If you’re going to adapt a women’s model from a unisex template, the first place to renovate is the core. Atomic swaps ash for poplar to reduce weight without losing the damping benefits of wood. Atomic’s second modification is subtler, reining in the widest point in the tail so it isn’t as insistent on a cross-hill turn finish and reduces stress on the inherently more vulnerable female knee. The third alteration elevates the heel in order to tip a women’s more rearward center of mass into a balanced stance, with more weight directed to the ball of the foot as in a natural athletic position.
The Vantage 95 C W’s shape strikes just the right balance between the surface area needed flotation and the sidecut that facilitates carving. This is why this model feels so easy to ski regardless of the conditions. The Vantage 95 C W passes the acid test of an off-trail ski: how well does it handle conditions it wasn’t made for? One of our testers encountered just such terrain and came out smiling. “This ski was great, especially going over the ice cookies. I felt like I could cruise through anything.”
The key components that allow the Vantage 100 CTi to feel less like a barge and more like a broad missile are its Titanium Backbone, a whittled-down vertebra of metal that aids damping in the jolt-inducing terrain that prevails off-trail, and Carbon Tank Mesh, a carbon fiber matrix that improves the strength of the entire structure with minimal weight. Like an XXL-size dancer blessed with agility and grace, the Vantage 100 CTi makes sinuous moves that belie its broad-beam dimensions.
