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Aquila demos skis: 2021 edition (K2 disruption, Mindbender 88ti, Mindbender 106c)

fgor

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I wasn't really intending to demo a bunch of skis this year but on my second ski day of the season, I saw the demo flags waving and figured why not :smile:

Me: cautious intermediate, 5'3, 115-120lb. I ski in New Zealand, primarily Mt Hutt.

It was a cold day, but despite a cloudy morning, a really beautiful day.

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24-48 hour old snow. It turned to thick chop which was fun for testing some wider skis later on in the day. I'd actually decided to ski my own wide skis, my Line Pandora 104s (@165), that day. When I showed up at the demo place, the guy asked if I wanted to try something at the other end of the spectrum. I said sure and he gave me the K2 Disruption MTi Alliance @160cm. They're narrow at 72mm underfoot and have a radius of 14.7m at 160cm. I commented that I had a pair of narrow skis already, but more of a slalom radius (11m). The demo guy reckoned these would feel quite different.

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I was a bit nervous about trying them on my second day back skiing, in case they tried to beat me up, but they were absolutely fine. I actually enjoyed them a lot! They felt smooth, and even though the groomers were soft which made them get a bit uneven, they felt stable. I would have been really interested to try these back-to-back with my own narrow (11m vs 15m) skis to see how the different radii felt on an otherwise similar ish ski, but sadly I didn't have those skis with me. I think I quite enjoyed the radius on the Disruptions.

I did two runs on them and would have been happy to ski them on any groomer day. I didn't bother taking them off piste at all :P Apparently they're K2's top recreational piste ski for women but I was happy to find them not too punishing. I'm an average skier and this is very early season so I was falling backseat plenty, but I was able to right myself easily and carry on.

What a dull topsheet though!

The next ski I demoed was a bit of a grudge match for me. When I was more of a beginner skier, one of the earliest skis I demoed was the K2 Mindbender 88Ti, and I hated it. It was good for me to demo skis I didn't like, so I could find out what I did like, but that was two years ago and I've wondered for a while whether I'd still hate that ski now that I'm a slightly better skier.

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IMO the skis look fabulous this year. Big fan of some of the 2022 K2 designs. I did two runs on these skis as well. On my first run I pretty felt neutral about them - didn't hate them, which was really all I needed to know - on the second run I started enjoying them. They definitely require a bit more effort and input than my 2020 Black Pearl 88 but they reward that with feeling rather smooth and powerful. I'm glad I did the second run on these skis so I could really start to try to make the most of them!

I took a bit of a break from demoing and my friend demoed a few skis. We met up later and she reported that she tried the Mindbender 90ti, Pandora 94 (sadly they didn't have the pandora 104 so she couldn't try that one), and the Mindbender 106c. Her favourite was the Mindbender 106c and her least favourite was the Pandora 94! I decided to get on the 106c to see what it was about.

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They only had it in one size - 167cm. (This is also the 2021 topsheet but AFAIK the ski is unchanged for 2020, 2021, 2022.) I only did one top-to-bottom run on it because I was starting to get tired. I went down a run on my own Pandora 104 and then took the Mindbender 106c on the same run, for maximum comparability.

My feelings were that I didn't enjoy the 106c during the first half of my run, but I started to coax some fun out of the ski in the second half of my run. I took it primarily off piste (shallow thick chop). I felt that it may have been a bit more stable than my Pandoras, but for me personally it felt slower edge to edge and took more energy to turn. I also felt that it rewarded a more forward stance and came alive at speed, while the Pandoras are super fun at slow speeds too. My friend is a much faster skier than me so I'm not surprised she liked a ski which seems to enjoy slightly more speed :smile:

I also wouldn't have minded trying this in a shorter length though, just to see. My friend is 5'7 and I am 5'3 and we both tried the 167cm Mindbender 106c. I am very happy with my 165cm Pandora 104 but the Mindbender felt a little less easy. Overall though it seems a decent ski. I really am a very slow skier so although I enjoyed the ski and would have taken a second run if my legs hadn't been getting tired (and my friend wanted another go on it too!!), for now at this point in my skiing I do enjoy my Pandoras. But I'm stoked to have gotten on some Mindbenders and had a good time on them.
 

newboots

Angel Diva
It is great to see your photographs, and think about new snow and chop!

@fgor - Is your name Aquila? (So much prettier than @fgor!) :wink:
 

scandium

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yay demo days! I did wonder if you'd caught the storm snow. I'm hoping to catch a Volkl day to try out the Blaze, and I would also like to get on a new Black Pearl sometime to see if I actually like the new construction.
 

fgor

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
It is great to see your photographs, and think about new snow and chop!

@fgor - Is your name Aquila? (So much prettier than @fgor!) :wink:
Oh, it's my usual alias for the past twenty years, for some reason I was feeling anonymous when I signed up here ages ago, I wonder if I can change it :redface:
 

fgor

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Yay demo days! I did wonder if you'd caught the storm snow. I'm hoping to catch a Volkl day to try out the Blaze, and I would also like to get on a new Black Pearl sometime to see if I actually like the new construction.
Right? I was hoping to catch a Volkl demo day last season too but I never saw any, they had supply issues anyway I believe last year, hopefully this year! I sort of want to try out the new Secret 96 too. And I also haven't been on the new Black Pearl so that would be interesting...
 

scandium

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Right? I was hoping to catch a Volkl demo day last season too but I never saw any, they had supply issues anyway I believe last year, hopefully this year! I sort of want to try out the new Secret 96 too. And I also haven't been on the new Black Pearl so that would be interesting...
Definitely! I also want to do some more demoing in the mid-90s range, see what the most recent Kenja and Yumi are like, and so many other things
 

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