Atomic Automatic 109 2015

I picked these skis up by chance to be honest, i was hoping to buy my first touring set up and found an awesome deal on these on ebay. I'm currently running them with Atomic tracker 13s mounted at recommended.

As stated i bought these as a full setup on ebay already mounted at the rec point which for somebody coming from OG Bacons (mounted at -2.5cm) felt very far backward on the ski. This has certainly taken some getting used to, but i feel like my riding style has adjusted ok.

I'll start by talking about where these skis were designed for, in pow. The Automatics are a medium soft pow ski which makes them pretty easy going. They're pretty happy bouncing around doing short turns but are still relatively stable when you open the turns up and give it some juice. The tapered noses do a good job cutting through chop assuming its still relatively soft. I've done some cliffs between 10-20ft and the ski has faired relatively well. Despite having a shorter tail than i'm used to i haven't felt like its washed out very easily, even when i've landed in variable snow.

This season in the alps has been a strange one. We've had a week of good snow usually followed by warm temps and freeze thaw. I've had plenty of opportunity to test these skis out in hard choppy snow and crust. I've been slightly underwhelmed here. The soft tips tend to get bounced around a little, especially if you're pushing the ski fast. To be fair i don't think the skis have been designed to excel in these conditions but i personally prefer something abit stiffer.

On the flipside the soft tips make these skis super fun for general mountain jibbing. Butters are easy to initiate and control. Swing weight is relatively low, which makes spinning easy for a ski of this size, as mentioned i'd prefer to have the bindings mounted forward a little, but thats another story.

On Piste i have mixed opinions. If you're looking for a super cruisy ski the automatic ticks the boxes, medium long turn radius that doesn't require alot of effort once in the turn, but if you're looking for something that is going to stay solid on edge when being pushed hard the automatic doesn't quite hold it. again those soft tips felt pretty chattery at any high speed which was somewhat disconcerting.

• Terrain
  Park
  Pow
• Design
  Clean
  Busy
• Durability
  Fragile
  Durable
• Weight
  Light
  Heavy
• Style
  Uncool
  Cool
• Flex
  Soft
  Stiff
• Camber
  Cambered
  Rockered
• Pop
  No Pop
  Poppy
• Stability
  Jittery
  Stable