K2 Mindbender 89 Ti - 2024/25 Ski Test Review

So we're continuing our run of all mountain ski tests here in the Sunshine in La Clusa and I've just been out on a ski which I had no preconceived ideas about because I've never skied it before in my life. It's the K2 Mindbender 89 Ti. It also comes in a 99 Ti and a 108 Ti so you're sort of going from mid-fat to fat to even fatter. For me personally this 89 Ti was the one that I wanted to try because it's a little bit closer to what I would normally ski. I normally ski on a sort of piece performance race carving ski so 89 just under 90mm underfoot is good for me. As soon as I start knocking the door of 100mm underfoot and beyond I start to feel it's a little bit fat for my type of skiing. So coming into it with no preconceived ideas was quite exciting because I thought well this is interesting this and when I looked on the K2 website as well they had a little slider about the flex pattern. What's the flex like? Basically how stiff is it and how does it move? And it goes from playful to precise and this was actually up towards precise. One being fully playful, ten being fully precise and this was up at eight so this is pretty precise in its flex pattern. It's also got a titanal layer in here and a y-shape profile so you've got these two sort of forks and then a single tail of the y there so the the sort of like the beef of the ski, the guts of the ski is in a y-shape and I thought that was quite interesting as well because you're giving it a little bit of sort of you know ease of use at the front end here but you're giving it some rigidity and some stiffness on the edges and that's what I want from a ski because I want something I can put on an edge and carve and I really could with this and something else that was interesting that I found out about this ski as well is that it had you know very much a sort of regular camber and what rocker there is is a sort of really gradual low rise. It's a short rise rocker at the rear and a gradual sort of slower rise at the tip so very much a traditional camber for the for the bulk of the ski and again that's something I like. I don't necessarily want to get on a pair of skis that are really fat and look like a pair of Turkish slippers because they curl up and down at the tips and the tails so much and this doesn't do that. Looking at the base, it's absolutely on point. I think it's super cool. It fits with that whole sort of all mountain, a little bit loose, a little bit fun, a little bit freeride kind of thing. The muted graphics on the top are good as well so I was getting a lot of good feelings and a lot of good vibes from the ski as soon as I got on it and like I say for somebody who's never skied this kind of thing really so much before and I've never really skied a K2 well never skied a K2 Mindbender before, I went into it with an open mind and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it was great. We're skiing slushy snow, the sun's come out, it's variable terrain, we're on the piste, we're off the piste, very much all mountain and I really really enjoyed it and I think for me I really enjoyed it because I took it in the right length and the right waist width for me which was a 176 and it was an 89. So maybe on a bigger day, a more off piste day, I'd take it slightly longer and slightly fatter but for today this was perfect and again it gets me thinking if I'm going on holiday and I can only take one pair and I'm skiing one or two weeks a year if I'm a sort of like mid to upper level skier, I want something that's going to be easy for the duration of my holiday this is definitely one that I would put on my shortlist. So go and chat to your local ski shop, do a little bit more research but the K2 Mindbender 89 Ti should certainly be on that shortlist. If you like the sound of that and you want to find out more about what else we've been up to for this week here at the SIGB Ski Test, as always check the website and the YouTube channel for the rest of all our video reviews.