Disruption 78 Ti
As is often the case in the world ski market, K2’s carving collection straddles the Technical/Frontside divide, with the vector models landing on the skinny side (in K2’s case, 71m-74mm waists), and the more versatile, less demanding (and often less expensive) models populating the slightly wider Frontside domain. In the Disruption series, the 78 Ti isn’t a watered-down carver, just a wider one, as it borrows the same construction and almost fully cambered baseline of the flagship Disruption MTi.
Both the power and forgiveness inherent in the Disruption 78 Ti derive from the same source, a single band of Titanal the runs nearly the entire length of the ski in a uniform width that matches the waist dimension. This creates an edge that holds firmly yet softly, as if its aluminum alloy guts were wrapped in velvet. On soft groomers, it feels like the edge is cushioned yet never loses contact, thanks in large part to a baseline that has zero tail elevation and only a smidgeon of early rise at the tip.
While the Disruption 78 Ti is a departure from K2’s twin obsessions with Freeride and Freestyle designs, it’s pure K2 in its emphasis on ease of use. You don’t have to have perfect timing or Navy Seal fitness, just point, tip, repeat, and look Ma!, you’re carving! Okay, it’s not quite that simple, but damn near. Anyone buying his/her first pair of skis who anticipates staying on groomers for the foreseeable future will discover that the Disruption 78Ti encourages proper edging skills without requiring them.
Disruption 82 Ti
K2 has always placed Forgiveness at or near the top of its hierarchy of desirable ski qualities. True to this heritage, the Disruption 82 Ti earned its highest marks for Forgiveness/Ease, which helped make it one of the few Finesse skis in a horde of Power-crazed carvers.
The most obvious reason why the Disruption 82 Ti comes across as easier to ski is its width; at 82mm underfoot, and with a less radical sidecut than most Frontside Power skis, it’s easier to throw into a drift and it won’t buck when introduced to ungroomed terrain.
The less transparent reason pertains to how it’s built: the Ti I-Beam that gives the Disruption 82 Ti its bite is only as wide as its midsection. This gives the edge elsewhere a subtle flexibility that’s ideal for anything but boilerplate or frozen ridges of spring corduroy. In softer snow, the less critical edge won’t try to dig its way to China the way a super-charged Power ski may. On mid-winter, early AM groomers, it’s delicious.
While it’s definitely a carver of the kinder, gentler variety, beneath its easy-going veneer it’s still a trench-digger at heart. The widest model in the Disruption clan, the 82 Ti is predisposed to a medium-radius arc that it can reel off without much effort on the pilot’s part. It stays connected in part because the Ti I-Beam runs tip to tail and in part because its baseline has only a teensy bit of tip rocker that doesn’t prevent the low-to-the-snow shovel from finding the edge at the top of the turn.
Mindbender 99Ti W
It’s instructive that the 99 Ti is the widest women’s Mindbender with Titanal Y-Beam; the next widest Mindbender, the 106C W, uses carbon as its principal structural element, as does the 115C W. This underscores the dividing line between a true all-terrain, in-resort ski like the MB 99 Ti W that will spend roughly half its life on hard snow, and a powder-specific board like the 106 C that could double as a sidecountry touring model. The metal that makes the 99 Ti W proficient on rock-hard groomers would add so much mass to a 106 it would be hard to push around off-trail and murder for climbing. Expert women who want an everyday, all-condition ski for in-bounds skiing should opt for the MB 99 Ti W and leave the wider Mindbenders for the rare powder day.
It bears mention that a skier of limited skills and off-trail experience probably shouldn’t be on a ski as wide as 99mm underfoot, and probably would be better served by a carbon chassis with minimal metal in its make-up, like the K2 Mindbender 90C W. Which isn’t a diss – a 99-waisted ski that sells for $750 should shift its suitability to meet the expectations of experts. Which is just what K2 has done.
Mindbender 89Ti W
The first Mindbender Ti collection, introduced in the pre-pandemic 19/20 season, adopted the Titanal Y-Beam construction developed for the women’s Mindbender 88 Ti Alliance for the entire Mindbender Ti clan, men’s models included. Last year’s re-design focused on re-shaping the Y-Beam from end to end, adding more metal just behind the forward contact point for more secure turn initiation, running edge-to-edge underfoot and substantially expanding the width of the Ti laminate at the end of the Y-Beam’s “handle,” so the edge won’t wash out under sustained pressure.
In the 2023 men’s (a.k.a. unisex) Mindbender 89Ti, our testers awarded the new model substantially higher scores than its predecessor, boosting it near the top of our Finesse ranks. As more data was collected this past winter, its boffo scores slipped in our standings towards the back of the pack. It’s not unreasonable to conclude that the woman’s model cloned from its bones would suffer the same fate if only more women testers were inclined to try it in the first place.
K2 claims that its changes to the Y-Beam configuration were intended to make the Mindbenders more accessible to lower skill skiers, but the more palpable effect is how the new Titanal Y-Beam appeals to the other end of the skills spectrum.