It was partly to appeal to the greater swath of the market who shun the pinnacle of the price pyramid that last year Völkl launched the Blaze series. At a $599 street price, the Blaze 106 hoped to attract the economy-minded in the market for a lightweight, off-trail ski. To hit the lower price point, it reduced its use of Titanal down to a mounting plate and lightened up the core considerably: a 186cm Blaze 106 weighs in at a mere 1772g, compared to 2330g for a 184cm Katana 108.
While the lower price no doubt made the Blaze 106 more attractive, it was its super-light chassis that made it an overnight star. The demand for skis that would work both in-resort and in the backcountry went off the charts last season. The Blaze 106 waltzed into what was, until recently, a niche market hoping for a warm reception, and instead encountered a firestorm of demand for its new hybrid.
Meghan Ochs is power personified; you’d expect her to fold the Blaze 106 (which also comes in an identical women’s version) like it was made of meringue. Instead, she was stunned by its capabilities, calling it “one of my favorite skis I’ve ever skied at this width. Shocking!” If you want your next powder skis to be equally adept in-resort of out of bounds, the Blaze 106 has you covered.
Not since the first Cochise rolled off the production line nearly a decade ago has there been a Big Mountain ski like the Völkl Mantra 102. You can feel the power percolating under the hood 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. “It’s super stable in hardpack or crud,” confirms Patrick McCloud from Peter Glenn. “Somehow it manages to perform like a narrower waisted ski on the hard stuff but like a big ski in the soft stuff and crud. Very impressive.”
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.
If you’d had difficulty finding a Big Mountain ski that’s able to support your mass and your mojo, your search has ended. The only other ski in the genre that can match its bottomless power reserve is its big bro, the Katana 108.
Any time a brand introduces a fundamentally new technology, it takes a couple of years to learn how to optimize it. Now that Völkl engineers have tinkered with Titanal Frame for a few seasons, testing countless iterations, they’ve found a way not only to perfect the benefits of Titanal Frame, but to magnify its virtues with a couple of complementary components. The marriage of the new Tailored Titanal Frame with 3D Radius Sidecut and Tailored Carbon Tips has created a new benchmark for the genre, that will, in all probability, soon be recognized as one of the greatest all-terrain skis of all time.
New for 2021/22 is Tailored Titanal Frame, that trims the width of the front section of Titanal to fit each size. Compared to the M5, the M6 Mantra has a kinder, gentler personality in sizes below 184cm.
The key to the Mantra M6’s off-the-charts versatility lies in its 3D Radius Sidecut, a feature that isn’t new to Völkl but is new to the Mantra, and boy, does it make a difference. Variable radius sidecuts aren’t new, but Völkl’s version is particularly clever. The front section, left to its own devices, would cut a long radius turn; the rear section is likewise long-radius, albeit a bit tighter than the forebody, and the center section’s radius is considerably shorter. The whole point of 3D Radius is you don’t have to think about it to activate it. Just go skiing.
Völkl’s Kendo and Mantra models have been taking turns at introducing a basketful of brilliant features over the past few seasons. This intricate pas de deux began with the launch of the Mantra M5, the first Völkl to embody Titanal Frame, a complete re-set on how the top layer of Titanal is treated, which instantly elevated the Mantra M5 back among the All-Mountain West category’s very best.
When Völkl applied Titanal Frame to the Kendo 88 chassis the following year, it upped the performance ante with the intro of 3D Radius Sidecut. The multi-radius sidecut (long/short/long) turned out to be the perfect companion technology for Titanal Frame, opening up a measure of turn versatility and ease of operation the M5 lacked. With the two technologies working in tandem, the Kendo 88 assumed the throne as the most versatile ski in the All-Mountain East genre and the new star in Völkl’s line.
Please note that while the current Kendo 88 is ripe for another round of upgrades, the version on the shelves today is no slouch. Not only is the Kendo 88 our top-rated Power ski in the All-Mountain East genre, a position it has held since its inception, it also earns elite marks as a Finesse ski. Its numeric dominance speaks to a huge performance envelope on hill.
Last season, I speculated that the freshly minted Deacon v.werks wouldn’t have the same downstream impact as the Katana v.werks, but I may have spoken too soon. One of the most esoteric features of the Deacon v.werks was a lattice-work of carbon fibers crisscrossing the tip, which inspired the Tailored Carbon Tips of the new M6 Mantra. Working in concert with Titanal Frame, Tailored Carbon Tips give the M6 Mantra the same clear connection to the front of the ski found in the Deacon v.werks.
Several factors work together to make the Deacon v.werks easy to steer into a tight-radius turn without a lot of encouragement from the pilot. The cambered center section of its 3D Radius Sidecut is slalom-turn tight (14m@172cm); all the skier has to do to activate it is tilt the edge to a high angle, a normal move for anyone who knows how to carve. To make it easier to depress into a deep carve, the abbreviated camber line underfoot is fairly shallow and soft. The tip and tail rockers are long and gradual so the long-radius zones at front and rear don’t interfere with the ski’s quickness edge to edge. The absence of metal and low elevation of the Marker system give the Deacon v.werks a clarity of snow feel and lively energy that’s relatively rare among elite carvers.
