Luv Sick 80Ti
Meet Ms. Mid, aka the K2 Luv Sick 80Ti. Her waist width is in the middle of the Frontside bell curve. Her tapered tip and tail and all-terrain rocker gently disengage her extremities so she can concentrate her efforts on the middle. While her sidecut is capable of making a tight radius arc, she’d rather ride at a lower edge angle and peel off medium-radius turns to keep her speed – you guessed it – moderate.
Luv Struck 80
[The test results and review for the Luv Struck 80 are from 2016; its only changes for 2017 are cosmetic.] K2 has made a very tidy business out of coddling the recreational female skier, giving her the confidence to let her hair down and her skis run. The Luv Struck...iKonic 85Ti
The all-mountain skis K2 introduced last year looked nothing like the 15-year parade of models that preceded them. The older generation of K2’s earned a huge following by being super simple to ski and as damp as soup.
The new K2’s, christened iKonic, stripped away a decade’s worth of embellishments in search of a leaner, more sensitive ski that would be both lighter and more reactive. To make a possibly inappropriate extended metaphor: compared to skiing, say, the Aftershock, skiing the iKonic 85 Ti is like waking up inside a B movie to find your wife is suddenly 20 years younger.
Luv Machine 74Ti
K2 learned from past mistakes not to overload a women’s ski with metal, but a single dose of Titanal gives any ski more bite on hardpack and superior serenity at speed. The Luv Machine has a Titanal laminate to reinforce its Channel Light Core, made from fir, bamboo and Paulownia with milled out sections to further trim away ounces. A fully cambered baseline gives the Luv Machine extra zing, carrying the skier effortlessly through the turn transition. Light as cotton candy with the gripping power of caramel, the Luv Machine 74Ti is one sweet ride.