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Summary
In this video, Elliot from Rickety Ski Reviews provides a unique take on the Volkl M6 Mantra skis, stepping away from repeated reviews of Atomic Bent 100 skis. Elliot originally rated the M6 Mantra as an 8 out of 10, praising its versatility on various terrains. He engages with a review from Ski Essentials to compare opinions, discussing the ski's structure, performance, and its handling in different conditions such as the East Coast's tight glades and the spring skiing slush. The M6 Mantra is lauded for its stability and carving ability despite its width, making it a solid choice for skiers looking for a reliable all-rounder. Throughout, Elliot provides insights into the ski's construction nuances and addresses the practicality of owning just one set of skis, especially for East Coast conditions.
Highlights
The M6 Mantra earns a solid 8 out of 10 for its versatility 🌟.
Elliot is impressed by the ski's ability to handle diverse terrains, from trees to trails 🚵♂️.
The review includes comparisons to other skis like Fisher and Atomic to highlight its unique feel 🎿.
Ski Essentials' insights confirm Elliot's findings about the ski's construction and performance 🔍.
Elliot recommends the M6 Mantra as a viable one-ski option, especially for those on the East Coast 📍.
Key Takeaways
The Volkl M6 Mantra is a versatile ski suitable for varied terrains ⛷️.
Elliot appreciates the M6 Mantra for its stability and carving capability 🏔️.
Ski Essentials' review aligns with Elliot’s positive assessment 📈.
Despite not being flashy, the M6 Mantra offers substantial value for its reliability and performance 🌟.
Perfect for East Coast skiing, handling tight glades and unpredictable snow conditions 🏞️.
Overview
Elliot kicks off the review by breaking away from the repetitive content on Atomic Bent 100, turning his focus on the Volkl M6 Mantra. Rated at an impressive 8 out of 10, Elliot commends the M6 Mantra for its ability to carve through various terrains while remaining stable enough for both groomers and backcountry runs. He highlights its unique position in the skiing world as a reliable multi-purpose option.
Engaging with Ski Essentials’ perspective, Elliot reviews Bob’s insights which match his own: the M6 Mantra’s steadfastness through different snow conditions and its precise handling due to its construction. With a slight skepticism about marketing gimmicks, Elliot confirms the ski's performance aligns with his own experiences on snow. Bob’s mention about its structure and carving efficiency resonates well with Elliot’s past reviews.
Concluding his content, Elliot advises on who might benefit from the M6 Mantra. While not as showy as other brands, its dependable nature makes it a perfect match for skiers looking for a single, versatile pair of skis. Particularly suited for East Coast conditions, Elliot endorses the M6 Mantra for navigating tight glades and mixed snow, closing with thanks to his audience for their support and feedback.
STOP and WATCH Before you buy the Volkl M6 Mantra Transcription
00:00 - 00:30 all right welcome welcome if you're new to the channel my name is Elliot with rickety ski reviews and today we're gonna do something different I basically recorded a bunch of videos reacting to different reviews of the atomic bent 100. the problem with that is that I feel like maybe I was beating a dead horse I was counting them and I'm like oh my God that's five videos in a row on the same ski and for you guys the viewers that might get a little old so today I'm recording something kind of last minute to
00:30 - 01:00 add some spice add some change in there so you guys aren't just watching the same skis over and over and over so today we're going to talk about the vocal M6 Mantra uh if you remember back when I did my review of them I gave them an 8 out of 10. um I really like the skis I thought they did a nice job not only kind of cutting through some of the more choppy snow but they also carved pretty well but they were nice and wide and they kind of floated through the powder in the trees well I thought that that was a really diverse ski and while
01:00 - 01:30 still being a wide kind of ski for the trees or off the you know off the groomer Trails it's still carved it kind of did both well be wide enough to go off the trail but also stable enough that you could load a turn and carve so I gave it an 8 out of 10. I thought it was really a nice ski I do remember it kind of having the bite of the turn be in the middle so like the atomics are more towards the tip head kind of gives you more of the energy in the ski and the tail I thought vocal
01:30 - 02:00 mantras were kind of in the middle maybe just about six inches from the middle of the ski so that was my assessment I thought they were nice skis today we are going to react to ski Essentials and uh yeah I have not watched this video before so we'll kind of see what they thought and how that compared to my review all right here we go [Music] hey skiers it's Bob from ski
02:00 - 02:30 essentials.com Welcome to our 2023 ski test today we got a vocal Mantra M6 structurally this is the same ski that we got with these upgrades last year we had a little bit of a graphics refresh but it's still the same great ski you know that all-mountain weapon 96 millimeters underfoot that is really kind of the bread and butter of this high performance all Mountain category uh Advanced okay this skiing is okay uh it's a little kind of like stiff in the upper body they're really relying on
02:30 - 03:00 those pull plants but that being said this is pretty typical with what you see skiing in the east coast trees see how close these trees are together you have to really plan out your turns and these vocals look like they're pretty long I would say just from eyeballing it 175 to a 188 somewhere in there I mean that's a big range it's probably closer to like 180. um and when you've got to ski that long in the woods like this it's not like the West Coast you really gotta pull plant and get those little quick turns in um this person looks a little bit uncomfortable but you know they may be
03:00 - 03:30 skiing on a new ski that they've never skied before and they're just kind of trying to use those pole plants to set the pace and get comfortable um again I always love how Bob explains that this is just a graphics refresh and not an actual ski change which is really nice for consumers but you know when people talk about the woods and the West Coast versus East Coast this is the East Coast I mean they call this a Glade and it's very specific it's like trees are super close together and you really got to be watching your line ants and expert skiers who know how to
