binding to a neutral flex, and pairing the setup with Scarpa’s new and rethought TX Pro–and then Scarpa’s TX with a robust Zipfit liner–the setup skied responsively in all conditions with a power and poise that nearly amounted to an epiphany for this cable-loving free-heeler. The confidence on edge was inspiring, especially on firm snow. The Chedi even took to icy early-season bumps with a commanding grace.

On-Snow Performance

It’s simply a fun ski–and an eminently apt choice for the crop of stouter modern free-heel bindings. While that may sound like a capitulation to the more rigid new telemark norm, the Chedi–paired with modern boots and bindings–still grants a freedom of flex that is purely telemark. The ski turns when I want it to turn; it goes where I want it to go. And for a bigger plank (yes, I think 100mm is a fat ski) the Chedi is surprisingly dextrous, and can find a home on edge in firm conditions, in long arcs, blasting through whatever comes at it. But it can also make snappy short-radius turns. And its damp flex allows the model to ski more dexterously than other 100mm underfoot skis with more unforgiving, rigid constructions.

It’s a model–and a boot-binding-ski interface–that I can’t help but recommend. Though the ski isn’t as at home in big moguls or presumably on the skin track as a narrower or lighter model would be, respectively, to critique the ski on what it does well is difficult without nitpicking. It would be my first choice for deeper resort days, or a backcountry-adjacent experience (that doesn’t require personal locomotion) like lift-served sidecountry laps.

If anything, the price may be a deterrent for some. With an MSRP of $869 (and few options to buy at a discount) the Chedi certainly has a price point indicative of a boutique luxury model–which it is. The skis are manufactured for Bishop by Never Summer Snowboards in Denver, Colorado, whose renowned craftsmanship is evident in this line of skis. And the Chedi is in line with other smaller, domestic ski makers on price. Voile’s skis, for example, are only marginally cheaper.

But if I had to diverge from more pragmatic musings and ruminate instead on what the ski represents in a more universal sense, the Chedi is part of a powerful triumvirate of modern telemark gear that has at long last arrived. Along with Scarpa’s new line of telemark boots–beginning with this year’s revamped TX Pro (though this ski will more aptly pair with the new TX Comp, set for release next fall) and the ascendance of aggressive, efficient, and often resort-oriented bindings like 22 Designs’ Bandit and Bishop’s own BMF/3–a new telemark gear paradigm has arrived.

Who is the Bishop Chedi for?

Telemark is so often conflated with touring and backcountry skiing. And while one could tour on the ski and be happy with it, to call it a touring model would be to engage in hyperbole. What the Chedi helps exemplify is that there now exists an amazing set of resort-bound telemark gear available. This paradigm is powerful, responsive, and aggressive. And with a strong downhill ideal, it's eminently exciting and, above all, fun.

If more people can experience this; if these brands can succeed in turning people on to this new vanguard of free-heel equipment that brings the excitement of the telemark turn to the forefront, we could indeed see many more people taking to the ancient turn. This new platform not only grants more power and precision than telemark’s gear of old, it seems to allow for a quicker learning curve compared to the sweet flexing but challenging-to-ski 75mm norm, though it grants few if any true shortcuts in the long journey of learning the telemark turn.

But, maybe most importantly for a sport that longs for sustained growth, this new set of gear is also vastly more marketable, with a hip, newer guard seeming to take to it in numbers.

The Chedi is part of this new wave of gear–and though its price point and boutique nature may ever keep it from voluminous sales, it nonetheless showcases the potential a hard-skiing, telemark-specific plank can have for the free-heel gear paradigm.