Tester: Kim Reichhelm
Testing powder skis is a real treat, but it’s also a real job. The K2 Alliance team of testers takes the same test run over and over again to find the skis that rise to the top consistently. The team varies significantly in our ski style, age, size and aggressiveness. The variety in our ski styles helps us find the best overall ski design for the customer. Our mission is to design skis that are high performance and complement our individual style, regardless of our stance and aggressiveness.
When the morning snow report is over five inches of fresh, the Mindbender 106C is my ski of choice. As is the case with the 90C, the 106C features Spectral Braid™, a combination of carbon and fiberglass woven at an angle around the aspen core. This first of its kind construction gives the 106C versatility, stability and control. It’s amazingly quick edge-to-edge and super stable in variable conditions. The 106C has the perfect amount of float for the freshies in the morning yet continues to be forgiving and fun as the day goes on. Be warned this is not a sissy’s ski. Demo this ski in different lengths before you buy. A little bit shorter might be a better call if you are not super strong or aggressive.
As befits the brand that made “rocker” an enduring entry in the ski design lexicon, K2 hasn’t paid much attention to the ski market below a 80mm waist width – where cambered baselines still dwell – since the brand lost interest in racing around the turn of the millennium. For 20/21, K2 has error corrected with a vengeance by launching the 10-model Disruption series of carving skis.
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. 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.
Based on its brand marketing over the last twenty years, you don’t expect K2 to show much interest in the Technical genre, much less produce a first-rate entrant. But the headliner of the new Disruption series, the MTi (the M stands for Mid-radius) shot to the top of a genre K2 has been successfully ignoring for decades.
Not only is the Disruption MTi a graceful carver, its slightly softer edge gives it a forgiving quality that’s a K2 hallmark. The main reason the Disruption MTi feels different on edge from, say, an e-Magnum, is because its Ti I-Beam metal laminate is only as wide as the thinnest section of the ski. As the ski widens at tip and tail, a gap grows between the Ti sheet and the edge. This allows the edge to give a little, which creates a cushioned ride on a firm surface.
To be clear: the edge doesn’t give out or wiggle around – despite its name, the edge grip is never disobedient or disorderly. If anything, the mildly less aggressive grip feels easier to trust in a fully-laid over carve. As testament to its most distinctive trait, the Disruption MTi earned higher aggregate points for Finesse properties over Power traits, an inverted ratio in the Technical field. Due to its markedly mellow character in a category dominated by brutes, we award the Technical genre’s lone Silver Skier Selection to the Disruption MTi.
The most obvious reason why the Disruption 82 Ti comes across as easy 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.
