Review: 2027 Nordica Unleashed 106

To me (and probably to most folks west of the Mississippi), Nordica has always been a bit of a sleeper brand. I’ve known for a long time that their skis were excellent, but after they discontinued their Patrón and Soul Rider skis sometime in the last decade, I sort of lost interest. I spent a ton of time on those skis back in the day when they first brought some serious freeride performance to a fun, surfy, twin-tip shape for both powder and all-mountain skiing.

Sure, the newer Enforcer skis are cool and have garnered a few Editors Pick choices here, but I honestly find them to be too aggressive for my everyday skiing and have tended to look elsewhere for my personal quiver. That’s not to say what the brand was offering was bad—there just wasn’t much in the collection for me.

This year, Nordica completely redesigned their flagship freeride ski, bringing it back to the days of the Patron and Soul Rider, albeit with a modern twist. The all-new Unleashed 106 (and Unleashed 106 CA, which shares the same shape with a slightly different no-metal core) is probably one of the friendliest and most fun Nordica skis yet—though there’s no doubt that some of the brand’s aggressive racing heritage is still there. These skis replace the outgoing Unleashed 108 with an updated construction featuring Nordica’s Drift Lock tech (a specifically-shaped sheet of metal in the layup), a refined shape, and even better performance in less-than-ideal snow.

View the 3 images of this gallery on the
original article

Nordica Unleashed 106 Specs

• Size skied: 178cm, 185cm, 190cm
• Lengths available: 152cm (106 CA only), 157cm, 164cm, 171cm, 178cm, 185cm, 190cm
• Sidecut: 138.5mm – 106mm – 127.5mm
• Radius: 18.7m (185cm)
• Profile: twin rocker, camber underfoot
• Weight: 1900g (185cm)

Shape, Flex, and Construction

Nordica keeps it relatively simple with the new Unleashed 106. Instead of a massive redesign or completely new ski model, they took an already tried and tested formula and refined it to make one of the most complete all-mountain twintips on the market. 

The shape of the ski is perhaps the biggest change, which although subtle on the surface, really improves how the ski handles on snow. Where the older 108 might have felt a little more hooky and eager to quickly enter a turn, Nordica increased the taper and flattened out the rocker profile back and front to make the ski feel driftier and easier to pivot. In essence, it makes the ski feel a bit shorter on edge, but the locked-in carving feeling doesn’t go away—it’s just easier to control. Despite the twin-tip profile, the ski’s mount point and overall shape remains pretty directional. It skis shorter than I expected, probably due to the refined rocker/taper profile, and even hopping aboard the 190cm, I wasn’t completely overwhelmed. Most testers found they could ski a longer version of the Unleashed 106 than they would in other models.

Inside the Unleashed 106, a relatively thin poplar wood core is paired with both a shaped metal sheet (Nordica’s Drift Lock) and a full-length strip of carbon to keep things quiet. That adds up to a very damp ride, a lot of stiffness, and loads of power in reserve for really pushing things at speed. Compared to the older Unleashed 108, the new 106 feels stiffer overall, especially through the back half of the ski.

The Unleashed 106 CA shares the exact same footprint, but skips the Drift Lock metal layer. It’s also available all the way down to a 152cm size. The flex is a bit softer and the ski is overall even more approachable, but lacks some top-end performance, especially for bigger, heavier skiers.

On-Snow Performance

With the new Unleashed 106, Nordica aimed to build a high-power freeride ski that combines a fun and drifty nature in soft snow with locked-in hardpack and crud performance. It’s a ski for skiers that can carve a traditional ski turn through the front of their boot but also want to get sideways, ski backwards, and jump off every air in sight. In short, Nordica accomplished their mission.

If you’ve read any of the other Gear Guide reviews from this year, you’ll probably already know that our ski test week at Grand Targhee involved just about every condition known to skierkind. It was warm, it rained, the sun shone, and then it got cold and snowed nearly three feet. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the Unleashed 106 was how consistently it performed across all those conditions. 

On firm days, it carved as well as much narrower, piste-oriented skis in the test. It prefers longer-radius turns when on edge, but releases very easily out of a carve. On pow days, particularly in the afternoon when things got cut up and tracked out, it blasted through the soft chop, bouncing over moguls, slashing turns in the trees and gathering faceshot after faceshot.

“If I were going to buy one ski and one ski only out of the entire week of testing, this would be it. Love at first sight! Honestly, this ski could be as close to the mythical “quiver killer” as I’ve seen a ski get. I think most folks will enjoy it but especially someone who’s looking for a very versatile ski that can do most things very well,” says tester Ariel Kazunas. “It’s playful, hard-charging, stable, nimble, poppy/energetic, fun! This ski would be my perfect man if men were skis: stable, responsive, and sexy.”

“Excels everywhere. It is a great mix of all types of skis,” says another tester.

Personally, I was the most impressed by how easy the Unleashed 106 felt to ski despite the stiff flex and larger platform. It’s got one of the most-coveted aspects in ski design: it feels like it has autopilot, meaning I could just turn my brain off and go skiing.

Finally, despite being a twintip ski, I found it a bit too stiff and big for really riding in the park or jibbing around on the mountain. It sure loves getting air off natural features like cliffs and windlips, but it prefers high speeds and aggressive skier input to slow speed technical stuff like rails, butters, or noodling around.

Comparisons

Nordica stays true to its ski racing roots with the new Unleashed 106. Despite its run-of-the-mill shape and flex profile, it’s definitely a bit of a unicorn when it comes to performance. Two comparable skis from this year are the Rossignol Sender 110 and Blizzard Canvas 108. Fun fact: Despite Blizzard and Nordica sharing a parent company and a production facility in Mittersill, Austria, the Canvas 108 is manufactured in a different factory in Ukraine. 

The Blizzard Canvas 108 shares a very similar shape to the Unleashed 106, with a directional twin-tip profile and a very similar footprint. However, the Canvas skips metal entirely in its construction, giving a much softer flex and less high-speed stability. If you are one of the few skiers that might find the Canvas 108 too soft, but like the shape and ride quality, the Unleashed 106 is worth a look—it’s got similar DNA with a much stronger backbone.

Construction-wise, the Rossignol Sender 110 most closely resembles the Unleashed 106, with a poplar core reinforced with metal and vibration damping materials. The Sender 110 comes across as a bit more of a pow ski and true big-mountain comp ski (thanks to a longer 20m radius and slightly wider platform overall), whereas the Unleashed 106 has a much wider range and makes for a better choice as a  one-ski quiver/daily driver.

What Type of Skier is the Nordica Unleashed 106 Best For?

The all-new Unleashed 106 are undeniably Nordica’s most “fun” skis, and would be an excellent choice for most resort skiers. It’s the kind of ski that balances aspects of pivoty twintip and hard-charging directional designs to create an all-out resort crusher, excelling in both crud and firm conditions. Patrollers, young freeride rippers, ex-ski racer parents who want to keep up with their groms—you’d all love this ski. 

In other words, when it comes to riders looking for an aggressive freestyle-oriented freeride resort ski, this is a safe bet, and a ski that you can be very happy on as a daily driver. It comes in one of the largest size runs to accommodate skiers of all sizes (it’s cool to see an aggressive metal-forward ski like this go down to a 157cm length).