Völkl has built an enviable reputation for its high-performance women’s skis, despite the fact that many of its most revered models – the Aura, Kiku and Kenja, for example – weren’t really women-specific models, but unisex skis in short sizes. The Secret 96 falls squarely in this tradition, for it faithfully mimics the construction of the new men’s M7 Mantra.
What makes the M7/Secret 96 design so remarkable is how its various features work together to create a ginormous performance envelope. One of its foundational elements is Tailored Titanal Frame, that breaks the usual topsheet of Titanal into three separate parts: two long-armed horseshoes wrap around the tip and tail, and a thinner, disconnected plate rides in the center. Just below this Titanal triad is a long slab of fiberglass, a coiled spring just waiting to be energized by compression. The fusion of the metal and fiberglass elements is what gives the Secret 96 its peppy rebound, a trait not often found in wide, all-terrain skis.
In the same iconoclastic vein, the two new features that elevate the performance ceiling of the 2025 Secret 96 – 4 Radius Drive and Tailored Carbon Tips – focus on sharpening the short-radius aptitude of the very tip of the ski, where every other ski that calls itself “all-mountain” is rockered entirely out of contact. The new features are meant to enhance the Secret’s ability to cut a clean, sharp corner into a short-radius arc, a level of steering accuracy that no other ski in the genre can match.
When the Blaze 106 debuted prior to the 20/21 season, it made no pretense about belonging to the same class of ski as the M5 Mantra or Kendo 88, Völkl’s established A-team. It aimed at an open opportunity to hit a lower price point ($599) and thereby poach one or two more slots of rack space from the competition. In order to control costs on this less expensive model, a central channel of the wood core was swapped out for… foam! (Pause for audible gasp from the Völkl faithful). A compensating benefit for the substitution of wood was that the ISO-core material was substantially lighter weight, so if anyone wanted to use the Blaze 106 for touring, the weight loss would be a bonus instead of a demerit.
Then along came a mild market disruption called Covid, and suddenly a ski that could do double duty in-resort or ex-resort was a hot commodity. Once the Blaze 106 established a beachhead, Völkl capitalized on its popularity by creating a full family of Blazes, a clan that now extends from an 82 to a 114. Every model family has an incarnation that maximizes the benefits of the design; among the Blazes, the 104 (née 106) owns that distinction. The narrower versions lack the power and punch of their all-mountain peers, while the widest surrender some versatility that the 104 retains.
It may seem silly to profess that merely slimming down a 106 to a 104 makes a difference in how a ski handles, but balancing the shape of the overall sidecut provides a better balance between how the ski handles manky crud and the inevitable hardpack. Of course, it’s hard to separate how much difference the skinnier silhouette makes compared to the contribution of an edge-to-edge Ti plate underfoot and further tweaking of the footprint to create a 4D Radius sidecut.
Taken as an ensemble, the improvements made to the Blaze 104 make it a substantially better ski than its predecessor, no matter who is using it or where it’s going, whether on the trail map or off it. Its light weight and peppy rebound will remind Old Schoolers of how all-glass skis used to feel, and skiers of all ages will like its ease of operation and confidence-building stability.
Don’t let the model name fool you: Völkl still calls this ski the Mantra 102, but the addition two years ago of Tailored Titanal Frame, Tailored Carbon Tips and a tweaked sidecut has totally transformed its personality. The Mantra 102 circa 2022 was a barely tamed beast, subduing all in its path; the latest incarnation is a pussycat that readily bends to its pilot’s will. It behaves like a different ski.
One measure of a ski’s steering facility is the skier’s perception of width. In its first incarnation, the Mantra 102 was notable for feeling wider than it measured; the 2024/25 version “skis narrower than indicated, making it very easy to turn,” according to veteran tester Theron Lee.
