Every product line needs a star, and for Atomic’s Vantage series, that star is the 90 CTi. Its lightweight construction belies a deep power reserve, capable of cutting into Vermont marble-hard boilerplate or turning aside a boulder of ossified Sierra cement. It’s a ski seemingly without preferences, willing to make short turns or long, at putter-along speeds or with the gas pedal floored.
Perhaps best of all for the skier who hopes to ski 50 days a year and ends up with 20, the 90 CTi isn’t an elitist that requires top-shelf management to release its potential. It doesn’t care where or how you like to travel, and won’t place limits on your opportunities to explore off-trail conditions.
Unlike most made-for-women skis, the Vantage 90 CTi W pulls practically no punches compared to its men’s counterpart. Its all-wood core is a little lighter, that’s it. The women’s ski still sports a cutout Titanal sheet called Titanium Backbone 2.0 that’s a principal contributor to the ski’s success in cruddy conditions.
The other special sauce that elevates this Vantage’s versatility is the Carbon Tank Mesh. Covering the length of the ski, the carbon component pumps up the performance in every criterion. The 90 CTi W’s relative quickness to the edge for a ski 90mm wide at the waist is directly attributable to the torsional rigidity delivered by the Carbon Tank Mesh.
If everyone in skiing is part of a family, then the Orb is for the young uncle who only gets out on weekends. He spends most of his precious ski time inside the resort boundary but prefers to get off-trail if conditions are decent. He’s a good skier and would be great if only he skied more.
If he gets a pair of Black Crow Orbs, he may chuck work all together. The tapered forebody and mildly rockered baseline are ready to party off-piste, but with two Titanal laminates on board, the Orb is so strong on edge it doesn’t really care where you send it. Its tip design obliges the Orb to be loose at the top of a laid-over turn, but once it settles into the arc it’s as solid as the Mont Blanc massif. The once rebellious boys of the Chamonix backcountry now are making perfectly balanced skis that any member of the ski culture can climb on and relate to immediately.
The new and improved Stormrider 88 would win top honors in “Switzerland’s Biggest Loser,” as it shed 570g from its 2016 frame. They say fat equates with happy, but getting lighter seems to have made the Stormrider 88 mellower and easier to handle at low speeds.
The Stormrider 88’s crash diet raised its scores for Finesse properties across the board, and its global Finesse grade from B+ to A+. That the 2017 model became so much easier to ski cautiously without paring away the high-octane performance with which Stöckli is synonymous, is a remarkable feat of ski engineering.
