2022 K2 Reckoner 102

One of my favorite bump skis that wasn’t intended to be a bump ski was the K2 Shreditor 102 (circa 2015). Of course, it couldn’t be as quick a real mogul ski edge to edge, so it did most of its navigation by slarving through the troughs and slinking around the lumpy bits. The new Reckoner 102 is in several respects the same ski, albeit embellished in ways its ancestor was not. The similarities are hard to miss. The shape of the 184cm is identical save for a tip that’s 3mm wider on the Reckoner, giving it a marginally (.7m) snugger sidecut radius. Both Shreditor and Reckoner rely on braided fibers to control flex and torsion, with the Shreditor using a Triaxial braid of fiberglass and the Reckoner using Spectral Braid spun from carbon. Both vintages use Aspen in the core, although the Shreditor complemented it with featherweight Paulownia while the Reckoner uses Aspen in concert with denser fir. Both have relatively low camber underfoot, use a reinforced sidewall for added resistance to ski-on-ski damage and both, of course, are twin-tips. What the Reckoner 102 brings to the party that the Shreditor could not is Spectral Braid, a variable-angle braiding technique (Patent Pending). Spectral Braid makes both front and rear rocker zones soft and compliant, helping the Reckoner 102 switch from forward to reverse in a twinkling.