The Gist
The 2018 Atomic Hawx Prime 100 W remains one of the go-to's for a reliable combination of easy fit (for lots of different feet and legs), neutral stance and a commanding downhill skill set.
The Fit
Testers found a substantial amount of room in the toebox and the forefoot, but teamed with an evenly snug fit in the heel pocket and ankles—a good blend of warmth and comfort where needed with control at the rearfoot for good skiing moves. There's a little extra height over the top of the foot—again helpful to reduce cold feet and numb toes—and the calf is flared enough for the bigger calf without a loss of fore-aft positioning, testers concurred. The stance is a touch upright—no quad burn here—and the cuff rides a little higher on the leg than average for the group.
Performance
For women who had longer legs and a more aggressive downhill attack, the solid (firmer than the listed 100 testers said), upright, tall-feeling cuff worked like a dream for driving the ski at speed through on- and off-piste challenges and supporting a hard-charger's fore-aft home base. For smaller, less aggro' testers the cuff itself was a hindrance to finding fore-aft Nirvana and they wanted a bit of heel lift or perhaps the softer-flexing Hawx Prime 90 W (and available in black or white, nice!).
Cool Features
For women with a high instep and a bigger calf, the Hawx line-up deserves a close look—it fits generously in those spots to begin with and the Memory Fit shell-molding feature allows those normally hard-to-modify areas to be expanded using just the skier's foot and leg in the boot to get the job done in a matter of minutes.
Kudos
Caveats