2024 Armada ARW 100 Ski Review

Armada refreshed their ARV and ARW twin tip collection for 2024, or at least the bulk of it. The ARV and ARW 88, 94, and 100 are all brand new skis with new shaping concepts and new construction. Last season, we spent a lot of time on each new model, with even further testing on the ARV 94. I, Jeff, was left with a strong desire to do the same with the 100 width. Fast forward to this season and I was able to snag a pair of the new ARW 100 in the 179 cm length. You might be asking yourself why I opted for a “women’s” model, and the reason is simple. Armada is making the ARV and ARW skis exactly the same, with graphics being the only difference between them. Even lengths are the same across the board, which I think is fantastic, as it gives skiers a slew of different options to suit their preference. I think the ARW 100 has the better graphic, so it was an easy choice for me. Seems to be a consistent theme too. I’ve had endless compliments on the graphics on these skis. More than any ski I recall in recent memory.

If you follow along with our content, maybe you’re already familiar with the construction changes for 2024, but it’s worth a refresher anyways. There’s a Caruba wood core in the ARW 100 , giving it a lightweight feel and snappy flex pattern, with a relatively soft, forgiving flex overall. There’s an Ash binding insert underfoot for better binding retention, which is a confidence-boosting feature for a ski that’s going to be skied hard and aggressively in and out of the park. The most exciting new feature, in my opinion, is w3Dgewall. This is a new sidewall technology that’s designed to increase durability and reduce edge damage. An important note here… If you’re bashing your skis on rails, they’re going to break. There’s no way around it. Even with this new technology, there’s a limit to how much abuse they can take. Still, I think this is a huge step in the right direction towards increasing durability for rails. It’s going to take a long time before I can ski something on rails all season without cracking edges, and maybe that will never happen, but I appreciate the research and development and ultimately the time and money put into the attempts. Essentially what’s happening with the sidewall is the inside of the sidewall and the base have an angled connection, rather than a vertical seam. It’s creating a mechanical bond between the two elements, and pushing them together during impact rather than pushing them apart. There’s also an increase in overall sidewall material in sensitive areas. So far, it’s pretty impressive. My ARW 100 are holding up nicely despite easily having slid close to 1,000 rails so far this season.

At a Glance:

2024 Armada ARW 100 Skis

Then there’s the shape, which has also been tweaked considerably compared to previous iterations of the ARV/ARW line. To put it simply, it’s a more modern shape for a park ski. We get longer rocker in both the tips and tails, which is paired with significantly more early taper than we got in the old skis. I love this shape. It gives the ski a loose, agile, forgiving, smeary feel, which comes in handy in both the park as well as off-piste and/or soft snow applications. There’s still a nice amount of camber underfoot, which allows for reasonable performance on-piste and something to push against when carving, although that’s certainly not the focus of the ski… the carving. If anything, I think the value of the camber is more found in the ski’s pop, energy, and ability to ollie. It’s a springy ski that loves to be off the ground. Without as much camber as it has, that certainly wouldn’t work as well.

Moving on to performance. Although certainly not the focus of the ARW 100 , let’s start with groomers. That is, after all, a great place to get to know the overall personality of a ski. First and foremost, it has a distinctly playful nature. Rather than wanting to tip and rip into carves, the ARW 100 wants to pop and play. It can carve, yes, but requires relatively delicate weighting and high edge angles to make what I would consider “dynamic” carves. An aggressive expert looking for torsional stiffness and edge grip should look elsewhere. The Declivity 92 Ti and 102 Ti both drastically outperform this ski in terms of grip, so it’s perfectly fine the ARW 100 lacks in that department. On the other hand, edge release is about as easy as it gets, so shorter skidded turns are super easy, as are slashes, smears, and any other turn style you can think of that isn’t a round carve. While the flex is relatively soft and there’s not tremendous torsional stiffness, the ski is impressively quiet, which boosts its longitudinal stability, or at least a skier’s willingness to ski it fast. It’s also confidence-inspiring that when skiing fast, you have a distinct notion in the back of your mind that you can shut it down at a moment’s notice with the easy tail release. To me, however, its highlight on a groomer is its playfulness. Ollies, little 180s off of side hits, butters, and all sorts of other playful maneuvers are not just in play, they’re noticeably easier on the ARW 100 than on many of its competitors.

A lot of that playfulness carries over into off-piste scenarios and softer snow as well. The edge release does too. This ski is an absolute blast off trail, although it does share some limitations there as well. It’s not a chargy, down-the-fall line off-piste ski. It’s a bouncy, playful, and highly maneuverable off-piste ski. Our tight trees here in Vermont are no match for its quickness, allowing you to venture into demanding lines with ease. Maybe this is a good time to bring up mount point, as it does offer two different options. For those looking to maximize performance in trees and other off-piste terrain, it may be best to go with the rearward line. That said, however, I’ve been skiing it on the more centered option and don’t have any major gripes with its abilities off trail. An eye-opening experience for me happened during one of our first test days on these new Armadas last season. Some of our more race-oriented testers (we’re talking D1 collegiate racing and NorAm), found the ARW 100 to be one of their favorite skis of the season, and a lot of that came from its abilities in un-groomed terrain. Simply put, it’s easy and a whole lot of fun to ski.

Which brings us to perhaps its true habitat, the terrain park. Gosh golly gee it’s good in the park. The 94 is too, of course, and the 88 takes it to a whole different level in terms of true competitive, slopestyle performance, but I’m 37 years old and my competition days are long behind me. These days, I absolutely love being on a park ski in the ~100 mm width range. The new shape is fantastic in the park, allowing for a lot more forgiveness both on landings and takeoffs. Switch takeoffs seem to get harder and harder the older I get, and this shape with plenty of rocker and taper just visually makes me feel more comfortable. Even if I pre-spin a little bit, I don’t expect the ski to catch, which is tremendously helpful for me, and I would say for any park skier regardless of age. The combination of a lightweight feel with that relatively damp, quiet characteristic is just about perfect on jumps. It feels a bit stronger on landings than some super light skis in this category, yet it’s not much heavier than even the lightest park ski. Its weight is also hugely helpful on rails. Spins on and off and switch ups are impressively easy for a ski this wide. Again, that gives this 37 year old park skier a lot of confidence to do bigger and/or more technical tricks on rails. The 179 cm length I’ve been testing is just 1700 g.

Now, coming back to the we3Dgewall technology and durability. It’s really bashed this ski around in the last month. I hiked a lot of early season rails with it, I’ve skied low snow conditions in the trees, and now that Stowe has their full park up, I’ve been hot-lapping ~7 minutes park laps (lift ride included). That’s a lot of time on rails and a lot of time hitting rocks, stumps, and other east coast obstacles. While the edges are far from perfect, they are holding up nicely. I don’t have any major concerns of the ski separating underfoot. It will happen eventually, as I said before. No ski can withstand endless park skiing, but I do think this new construction is headed in the right direction and an overall improvement over previous and most current park skis. Kudos to Armada for emphasis on durability. If any ski manufacturer understands the abuse park skis are put through, it’s Armada.

Is this ski for everyone? Certainly not. Is it for most skiers? That’s also probably a no. Is it really good at what it’s designed to do? That’s a resounding yes, in my opinion. Speaking to other skis on the market, I get a lot of Playmaker 101 vibes. Reckoner 102 is another one that comes to mind. They all share similar shapes, similar performance, and similar fun factor. And really, if we’re drilling down to the core here… isn’t that what it’s all about? Isn’t skiing supposed to be fun? I certainly think it is, so if you see me on the hill, there’s a good chance you’ll see me on the ARW 100.