Understanding what made the original Titanal Frame tick still matters, as the keys to its ingenuity haven’t changed. What Titanal Frame did was break up the customary topsheet of Titanal into three separate parts, deliberately disconnected but always acting in unison. Wrapping around the tip and tail were .6mm-thick Titanal stirrups that ended on either side of a .3mm central Ti platform. Already, we’re in contrarian country: Völkl is adding mass at the extremities while other brands are trying to do the opposite. Cutting the top piece into three, unconnected sections allows the thinner midsection to bow more easily under pressure, which in turn compresses a thick glass laminate ready to load with energy on command. In one stroke, Völkl engineers restored rebound energy to their their flagship (non-race) model. Then they used the rockered camber line to introduce a tight sidecut radius to the center of the ski that would only be engaged by a high edge angle. It’s effing brilliant.
The next stage in the evolution between the original M5 and today’s M7 was – drumroll, please – the M6, which introduced two refinements in 21/22: Tailored Titanal Frame and Tailored Carbon Tips. Tailored Titanal Frame trimmed the width of the front section of Titanal to fit each size, so smaller sizes didn’t overdose on Ti. Tailored Carbon Tips managed the dosage of shock-dampening carbon in the shovel, to improve early edge connection by keeping the ski tip on the snow.
In the new M7, Völkl reconfigured the web of carbon filaments right where the ski meets the snow, so the ski/snow connection can begin engagement all the way up in the tip, which has been given a new, slalomesque shape, so the skilled skier can tuck into a short turn the instant the skier drives into an early edge. The impetus to ride a high edge into a short turn is reinforced by an even tighter sidecut radius underfoot. The M7 is a skosh wider in the tail than the M6, which should only accentuate the sensation of a secure edge through every phase of a carved arc.
The net result of all these interwoven features is a ski that’s unusually quick to the edge and predisposed – given the proper prompting – to make a snug, short-radius turn, a rarity among skis this wide. I vividly recall the two runs I took at Mammoth during the regional trade fair with Tracy Gibbons, whose many accomplishments include a long tenure as a ski tester, so she knows how to put a ski through its paces. The snow was what I’d call “light chop,” inviting a full throttle. It was a gas to build up build up speed, then press into the tip, drop the hip and feel the G’s of a full-traction, spandex-tight turn. For a few moments, you don’t feel like an F1 driver; you feel like an F1 car.
This is not how skis this wide are supposed to behave. If you want to make a series of short, quick turns on most of the premier AMW models, you’d better be prepared to pick up your feet. They’d rather drift than carve. The M7 still has the requisite girth to drift whenever so commanded, but there’s nothing special about a wide ski’s ability to disengage the edge. It’s the M7 Mantra’s capacity for precise, responsive, short turns on command that make it special.
Here’s the best thing about how the M7 Mantra adapts its behavior to suit its pilot’s turning preferences: it’s not something you have to think about to activate; just go skiing. When you want it to drift, entering the turn through the side door, as it were, you’ll get no argument from the M7. When you treat it like a hard-snow carving ski, that’s the behavior you’ll get: it will curl into a tight trajectory like a cutting horse. The more steeply you set the edge, the faster it comes around, without ever feeling jerky or calling attention to its multi-radius sidecut. It’s as calm as a cucumber in a crisis, yet it’s livelier off a pressured edge – by far – than the norm in its genre.
While the M7’s signature innovations – 4D Radius Sidecut and a new Carbon Tip pattern – have yet to infiltrate the rest of the unisex collection – all elements of the M7’s design can be found in its women’s version, the Secret 96.