GS race skis rule the open slopes, and they do so mercilessly, running as hot as they can. They oblige the skier to see things their way, rather than submit to some half-ass effort at arcing. They don’t show much interest in deviating from the fall line until they reach Mach One, and even then they don’t bow into fat, round arcs but barely deflect off their beeline course.
Like many gross generalities, the statements above don’t pertain to every member of the GS family. True, several non-FIS GS skis behave like über-specialists that only respond to well-trained technique, but Völkl got the memo that GS skis ought to be generalists, not specialists. The Racetiger GS can tuck into almost any shape of turn, grab it by the throat and ping off the edge with the energy normally associated with a slalom ski. Far from being finicky, it earned the best aggregate Finesse score among all the GS entries in the genre.
Back in the day, liveliness was a common trait among performance skis. With the advent of shaped skis, advanced technique involved maintaining snow contact through the end of the arc. Popping off the snow became a faux pas, rockered tips reared their ugly heads and camber lines flattened out like deflated tires.
By freeing up the fiberglass in its belly to compress, Völkl’s M5 Mantra creates the energy to recoil off the edge and fire the skier through the turn transition. It’s expert skiing as it used to be, before it became popular to make off-trail skis that were built more for skidding than carving.
The M5 Mantra is the antidote to the smeary ski. It’s not a ski for floating over fluffy drifts of powder. Instead, it dives into pow and blows it up from the bottom, using the energy out of the turn to bring the ski up to the surface like a dolphin. No other ski in the genre is as firmly committed to carving through thick and thin as the M5.
For the skier with established carving skills looking for a ski unintimidated by rough-and-tumble terrain, the revitalized M5 Mantra is your kind of board. The M5 was focused from its conception to serve the needs and meet the expectations of experts, which is why it doesn’t smear as readily as the rest of the AMW contingent.
You can feel the power percolating under the hood of the Mantra 102 before you have it out of first gear. Even though it’s “only” 102mm underfoot, it feels more substantial. At slow speeds, its triple-radius sidecut (long-short-long) encourages the Mantra 102 to stay close to the fall line so it can pick up enough inertia to show its other moves.
Once you’ve shown it you care by injecting speed into its veins, the Mantra 102 becomes more compliant. Even though it’s double rockered, its Titanal Frame design, which puts more mass around the tip and tail, keeps nearly the full length of the ski engaged. While not exactly nimble – its lowest score is for short turns – it doesn’t have to be, for whatever lies in its path better get out of its way or face extinction.
This “Mantra über alles” attitude is unusual in a Big Mountain genre where Finesse skis are in the majority. The Mantra 102 has as much interest in floating over new snow as a bathysphere, and would rather pummel a patch of soft snow than caress it.
If you’d had difficulty finding a Big Mountain ski that’s able to support your mass and your mojo, your search has ended. I’m sure that someone whose nickname is Bruiser will use the Mantra 102 as his everyday ski, but its glory is a wide-open crud field where it can cut loose like an extra-large GS race ski with anger issues.
The new Kanjo 84’s 3D Radius Sidecut is like an onboard coaching tool: the better the skier’s technique, the more often he’ll activate the Kanjo 84’s tighter turning center section. The more the skier can load the ski at the turn’s apex, the greater the rebound off the edge and across the fall line.
This level of performance “would not disappoint an advanced skier,” observes ski coach and tuning technician extraordinaire Theron Lee. “Smooth and easy turning, it’s able to carve with technique but just as happy to slarve into turns. Its fairly big sweet spot allows for a wide range of abilities, from solid intermediate level on up.”
Almost any model priced at the Kanjo 84’s $700 MSRP will satisfy the low-bar demands of intermediates. The beauty of the Kanjo 84 is it won’t overwhelm the first-time ski buyer yet has the performance ceiling of a much more expensive model. For a skier who can only get out a few times a year and is likely to spend that time on groomers, the Kanjo 84 is an outstanding value.
In last year’s review of the Kendo 88 we predicted that it would be Ski of the Year and indeed it was, both for Realskiers and many other pundits. The quality that continues to distinguish the Kendo 88 from a very strong field is that it seems able to raise its game in every circumstance. No matter how or where the skilled pilot asks it to stretch its performance limits – go faster, react quicker, ride quieter, dice up bumps or cruise groomage – the Kendo 88 handles it all in stride.
The single most important quality an all-mountain ski can possess is total indifference to terrain selection. On this score, the Kendo 88 has no peer. It transitions from wind-affected crud to crisp corduroy as if those two conditions were the same. On hard snow, it’s so quick to the edge the skier can’t even tell it’s rockered and it’s so stable in crud you can relax, drop the reins and let the boys run.
The Kendo 88 uses a “3D Radius Sidecut” with a long radius forebody, a tight shape in the midsection and longest radius in the rear. This allows it to behave like a GS cruiser at relatively low edge angles and morph in a moment to a snappy SL when its tilted and pressured. An energetic turn finish isn’t unique to the Kendo 88, but it’s nonetheless a relatively rare commodity in today’s market.