03:30 - 04:00 turn a ski are really going to love the performance out of this you know for 96 millimeters underfoot we kind of talk about it as one of the better carving skis at that width and a lot of that has to do with the shape and the construction um I would agree with that I think this is exactly what I said it's like for being so wide it carves really well and probably better than it even has to a lot of people are willing to buy two sets of skis I think vocal did a nice job saying you know we're gonna have a
04:00 - 04:30 ski that can go off Trail that'll be wide enough but it's also going to be able to carve um yeah it can it can feel different if you're not used to vocals they have a very specific feel where you almost have to change kind of your hip placement to get into the perfect turn position um because of where the energy comes out on the ski but again that's just it's kind of a feel thing but it it's um it's definitely I noticed that having skied on several pairs of vocals they all kind of have that consistent feel so you get used to it but if it feels weird when you first demo it
04:30 - 05:00 usually there's a reason so starting at that waist width you know it's it's on the wide side but the build really helps it get that torsional stiffness and control that a lot of people that know how to use a ski will be able to guided they're skiing in the woods like that like I don't like being that close together stresses me out I watch these like ski crash videos and it's always the same thing it's like this could have been so easily avoided if you guys just Sprint out a little bit but anyway
05:00 - 05:30 um let's watch actually I really want to watch this groomer scheme you know put in there put in their power and really get yeah that's a beautiful turn that's a nice clean turn yeah and they do carve well they load up the turn they give you kind of all your energy back um yeah they can feel a little chunky I mean they're a wide ski um but I don't know I mean just being honest with you of all like the pluses and the drawbacks at the performance out of this thing
05:30 - 06:00 built with a multi-layer wood core we get vocals titano Taylor titanal frame as well as tailored carbon tips so two sheets of metal in this thing the upper laminate is a frame so around the back here there's a little break and then Under Foot another break and then frame in the uh in the shovel here so that means that whenever you put this thing on edge the first thing that's going to hit the hit the snow is metal and that gives it the Precision and then at the
06:00 - 06:30 end okay vocal has a bad habit of this they all love throwing in these kind of little gimmicks that are oh this is going to change the game for skis uh I remember back with the race Tigers they had kind of that more aggressive metal then they transitioned and they had those skis with the dampeners the metal like bumpers on them this may very well be Innovative but like you guys have had so many gimmicks along the way it's hard to tell the difference um but that being said I did feel like
06:30 - 07:00 there was some pretty good Precision with starting the turn but it wasn't I don't know it wasn't more precise than anything else out there it just felt like a really like stable platform yeah I don't even know maybe in my opinion maybe Precision is the wrong word that construction just made them feel really stable and solid once you kind of got them to the Apex because they made a nice platform to load the last thing that hits the snow again full metal over the edge so you get a ton of power out of the turn underfoot we get that metal plate on top so that really kind of
07:00 - 07:30 implements the energy transfer each and every movement that you put into your boot gets put through your binding and into the ski what's the difference between that and any other ski this is probably they get a little in the woods with ski Construction in my opinion and like skiing is such a precise sport that I'd really love to hear how it feels in the foot I get that you kind of have to establish that early on but every once in a while with like stuff like this I'm like vocal may have
07:30 - 08:00 very well done that in their build or may have told you they did that but like I don't feel like they're especially more responsive than anything else out there just my opinion this is getting a little bit in the woods more than anything I actually felt on snow really direct transfer of energy on this thing for sure tailored carbon tips they're able to kind of fine tune the torsional stiffness of the shovel of the ski so in the new tailored titanal frame it goes from wide to narrow right about here so in order to boost that stiffness without
08:00 - 08:30 adding weight they put in these carbon stringers and that really makes the the shovel of the ski more precise while keeping the swing weight down so it's a real okay see keep saying this word precise I don't know I'm not sure that precises the word that I would use I mean these are pretty big chunky skis and I didn't feel like they were particularly precise when I think precise I think like responsive I would say that these a lot of like the things he's saying to me that I felt were they felt really stable
08:30 - 09:00 like they didn't feel like they were gonna twitch or overturn or anything um maybe that's what he means by precise like it's almost like having a steady hand but I felt like the skis felt just like very stable in the turn um and you know you kind of knew exactly where you're gonna get out of them and it was really easy to adapt to them because of that whereas like something like a head ski or a Fisher you have to get really used to because like Fishers initiate super easily and heads kind of give you the
09:00 - 09:30 energy in the back of the turn right if you're not used to it you have to kind of adjust whereas the vocals are very very consistent and they're going to kind of do everything you tell them to do um that could be good or bad depending on what your ski style is when you like really nice thing that they've done with these tailored tailored tips and we see it in other skis and vocals line as well so pretty proven technology there uh on the scale here just over 2000 2086 grams in this 177. I believe that
