Head Hammer 130

The Gist

The 2018 Head Hammer 130 continues to impress our testers with its strong cuff and the edging power it enables—this is a tall, tough lever for hammering out aggressive carves off-piste or on-. However, the Form Fit shell and Perfect Fit liner round out the creature comforts on offer here—it's not all about bashing things.

The Fit

Testers found the off-the-rack fit a little incongruous, with a tightish toebox (it's extra padded for toe-bang cushion), a roomy fit through the instep (for a 98 mm last) and a tight heel. Custom liner molding helped to straighten out the fit tension line graph for testers. The cuff feels tall and slightly upright on the leg, which testers thought was due to the tall and stiff external tongue (the third piece in the shell/cuff/tongue 3-piece construction here). The tongue is swappable—a nice feature for modifying the flex feel—though the stock, out of box flex is firm, they said.

Performance

The sides of the lower shell rise up higher, internally, than most cabrio, or three-piece, shells—this is one of the reasons the Hammer skis so strong, laterally. Testers found themselves making aggressive side-to-side tipping moves to roll the ski up onto high edge angles where the Hammer 130 easily drove the ski through all kinds of terrain. Many of the testers employed this tactic because they found it hard to get out in front of the tall, upright and stiff-feeling tongue and onto the front of the ski. Taller testers had a little more leverage to find the fore-aft sweet spot. The boot liner is well-padded and there are several shock-absorbing design elements, from the rubberized boot board and grippy sole plates to the elastomer rear spoiler and gel-insert tongue construction. High speeds and big impact dampening is the Hammer's job.

Cool Features

The combination of the Perfect Fit liner and Form Fit shell molding features give the Hammer a softer side, opening up the toebox fit and evening out the fit elsewhere throughout the boot. The anchor points between the lower shell and cuff are not adjustable for lateral stance angles—they are actually suspension points that use an elastomer bushing to further dampen shock.