A superficial assessment of the new Völkl Secret based solely on its sidecut might conclude that’s it’s just a plumped-up Kenja with a millimeter more shape. But a well-made ski can never be reduced to just its dimensions, and the sister ski to the new M5 Mantra doesn’t take its cues from the Kenja or any other women’s ski extant. The differentiator is its Titanal Frame construction that uses .6mm stirrups of Titanal applied to the tip and tail, separated by an edge-to-edge .4mm mounting plate that lives between them. The more aggressive gals who charge the fall line are going to find the Secret a reliable companion that won’t hold them back, and its stability is a boon to those still polishing their skills.
Let the word go out across the land: the Mantra is back! The new M5 Mantra actually isn’t a replica of an older, cambered version revered by so many of the Volkl faithful; it has an identity all its own. The M5’s unique construction restores the cambered baseline and tighter waistline of earlier Mantras, but how its various components are assembled that set the fifth generation Mantra apart from its antecedents. Among all the things the new Mantra does better than the model it replaces – tighter turn entry, better edge grip on hard snow, a higher speed range – perhaps the most exciting is rebound, an end-of-turn kick in the pants that launches the skier out of the old turn and across the fall line. It’s a quality a lot of modern all-mountain skis are lacking and one the M5 Mantra glorifies.
When Völkl added 3.D Glass to the 90 Eight (and several other models) last season, it was a game changer. What had been a fairly docile off-trail specialist turned into a peppy all-terrain model that could handle its business on hardpack. The reason 3D.Glass made such a resounding impact lies in the way this bottom layer of fiberglass runs up and over the sidewall in the ski’s midsection, creating in essence the bottom half of a torsion box that marries up with the 3D.Ridge glass on top. By converting a laminate construction to a de facto torsion box, the 90 Eight became a firecracker off the edge, with better grip in all conditions.
