Audi RS4 Avant Competition

It has manually adjustable coilover suspension, Pirelli Corsa tyres and a sub-4-second 0-62 time, but is Audi's limited-edition, track-focused super-estate as uncompromising as it sounds?

TRUNDLING AROUND A COBBLED SQUARE in Ronda, warm Spanish sunlight dappling the pavé, my mind wanders, obviously, to skis. Nothing to do with the lengthy load space of the Avant that I'm in, but everything to do with the coilover suspension that is managing the multitudinous bumps of the stony surface beneath.

You see, the last time I bought some winter sports planks I did a bit of try-before-you-buy at an indoor ski slope in Milton Keynes. I had already invested the usual hours poring over catalogues and websites reading numerous reviews. I knew I wanted more width underfoot, with a bit more performance off-piste. A pair that was light, but still capable of speed. The options were whittled down and then I spent a couple of hours switching between demo models and testing each set on the artificial slope.

Some friends questioned the wisdom of this. What was I really going to learn about the skis on such a short, shallow incline? Surely it was as pointless as taking a new GT3 RS on a test drive slowly round a car park. Or a new RS4 Avant Competition around a cobbled square in Ronda.

But what I was interested in with the skis was whether I would be able to potter in them. I had faith that they would all perform as intended at speed and in powder and probably be far more capable than me. Outright performance was a given. What I wanted to discover was whether they would feel awkward and difficult to pivot when skiing more sedately with the family. I needed one pair of skis to do it all, and the slow stuff was the real unknown.