The Head Kore 105 is the perfect ski for our times. No, it doesn’t promote universal love and understanding among all people, but it does what it can, considering that it’s a ski. It’s not just that it’s the lightest ski in the genre, it’s how that light weight contributes to a quickness off the edge that makes the Kore 105 feel narrower than its actual dimensions.
Another reason that the Kore 105 behaves like a skinnier ski is it adheres to a metal-free diet; the absence of Ti laminates softens its torsional rigidity, enabling it to conform to terrain rather than attempting to subdue it. This business about feeling narrower matters because it makes it reasonable to consider the Kore 105 as an everyday ski for western resort skiing.
Its ultra-light weight also makes the Kore 105 an ideal in-resort/backcountry hybrid. The biggest concern any backcountry skier has about a super-light ski is that it will be great going uphill and suck on the way down, which sort of defeats the whole purpose. There’s zero chance the Kore 105 will flame out on the descent, as it’s far more substantial than any AT model of which I am aware.
The entire Kore line received a suite of upgrades this year, which taken in toto tipped the Kore 105 over the Power/Finesse divide. Head deleted synthetic Koroyd honeycomb from the core, replacing it a combination of poplar and Karuba. It also softened up the 105’s flex, part of an overall strategy to make the wider Kores better adapted to deep snow and the narrower ones more attuned to prepared slopes.
Another factor that makes the entire 21/22 Kore series easier to steer off-trail is a beveled top edge that allows the ski to slice sideways almost without resistance. As foot steering is more necessity than indulgence when the snow is up to your knees, the smooth move the 105 makes laterally drastically reduces the amount of effort it takes to steer.
The final piece of the new Kore 105 picture is a new size run from 163cm to 191cm at 7cm splits. When selecting your ideal size, think about weight distribution – the more you weigh, the more ski you need – and flex. If you go too long, you might not be able to bend the ski, a necessity both for steering in general and for inducing the rebound energy that makes it effortless through the turn transition.
When designers are working with a new material, it takes a while to figure how to optimize it. Head was using Graphene in its skis for six years before it was ready to roll out the original Kore 105 and its kin. Somewhere in that process it adopted a few current conventions, such as tips and tails that are rockered and tapered so neither can take over a turn. Because the Kore 105 is so stout underfoot, its relatively inert extremities don’t dilute its hard snow holding power.
The Kore 105’s sidecut is shallow for a Head, with only a 30mm drop between the widest point just behind the shovel and the waist. The relatively mild tip-to-center taper angle harkens back to the first years of shaped skis. Then as now, the less radical shape allows the ski to plane more evenly through snow that’s anything but level, softening the blow from the constant changes in consistency. “It powered through dense, tricky snow like it was two feet of champagne!” crowed a tester from Boot Doctors. “It sailed past other skiers who were flailing in the unpacked snow.”
The new Kore 105 isn’t finicky about anything. Not turn shape, not speed and certainly not snow conditions. It moves across the boundary between carving and drifting without the slightest hitch in its stride. Perhaps its most profound personality trait is its instant adaptability to any situation; there’s no need to adapt to it or ski it in any special way just because it’s light. Just hop on and ski as you naturally would. Only with less effort, a formula that works for anyone.
For continuing to fulfill the promise inherent in Big Mountain skis – that they’ll make off-trail skiing easier – we again award the Kore 105 a Silver Skier Selection.
