As befits a longtime leader in women’s ski design, marketing and sales, K2 makes a slew of Frontside skis for women. The brightest star in this galaxy of models, the new Tough Luv, might be the best women’s Frontside ski K2 has made in years. An unapologetic carver from a brand best known for its off-trail collection, the Tough Luv’s new tip design quietly tucks into the top of the turn and continues on a tight trajectory with an exceptionally stout turn finish.“ This all carbon, no metal ski was great,” confides one of Willi’s Divas. “It’s flexible, it’s fast, and turns well. You can almost tell it was built for a woman.”
Three seasons ago K2 radically revised its ski design, ditching more than a decade’s worth of dampening material and generally paring away excess weight wherever it could. By its own estimation, it went a little too far, so last year K2 reduced the rocker and bolstered the construction of its new star, the Pinnacle 95, with more mass, metal and camber. None of these improvements altered its flagship’s easy-going nature, so the renamed (but not re- redesigned) Pinnacle 95 Ti remains mindlessly simple to ski. One reason the Pinnacle 95 Ti earns elevated scores for Forgiveness is it doesn’t need a high edge angle to hold, so Finesse skiers can tootle along with their feet comfortably underneath them and still ride a secure edge.
The story behind the 2019 edition of K2’s Pinnacle 105 Ti is a tale of error correction, optimization and resurrection. The first generation Pinnacle 105 was on the soft side, super easy to steer but showed its frailty at speed. In 2018, K2 powered up the Pinnacle 105 Ti by increasing the Titanal dosage over the edge by 20% and pumping up the camber underfoot. The resulting stability significantly improved both calm on edge and responsiveness. It’s amazing what a little more mass will do: the new Pinnacle 105 Ti now behaves more like a Power ski than a docile cruiser, although it hasn’t lost touch with the Finesse side of its personality.
The Catamaran’s fully rockered, twin-tip design is made by and for athletes who prize creativity over convention. Drifting isn’t a demerit but a form of passive aggression, a way for the skier to hit the brakes, focus in and straight-line to a massive air. The Catamaran can sustain this sort of treatment because its aspen/fir core is bolstered by carbon stringers strong enough to support a skier dropping forty feet to a switch landing.
The Pinnacle 118 was already nearly perfect pow ski before K2 decided to devote a spindle or two of its unique weaving octopus to carbon fiber, creating the Carbon Boost Braid. The all-glass Pinnacle 118 of yesteryear weighed almost as much as comparable models with two sheets of Titanal; the addition of carbon means the subtraction of glass, empowering the 2019 Pinnacle to do more with less. The interlacing of carbon and glass augments the Pinnacle 118’s established ability to ride just a thin rail of edge when all the pow it used to lean into is gone. In a field of drifters, the Pinnacle 118 is one of the few that can carve its way out of trouble