09:30 - 10:00 those skis felt heavy to me too um they just like in the woods they felt okay but you gotta like be really thoughtful about your turns because like the edge to edge time can feel a little sluggish depending on what the snow conditions are and the east coast probably feels great like because you've got that underlying stiffness that you want to be able to cut through or um or just be able to stop on whatever however you want to phrase it whereas in the
10:00 - 10:30 west I don't know they can be like if I was in really light light fluffy snow that extra weight might be a detriment I took them out for spring skiing where it was still like newish snow but at the end of the day it would get kind of heavier or stickier and I felt like the m6 Mantra was the perfect ski for that because it really kind of was able to cut through and not get really bogged down by that by that sticky snow so we're definitely over that 2000 gram threshold putting this into the heavier
10:30 - 11:00 side of the Spectrum in terms of this category but still with that with those tailored carbon tips and the lack of metal kind of in the center part of the ski here we do see a reasonable amount of of Swing weight a lighter swing weight uh kind of helping people get you know more energy into the ski uh while while keeping it damp and super stable uh it does have you know appropriate amount of rocker it's not a super rockered ski or terribly playful in the soft snow you know definitely likes to
11:00 - 11:30 plow through and over things rather than dance upon yeah but I think that was a good design choice because it's what kind of in my mind what separates the m6 Mantra from other skis um and I'm maybe I'll talk about this in a second but I felt like it also had a pretty healthy amount of camber as well but yeah I mean everything Bob's saying is like very accurate I'd love to see a little more scheme it was like only like a four minute video I'd like to see more skin because the skiing I did see carving looked
11:30 - 12:00 great but who knows you know you lose footage and whatnot sometimes uh snow like some other mid 90s uh skis you know not a ton of splay in the tail here so definitely more towards that all mountain side of the spectrum um and just a fantastic Carver for this width uh as always you know this Mantra is really the Benchmark of you know that wider all Mountain category so yeah I would agree with that it's very stable it cuts through most things it carves well it can go in the woods with its
12:00 - 12:30 width I would absolutely agree with Bob here the nice thing with these M6 mantras is I hate to talk about this but like if you only had one pair of skis and you got this in like you know the 90 it's in that 90 range of underfoot um this wouldn't be the worst ski to have if you only had one pair of skis it wouldn't be my first choice just based on my biases with like liking the atomic Turn Style but I used to ski on vocals and I and I like them back then you know
12:30 - 13:00 so it's kind of a preferencing but if you like more of a stable ski that kind of has the bite in the middle of the ski rather than at the tip this would be a great like one I don't know it's not a one ski quiver because it doesn't do everything but if you only could you know gonna if you're only gonna be able to have one pair of skis for the year which is is the reality I mean I only had one pair of skis for the last like three years okay if that's where you're at this is this is a pretty good option I would say honestly gonna allow you to access the trees in the woods in the snow but it's
13:00 - 13:30 also going to allow you to carve in a really healthy way and it's going to allow you to connect those two when you're going from the groomers to the woods to the powder it's got a really healthy balance and if I was on the East Coast this would be a good ski to have honestly it cuts through things well it feels stable on the firmer snow I I wouldn't be disappointed if this was a ski that I you know had to use on the East Coast for a week so anyway for my East Coast viewers something to consider if you get a chance to try these
13:30 - 14:00 oh it carries through to 2023 as well but that's it check out this vocal Mantra M6 at ski essentials.com and we will see you out there on the hill bye all right Bob you get two thumbs up for this review this was excellent uh I would say that you did a really great analysis of it I think you could have talked a little bit more about like who this ski is good for like I kind of just mentioned I also would have loved to see more skiing but I get it some days when you're demoing you don't get great footage or something doesn't look right
14:00 - 14:30 you better not to use it overall like his analysis was right on it everything he's talking about was parallel with what I felt on the snow yeah I think these are nice skis I think that they're definitely worth trying I think they they really like I I know I know I ripped on someone else for using this term I think these are a very diverse ski and they're a very well-rounded ski and they just create a lot of overall value so I gave these in out of 10 last winner and I think that that still holds true today these are nice skis so that
14:30 - 15:00 concludes this video um yeah overall as to be expected for from ski Essentials great review a couple things I would have added in there like I know these these aren't the most exciting thing like they're not like you know a Fisher Ranger or an atomic Maverick where or a salmon qsd where they're doing something really new and flashy but I think if you like this kind of ski this is really really attractive ski to people that like the ski style who are looking for something stable and especially for East Coast skiers I think this is a really nice ski
15:00 - 15:30 so you know it might not be the flashiest thing out there but don't overlook it the vocal M6 mantras are nice but anyway that concludes this video um if you like this content please like And subscribe um you can ring the bell if you want to get notifications as soon as my content comes out and as always just thanks for watching I really like making this kind of content and um everyone's been super nice in the comments so thank you so much everybody um and as always I'll see you next one see ya