Review: Armada ARV 112

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With both the JJ Ultralight and Whitewalker coming in at 116mm underfoot, offering a different, wider waist width option in the ARV and women's ARW series just makes sense. The Armada ARV/W 112 is an interesting offering in its own right, too, because, for a powder ski, it actually has a fairly small footprint, with the widest point of the tip coming in at 135mm and ‘only’ a 112mm waist. But that makes these big sticks surprisingly versatile—we even liked them in the park.

Groomers & Resort Skiing

112 underfoot is overkill for resort driving in most places, but the ARV/W 112 does handle wide arcing turns pretty nicely, and for such a wide ski, it's easy to ski in the resort. It has a fairly low swing weight thanks to plenty of taper, and while you mostly feel that in the air, you do notice it when turning a ski this big. The turn radius of 21m doesn't make short turns on edge particularly natural, but with plenty of rocker, the skis pivot pretty easily in tight spots. These aren't the stiffest or chargiest of skis in the category, but Armada has come up with a playful powder ski that you could just about shoehorn into the daily driver category out west.

"It can smear, butter, and slash on groomers like a much narrower ski. It's really fun to ski just about anywhere in the resort, trees, steeps, park, groomers, even bumps." - Max Ritter, POWDER gear editor.

Powder & Mixed Snow

These aren’t the widest of skis, but for most powder days at most resorts on the planet, these are going to do the job perfectly and be a ton of fun while doing it. Armada has the poppy, surfy rocker profile dialed with these, and they were a lot of fun on smaller drops and in all kinds of soft snow. Our testers particularly loved how easily these the ARV/W 112 turned in the deep stuff. In more mixed conditions, the softer flex can mean these get bounced a bit, so they aren’t really a crud charger.

Park & Jibbing

After all, the ARV/W 112 are primarily a freestyle pow ski, and that's where they excel. They are super fun for (attempting) landing switch in pow and poppy of all kinds of natural features in soft snow. The middle two-thirds of the ski is decently stable, which gives a stable enough landing platform on harder snow—so you can rock these in the park, too. With that low swing weight, they even feel pretty manageable on smaller jumps and rails. The soft tips and tails make buttering a breeze, and we really enjoyed these skis as a fat-freestyle option.

"Low swing weight was nice, and they feel super pivoty with the forward mount. The tip and tail soften off quite a lot, so they feel really playful when you flex them into butters. I really liked them in the park." - Adam "Twig" Spensley, content director at Newschoolers.

Final Thoughts

The ARV/W 112 is a very playful pow ski option. They are softer and more accessible than the Whitewalker and actually pretty skiable as a daily driver for park/pow as long as you don’t deal with a lot of ice.

[Editor’s note: The ARV 112 and ARW 112 are identical skis in terms of construction with different topsheets.]

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