The combined effect of a triad of new features is what made the Mantra 102 suddenly so tractable. Like every Big Mountain ski in Christendom, the Mantra 102 is double rockered, but it imparts the sensation of full, tip-to-tail contact, in part because Tailored Carbon Tips keep the entire rocker zone quiet. Tailored Titanal Frame keeps the mass in the forebody proportional to the ski’s length, facilitating earlier turn entry. The slightly wider tip encourages more pull into the turn, opening up the short-radius spectrum, while the skinny tail helps the skier stay close to the fall line, making crud and powder a hell of a lot easier to plunder.
A big contributor to the Mantra 102’s outstanding performance on any snow surface is its first-in-class rebound coming out of the turn. Part of the magic of the Titanal Frame design is the freedom its three-piece top sheet has to flex and compress a full-length glass layer that reacts to this pressure like a coiled spring. Now that the Titanal Frame is tailored by size, the whole ski is more responsive. The Mantra 102 naturally rises as it uncoils during the turn transition, so it’s unweighted while crossing the fall line.
Regardless of how relatively narrow it feels underfoot, the Mantra 102 is still a wide and torsionally stiff ski, so it’s not ultra-quick edge to edge, but that’s its only performance limitation. In mid- to long-radius turns, it’s as secure as a Swiss bank account.
As was the case with its men’s counterpart – the Mantra 102 – last year, the latest bundle of modifications to the Secret 102 has infused it with a complete personality transplant. As succinctly summarized by former US Ski Team member Edie Thys Morgan in her review of the 2023 Secret 102, “This is not the ski for the faint of heart or of flex.” The 2025 Secret 102 has shed its hell-bent ways. It no longer seeks to subdue whatever gets in its way, instead responding to its pilot’s subtle suggestions with grace and poise.
What happened to turn a barely tamed bronco into a well-trained show pony? Two factors did most of the heavy lifting, Tailored Titanal Frame and Tailored Carbon Tips. In the original Secret 102, the forward section of the 3-piece Titanal Frame was a one-size-fits-all affair; as of the 2024 iteration, each size received its own part. This is of particular importance in the smaller sizes women prefer. Every aspect of the Secret 102 is size-specific, so shorter skis aren’t saddled with over-sized components.
Part of the reason that the double-rockered Secret 102 rips groomers like a fully cambered ski is the manner in which Völkl applies an extra dose of carbon to the shovel. Most carbon that goes into skis are either thin stringers or weaves in a pre-set orientation. To get exactly the pattern they wanted, Volkl engineers created hundreds of prototypes, stitching carbon thread into a fleece matrix to arrive at just the right dosage to keep the tip quiet.
In this ski’s original incarnation, the lightweight Blaze 106 W seemed best suited to intermediate to advanced skiers looking for a mellow drifter, but it found a second calling as an in-bounds/backcountry hybrid for experts who appreciated its light weight off-trail and more-than-passable performance on piste. For 2025, the newly anointed Blaze 104 W has been given such an appreciable upgrade that experts may gravitate to it based on its in-bounds performance alone, although its raison d’etre remains its proficiency off-piste.
What could have elevated the Blaze 104 W from an intermediate’s crutch to an expert’s daily driver? Part of the transformation was as simple as augmenting the core thickness, but more significant is a clever allocation of Titanal and glass that gives the cambered center of the ski far more power and bite when driven into the turn, married to an energy-fueled exit that makes flowing through the turn transition automatic.
Titanal laminates that run wall-to-wall in the ski’s midsection induce a calming effect that extends well past their footprint, giving the Blaze 104 W a security on edge you wouldn’t expect in such a light, fat ski. The new Blaze 104 W is skinnier than its predecessor, but that’s not the only reason it can cut a tighter turn. Völkl made the Blaze 104 one of the first of its collection to be the recipient of a 4-Radius Drive sidecut; an interesting choice, as 4-Radius Drive exists primarily to engage the first few cm’s in a short-radius arc, part of the ski every other model in the Big Mountain genre treats like a forgotten relative.
