can anyone give me some info (from experience) about these skis. i hear good things but i'm a little worried that they may be too fast. i have 170's (i got them for under $600 from a friend in europe). i plan to go to a carving course in italy in february. i was advised by a good source that this would be a great ski, so i bought them.

That's quite a bit of ski.

How tall are you?

... and what is your weight? Skiing style (mostly carving, mostly skidding, slalom, GS, Super G?)? Level of skiing (I, II III, III+ skier)? If you are at least a II-III skier and if you weight at or under 160 lbs and do SL-slow GS turns and carve mostly, you are right on, or if you skid mostly at the same weight. If you want true GS turns you need to go over 170cm at 160 lbs. If you weigh more and carve GS turns you need 184 cm at least. I weight 140 lbs, type III+, and use 160 cm for SL, 184 for GS, 178 for off-trail/ungroomed/powder (I don't straight-line chutes like Jeremy Nobis). Add 10 CM to the above if you are over 180 lbs. ... just general rules of thumb.