1 / 2DPS Lotus 138
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PTO Verdict
“Ninety percent of this ski is rockered. It is built to plane rather than grip, and DPS is candid that deep snow is the whole brief.”
Best for: Days that are already deep, on terrain wide enough to let a long arc finish. DPS's own words for the job are storm riding, heli laps and sleeper days when conditions align, and it calls the ski intentionally niche and intentionally pure. Read that as a quiver ski: it earns its place on the deep days and sits out the rest. It suits the skier who wants the banked, drifted turn DPS describes on the page — the brand's own phrase is that it feels more like surfing than skiing.
Not for: Firm snow, and anything narrow. With a tenth of the ski left as running edge under a 138mm platform, hard mornings are somebody else's ski, and DPS makes no groomer or edge-hold claim for this model in either of its sources. Skip it for trees and couloirs as well: 32m is the longest radius DPS publishes anywhere it sells skis, and its own 18m Koala shapes are the tool for tight terrain. Skip it if it has to cover a whole season by itself — DPS points the ski at bottomless snow and calls it intentionally niche, intentionally pure. And skip it until the paperwork is settled: two radius figures, three length figures and two prices are published for this ski, and that is a question for the factory. We would ask it first.
At a Glance
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Description
The DPS Lotus 138 is a powder ski built around a 138mm waist, the widest waist DPS publishes, and DPS files the whole Lotus family under Powder in its 26/27 taxonomy. The brand is plain about the job in a way marketing copy rarely is: a deliberate, uncompromising tool built for one purpose, skiing deep snow, best enjoyed when the snow is bottomless and the terrain is wide open.
The layup is the Lotus construction, five items long: a textured topsheet, a High Modulus Full Carbon Laminate, a poplar wood core, Rockwell 48 steel edges, and a World Cup race base carrying the Phantom Glide treatment. No metal laminate appears on that list. The ski states part of its own case: the 26/27 topsheet is printed Full Carbon, 147 / 138 / 143, and 32.
Rocker is where it parts company with its own family. DPS prints 45% rocker and 55% effective edge for the Lotus 112, Lotus 117 and Lotus 124; here it prints 90% and 10%. Published weight is 2,000g per ski at the long length. DPS describes the outline as long and tapered, a shape it says planes fast, releases easily and surfs across the snow.
Three of the published numbers disagree with each other, and it is better to know that before choosing a length. Radius: both dpsskis.com pages say 32m, the printed workbook says 18m. Length: the online spec table shows one column headed 191cm while the size selector on the same page sells 182cm and 192cm. Price: dpsskis.com asks $2,495, and DPS's own Fall 2026 dealer price list prints $1,795 against the Lotus line. Bindings are bought separately, and a technician handles the fitting work.
Specs
- Waist: 138mm
- Turn radius: 32m on dpsskis.com and on the ski's own topsheet (the printed Workbook says 18m)
- Profile: 90% tip/tail rocker / 10% effective edge
- Shape: Powder specialist
- Core: Poplar wood core
- Construction: High-modulus full carbon laminate; Rockwell 48 steel edges; World Cup race base with Phantom Glide
- Weight: 2,000g per ski (192cm); DPS publishes no weight for the 182
- Lengths: 182 / 192
Details
- Type
- SKI
- Vendor
- DPS
- SKU
- S-L138-182PL
- UPC / GTIN
- 810182503417
182
DPS Lotus 138
By PTO Team, Based on the official DPS 26/27 workbook, dpsskis.com read end to end, the Fall 2026 dealer price list and the 26/27 topsheet itself · Spec and construction analysis
The take
“Ninety percent of this ski is rockered. It is built to plane rather than grip, and DPS is candid that deep snow is the whole brief.”
Treat all of this as spec analysis. DPS has built much older generations of this shape, differently constructed, so writing about those does not describe this one. DPS's own page carries a signed testimonial from a shop owner, and a quote a brand reprints on its own storefront is not something a customer can check.
Put it beside its own family and the steps are clear: 112mm on 15m, 117mm on 21m, 124mm on 23m, then 138mm on 32m. The 32m is the figure DPS prints on the website and stamps on the ski; its own printed workbook says 18m, and the two figures stand unreconciled in DPS's own sources. That last move is 14mm of waist and 9m of sidecut at once. Weight is the part people guess wrong. DPS publishes 2,000g per ski here, against 2,200g for the Lotus 124 at 191cm and 2,300g at 189cm for the Koala 111 on DPS's site, 2,200g in the printed workbook, so the widest ski in the catalog is not the heaviest one.
