A heads up on both Volkl Mantras 18/19, and recent V-Werks Katanas.
At the local shop I'm in most, a half dozen or so M5s have de-laminated, right behind the bindings. Mostly with heavier skiers. (That leaves me out, personally.) Most of these are happening with Look Pivots, presumably because of the more abrupt twist to the ski surface that can happen with this binding. But a few of them have happened with Marker Griffons. The warranty process is underway.
Second, it seems like a lot of, perhaps, the recent batch of V-Werks skis has a base railed problem, but not sure. Volkl when contacted says no, for now.
In the same local shop, my buddies who work there and I tested with a straight edge their inventory of V-Werks skis (after I had a problem with my new pair): two Mantras and three Katanas. All were hugely concave, rail high the lengths of the skis. Not sure how "off" these would ski, but looked like all would require a base flattening, minimum. (When contacted, the tech rep/product manager said that these V-Werks skis required multiple low air pressure passes (on, say, a Wintersteiger) to get them flat instead of railed. It would be nice if Volkl had followed this advice in the first place, at the factory.)
My own adventure with this: I got a pair of both Mantra M5 and Mantra V-Werks this year (the M5s before I knew the V-Werks existed), from two different large online retailers, since more local folk were out of my sizes.
While the M5 was perfectly tuned out of the wrap, the V-Werks was badly rail high the length of both skis, and rippled. On the snow, the V-Werks was dangerous - extremely hooky, locked into the edge, and other symptoms of rail high. (Demoed previously, this ski was my favorite at SIA.)
I do my own base flattening, from lots of experience the hard way with shops. (I'd have to go to Avon or Breck from here in Denver area to get someone who can reliably flatten bases, again, learned the hard way,)
Again from past experience, I know that a wide ski doesn't need to be flat to work - only be roughly flat about an inch or so along the edges. Not wanting to take off more than necessary, I took off what I hoped would be enough, and skied it. Nope. I repeated this several more times. Still no. Along the way, large so-called "birdbaths" formed along the base centers and also small ones along the side edges - symptoms of waviness to the edge and the base.
Tomorrow I'll test out the latest attempt, hopefully the last one. I can't remember having to do this more than once or twice with any ski, old or new, before.
At the local shop I'm in most, a half dozen or so M5s have de-laminated, right behind the bindings. Mostly with heavier skiers. (That leaves me out, personally.) Most of these are happening with Look Pivots, presumably because of the more abrupt twist to the ski surface that can happen with this binding. But a few of them have happened with Marker Griffons. The warranty process is underway.
Second, it seems like a lot of, perhaps, the recent batch of V-Werks skis has a base railed problem, but not sure. Volkl when contacted says no, for now.
In the same local shop, my buddies who work there and I tested with a straight edge their inventory of V-Werks skis (after I had a problem with my new pair): two Mantras and three Katanas. All were hugely concave, rail high the lengths of the skis. Not sure how "off" these would ski, but looked like all would require a base flattening, minimum. (When contacted, the tech rep/product manager said that these V-Werks skis required multiple low air pressure passes (on, say, a Wintersteiger) to get them flat instead of railed. It would be nice if Volkl had followed this advice in the first place, at the factory.)
My own adventure with this: I got a pair of both Mantra M5 and Mantra V-Werks this year (the M5s before I knew the V-Werks existed), from two different large online retailers, since more local folk were out of my sizes.
While the M5 was perfectly tuned out of the wrap, the V-Werks was badly rail high the length of both skis, and rippled. On the snow, the V-Werks was dangerous - extremely hooky, locked into the edge, and other symptoms of rail high. (Demoed previously, this ski was my favorite at SIA.)
I do my own base flattening, from lots of experience the hard way with shops. (I'd have to go to Avon or Breck from here in Denver area to get someone who can reliably flatten bases, again, learned the hard way,)
Again from past experience, I know that a wide ski doesn't need to be flat to work - only be roughly flat about an inch or so along the edges. Not wanting to take off more than necessary, I took off what I hoped would be enough, and skied it. Nope. I repeated this several more times. Still no. Along the way, large so-called "birdbaths" formed along the base centers and also small ones along the side edges - symptoms of waviness to the edge and the base.
Tomorrow I'll test out the latest attempt, hopefully the last one. I can't remember having to do this more than once or twice with any ski, old or new, before.
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