Head was the first major ski brand to tie its fortunes to the success of the shaped ski revolution with its Cyber series. I remember being a guest at a major dealer event in Konigsberg, Austria in the 1990’s when the president of Head’s subsidiary muttered the brand’s new mantra in a funereal monotone: “Cyber is carving, and carving is Cyber.” You had to be there.
Point being, Head went all-in on the carving craze and never lost its passion for the genre, always working on the perfect tool for making a continuous, flowing arc on groomed terrain. When Head acquired a license to use Graphene, carbon in its most elemental form, it didn’t rush to apply it to its established Supershape collection, but did its homework for a few seasons, figuring out just where it belonged. In the end, the answer was of the “more begets more” variety, in this instance, more Graphene lightened the overall construction enough to allow Head to add more Titanal to its core quartet of carvers.
For 2025, the entire Supershape collection tacked in a different direction, again adjusting the balance between carbon and metal elements, this time cutting out some Titanal and subbing in carbon in the form of Crossforce Carbon in a mid-section patch. The net effect is a ski more responsive to pressure applied directly underfoot, creating a round turn with an energy boost at the bottom, propelling ski and pilot into turn after turn, without a break in the beat.
If this sounds like the e-Rally is the consummate, dual-track carving tool, well, it is. Even with a new, more svelte sidecut that slices through broken snow on a more even plane, the e-Rally still reserves its best behavior for the groom. All you have to do is tip it on edge and it will go find the top of the turn.
It requires sustained success for a model to achieve iconic status so that its name is nearly as well-known as the brand itself. The Strato. The X-Scream. The 5500. The Black Pearl. If a model becomes so important to a brand’s success that its name sticks around for a decade or more – in a market that usually operates at a roughly 4-year life expectancy between model make-overs – the ski beneath the name has probably been tweaked a few times over that span.
Cutting to the chase, the latest MX84 changed two fundamental elements to its classic chassis, the lay-up of the all-wood core and the composition of its signature feature, the Hollowtech tip. The Infini Core is a close relative of the cores used in Kästle’s race skis, giving the new MX84 the solidity and responsiveness of a competition model. The ski feels more substantial, not just underfoot, but from tip to tail. The slender poplar and beech vertical stringers provide the fully cambered baseline with just the right ratio between flex distribution and rebound.
The connection to the snow begins in the shovel, where the Hollowtech Evo upgrades its shock absorption effect with extra layers of dampening agents, so the tip stays welded to the snow. This isn’t just an advantage on groomers, where the shovel finds early engagement on hard snow, but in bumps, as well. Skiing moguls is transformed from a brutal mugging to feeling like your skis are just following gravity’s flow.
The 2024 MX83 was a very good ski; the 2025 MX84 is a great one, right there with the Stöckli Montero AR as a speed-loving, corner-hugging, crud-eating machine. You’d think the MX84 was made to be an all-condition ski until you roll it out onto a long, undulating carpet of corduroy, where it can display its electric talent for carving. No matter what tune you play in your head while you ski, the MX84 can dance to it.
Völkl has always cultivated a high-end clientele, both in terms of skill set and what they’re willing to pay for skis. The German brand has been so successful at cultivating an affluent, expert customer base that it has the enviable problem of being pigeonholed as a high-end ski for talented skiers. But even the expert-ski market has a price ceiling above which it’s risky to rise, which puts a damper on commercial adventurism.
But what if money were no object? To answer this envelope-pressing question Völkl created V.Werks, a special production unit that focused on the Holy Grail of ski design, superlight construction wedded to elite performance. The star product of the V.Werks lab was the Katana V.Werks, which remains in the line in 24/25. Its 3D.Ridge chassis worked so well, it became the backbone of Völkl’s non-race collections. Within a few years of the Katana’s introduction, its DNA had spread to nearly every corner of Völkl’s recreational collection. From a construction standpoint, the Katana became the conceptual grandfather of almost the entire line.
Five years ago, I speculated that the freshly minted Deacon V.Werks wouldn’t have the same downstream impact as the Katana V.Werks, but I may have spoken too soon. One of the most esoteric features of the Deacon V.Werks was a lattice-work of carbon fibers crisscrossing the tip, which inspired the Tailored Carbon Tips of the M7 Mantra and Mantra 88. Working in concert with Tailored Titanal Frame, Tailored Carbon Tips give the latest Mantras the same clear connection to the front of the ski found in the Peregrine V.Werks.
All carving skis are judged by how well they maintain edge connection throughout the turn on hard snow. Classically, the key to keeping a ski quiet all along its edge was to ladle on the Titanal, a proven method that achieves its damping objective in part by its mass. As an innovator in lightweight design, V.Werks instead turned to its wheelhouse material, carbon, to make a damp, non-metal ski that would be light and responsive.
