The entire Big Mountain genre owes K2 a debt of gratitude for championing the concept of rocker with such fervor that it was soon adopted as an essential design element for any ski over 100mm underfoot. As an early adopter of double-rockered baselines, K2 has a lot of institutional expertise at making a very wide ski that’s very easy to steer. The Mindbender 108 Ti continues this tradition of simplifying off-trail skiing with just the right balance of baseline, sidecut and flex pattern.
Two visible features give the Mindbender 108 Ti its signature look and associated behavior, Titanal Y-Beam and PowerWall. Ti Y-Beam is, as the name suggests, a slingshot-shaped yoke of Titanal that fortifies the tail and perimeter of the forebody. PowerWall elevates the midsection to amplify pressure over the camber pocket and direct more force to the edge. The tapered tip is allowed to distort as it shoulders its way ahead in tracked-up crud without affecting the tranquil ride behind it.
The Mindbender 108 Ti tries to win the war against crud by caressing it instead of crushing it. It has a gift for rolling to the edge that makes it feel quicker than the norm among skis of its 108mm girth. To execute a truly tight radius turn requires overruling its roughly 30m-sidecut radius and foot swiveling a flat ski, a move the Mindbender 108Ti has down pat. Its impressive 9.50 score for drift speaks to its ability to brake according to the current style that uses skidding as the primary form of speed management.
One of the Mindbender 108 Ti’s strong suits is its huge ability envelope, which means almost anyone can get on it and have a ball. The exception is big, fast skiers who can overpower its forgiving tail; but these Goliaths aside, anyone can get on an appropriately sized MB 108 Ti and fall in love on the first turn. Rafferty of Peter Glenn was wowed by its performance range: “What an aptly named ski for a 108 that turns smoothly and quickly edge to edge. A powder ski that holds like a much more metaled-up ski on boilerplate corduroy. It’s not a carving ski, but it carved like it was hungry for the next turn. In every condition and every moment I was on the Mindbender, I was in my element and getting an exhilarating ride. At the end, I wondered, how do they do that? That’s why they call it a Mindbender.”
Sawyer from Bobo’s echoed Rafferty’s report, calling the MB 108 Ti “very easy to ski even on firm snow, and very easy to keep on edge, so it didn’t overwork the knees. This is a great ski for the ambitious intermediate skier or an older skiing looking for a 108.”
It takes only one section of uncut powder to realize that this unsullied canvas is where the Mindbender 108Ti would prefer to display its artistry. Who wouldn’t rather ski unblemished freshies? By afternoon what was once pristine has become a mogul field. Remarkably, its soft, rockered forebody allows the 108Ti to conform to gnarly bumps – I’m looking at you, snowboarders – as if they were only a minor inconvenience. Because it isn’t torsionally rigid throughout, the Mindbender 108Ti doesn’t feel as wide as it measures. In soft snow it feels comfortable enough to be an everyday ski, but that’s asking a lot of a ski that likes powder as much as you do.
For the natural way it makes skiing deep snow seem mindlessly easy, we again award the Mindbender 108Ti a Silver Skier Selection.