Sizing is where DPS says the least and where a shop earns its keep. DPS gives the Lotus 112, 117 and 124 a chart with Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced columns over three to five height bands. This one has a single row: skiers from 165 to 193cm, All Experience Levels, one length — and the length it names, 191cm, is not one of the two the same page sells. DPS's own store sells 182cm and 192cm, ten centimeters apart, with no guidance between them. That gap belongs at a counter with your boots, your terrain and your usual snow in the conversation.
Price is the other thing to settle early. At $2,495 this is the highest-priced ski on dpsskis.com, $700 clear of the three other Lotus models, while the brand's Fall 2026 price list for dealers puts $1,795 in its retail column for the whole Lotus family, and the order paperwork in our hands agrees with that column. We would confirm the figure with DPS before quoting it.
None of that softens what the ski is. DPS sets its own conditions dial at 80 of 100 toward soft and the fun factor at 100, and calls the ski intentionally niche. It also puts turn shape at 40 of 100 toward large, which reads strangely beside a 32m sidecut until you reach the personality note, where the brand describes a banking, drifting turn. Read together, that is a ski you steer with the whole platform.
Bindings we'd pair with it
Mount point: Sold flat. The order flow on the brand page offers a recommended point or a custom offset from it, but no distance from center or tail is published in either DPS source, so no figure is quoted here. Our pick: A resort binding, chosen and fitted in the shop.
- A resort binding, chosen and fitted in the shopLift-served and helicopter-served deep days, the use DPS describes for it
DPS offers a single alpine binding beside this ski in its own order flow and does not attach its Recommended badge to it here, though it does on two sibling Lotus pages — a note about what the brand sells alongside, not a compatibility ruling. Bring your boots. Mounting, brake-width match and release settings are handled by a technician at fitting.
No release value, brake width or boot-sole standard is quoted here; those are determined by a technician at fitting, with your boots in hand. DPS attaches no climbing skin to this ski in its own order flow, though it does on two of the sibling Lotus pages.
Common Questions
- What is the turn radius of the DPS Lotus 138?
- DPS prints two different figures. Both dpsskis.com pages give 32m in the spec table and again in the badge line above it, and 32 is stamped on the ski itself, directly beneath 147 / 138 / 143 on the 26/27 topsheet. The printed 26/27 workbook gives 18m instead. We use the 32m figure because two of the three sources carry it, including the ski itself, and we print the 18m figure alongside it so you can see the disagreement.
- What lengths does the DPS Lotus 138 come in?
- The size selector on the brand page sells two, 182cm and 192cm, and the workbook prints the same pair. The spec table on that same page has a single column headed 191cm, and the size chart points every skier from 165 to 193cm at 191cm. The topsheet is printed 192. So the figure that appears twice on the website is the one the ski itself does not carry, and the sizing call is worth making in person.
- How much does the DPS Lotus 138 cost?
- dpsskis.com asks $2,495, which is the highest price on that site. DPS also publishes a Fall 2026 price list for its dealers, and its retail column shows $1,795 for the whole Lotus family, with no separate line for this model. Two DPS documents, two figures. We would confirm which one applies with the factory before quoting a price.
- Does the DPS Lotus 138 have metal in it?
- No metal laminate is on the list DPS publishes. The Lotus construction list has five entries and none of them is a metal laminate — carbon does the stiffening work over a poplar core, and the topsheet is printed Full Carbon. Two caveats worth knowing: the ski has steel edges, and DPS advertises an aluminum tail bar across its whole range. So the honest claim is about the layup, not about the ski.
- Is the DPS Lotus 138 good on groomers?
- DPS does not claim it is, in either the workbook or on the product page, and the published geometry explains the silence: 138mm underfoot with 90% rocker leaves a tenth of the ski in contact with the snow. Treat firm-snow days as a job for a different ski.
- What is the DPS Lotus 138 20th Anniversary Edition?
- A separate product on the brand site, sold in a colorway called Heritage Red at 192cm, the one length its size selector offers, while its spec table reuses the same 191cm column, the same 32m and the same $2,495 as the standard page. DPS's other documents are silent on it: the 26/27 workbook does not list the edition, and the dealer price list carries one figure for the whole Lotus family with no line for this model. DPS does not say what the anniversary treatment changes beyond the colorway.
