Review: Atomic Maverick 105 CTi

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All-mountain skis come in all shapes and sizes, and that’s what makes this category so interesting. It’s where brands can experiment and come up with some clever ways to make everyday skiing as fun as possible. For the past few seasons, Atomic’s entire line of Maverick and Maven skis have espoused versatility, and the new Maverick 105 CTi is their latest take on the matter, adding a wider all-mountain waist width to the fleet that’s light, forgiving, and precise for ripping around inbounds any day of the season.

In a nutshell:

• Lengths Skied: 185 cm
• Stated Weight: 2050 g
• Stated Dimensions: 134.5 - 104.5 - 123.5 mm
• Stated Sidecut: 19 m

Shape, Length and Mount Point:

The Maverick 105 CTi joins Atomic’s lineup with four size options, coming in 170, 178, 185, and 191 cm lengths. The recommended mount point is fairly traditional (read: pretty far back), and most of our testers found that they enjoyed the ski mounted slightly further ahead of the recommended mark–it gave the ski a more balanced and playful feel.

Where does the Maverick 105 CTi shine?

Versatility is a hard thing to come by in skis, but the Maverick 105 CTi consistently impressed us with its balance of light weight and performance in soft and variable snow. It’s good on-piste, but really comes alive when you duck off-piste into the more interesting areas of the resort. The ski tracks very precisely and rewards energetic skiing, giving you plenty to push into when navigating bumps, tight trees, steep chutes, or just ripping groomers back to the lift. While it was surprisingly light and nimble, it skied very powerfully in chopped up, three-dimensional snow, particularly the kind of cruddy snow you’d find days after a storm. In fresh powder it belies its waist width, floating really well thanks to the big shovels.

The new Maverick 105 CTi is a big departure from the existing Maverick 100Ti, really taking the design of the FWT-ready Maverick 115 CTI and shrinking it into a more versatile, everyday package.

One tester said, “The Maverick 105 CTi is the ski for techy big mountain riding and billy goating around questionable areas in the resort.”

Another adds, “This makes it a great every day resort Swiss Army knife. I really felt that no matter the snow conditions, the tightness of the trees, or the size of the bumps I was able to make turns at will. Very confidence-inspiring.”

Where does the Maverick 105 CTi make some compromises?

The lightweight and nimble feeling of the Maverick 105 CTi is a bit of a compromise when it comes to all-out stability at high speeds on firm snow. More weight would likely improve its hard snow performance, but likely at the cost of diminishing the ski’s standout agility and energetic nature. Compared to heavier, damper skis like the Blizzard Anomaly 102 or Nordica Enforcer 104, we found the Maverick 105 CTi to be easier and less tiring to ski and maneuver, but more likely to get deflected and bounced around on firm, variable snow.

One tester noted, “Kind of a weird one, but the ski didn’t do very much for sound vibration dampening. It’s very loud on icy terrain.”

Another added, “The edge hold could be better - the ski kind of skitters around and gets deflected on hard snow and ice.”

What would a perfect day on the Maverick 105 CTi look like?

With a ski this versatile, it’s hard to pinpoint the perfect day. That’s to say the Maverick 105 CTi would be an excellent choice for just about any day at the resort, as long as it's not too firm, from arcing turns on soft groomers, to chasing your friends down your favorite steeps, hot laps on a pow day, or chilled-out spring slush runs. It’s nice to know there’s a ski out there that you can rely on for just about anything the mountain can throw at you.