Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm review: specs, sizing and what it costs you
The Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm sits in the under-$1,000 budget tier. Published specifications: Waist 110 mm, Binding Sold separately, Level Advanced to expert. Best for: Deep snow, trees, and a skier who already owns something narrower for firm days.
The Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm is a ski in the under-$1,000 budget tier, and this page is the short version of everything published about it: the manufacturer's own specifications, who it suits, what it gives up against the alternatives, and where it sits on the shelf it competes on. We have not skied this item and we do not pretend to have. Everything below is researched from published specifications, published certification standards and verified owner reviews.
A 110 mm waist with a playful, surfy shape. This is the ski for people whose best days are storm days, and it is sold flat so the binding can be chosen and mounted to suit.
On a resort ski, mass is a feature. Weight is what damps chatter at speed on hard snow, which is why a ski built to be light is a ski built to be nervous, and why the advice here inverts completely once you start walking uphill on the thing.
Published specifications
These are the manufacturer's figures, not measurements we took. Specifications change between model years and between sizes, and a listing tied to one size is exactly that, so confirm the numbers on the retailer page for the size you are actually buying before you commit.
| Category | Alpine skis |
|---|---|
| Brand | Atomic |
| Budget | Under $1,000 |
| Tier | Expert |
| Waist | 110 mm |
| Binding | Sold separately |
| Level | Advanced to expert |
| Used for | Resort and lift-served skiing |
Who it suits
Deep snow, trees, and a skier who already owns something narrower for firm days.
What it costs you
Slow edge to edge on ice and hard work for a lighter skier. Buying this as a first ski is a common and expensive mistake.
That trade is worth stating plainly because it is the thing a product page will never tell you. Nothing in snow sports is free: every gram removed from a ski comes out of its damping, every degree of cuff rotation added to a boot comes out of its downhill stiffness, and every dollar saved on a shell comes out of either the fabric or the features. The question is never whether an item has a weakness, it is whether that particular weakness lands on the days you actually ski.
The limitation: the sticker price is not the price, and 110 mm is slow on hard snow
This ski is sold flat, which means the real cost is the ski plus a binding plus a shop mount fee. A binding here runs from around a hundred and seventy dollars to two hundred and seventy, and mounting is a labour charge on top, so the honest total lands well above the system skis it sits next to on the same shelf. That is not a criticism, since a flat ski buys you the choice of binding, a proper DIN range and a mount point set for your boot, but the comparison people make on price is usually the wrong comparison. The system skis versus flat skis comparison puts both totals side by side.
Second, a hundred and ten millimetres underfoot is slow edge to edge on hard snow and genuinely tiring over a full day of groomers. It also demands a skier with enough weight and speed to bend it. Buying this as a first ski is a common and expensive mistake, and the waist width chart exists mostly to prevent it. If your best days are deep days and you already own something narrower for the rest, it is the right ski. If it is your only ski, it is the wrong one.
Third, the mount point is a decision rather than a default. Freeride and park-influenced shapes are often mounted forward of the traditional line, and a centimetre either way changes how the ski behaves more than most people expect. Have that conversation with the technician doing the mount, along with the boot sole length and the release value, which is calculated from your height, weight, age, sole length and skier type and tested on a calibrated jig.
Where it sits on the shelf
It sits 4 of 5 on price on this shelf, between Rossignol Sprayer Pro Xpress All-Mountain Skis with Bindings at under $500 and Rossignol Arcade 80 Xpress All-Mountain Skis with Bindings at under $1,000.
Compared with the rest of the shelf
| Alpine skis | Tier | Budget | Where to buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm (this page) Freeride width | Expert | Under $1,000 | BC category Amazon |
| Rossignol Sprayer Pro Xpress All-Mountain Skis with Bindings Cheapest way onto real skis | Beginner | Under $500 | BC category Amazon |
| Rossignol Trixie Pro Xpress Womens Skis with Bindings Womens system ski | Beginner | Under $500 | BC category Amazon |
| Rossignol Arcade 80 Xpress All-Mountain Skis with Bindings The one-ski answer | Intermediate | Under $1,000 | BC category Amazon |
| Rossignol Forza 20 Xpress Skis with Bindings Carving bias | Intermediate | Under $500 | BC category Amazon |
Prices are what the retailer listed when this page was last checked and change constantly. We earn commissions from Backcountry and from qualifying Amazon purchases, and every outbound link in this table is one or the other. A button reading "BC category" opens a Backcountry search for that category rather than that exact model, so it finds comparable gear alongside it.
What owners consistently report
Nobody here has skied this item. What follows is the consensus of published owner reviews across retailers, summarised rather than quoted, with no invented owners and no invented quotes attributed to anybody.
Published owner reviews are consistent about what it is good at: playful, surfy and forgiving in soft snow, easy to release from a turn, and enjoyable in trees. Owners describe it as a ski that makes a storm day better rather than a ski that makes them ski better, which is a fair description of the category.
The criticisms are equally consistent: it is hard work on ice and firm groomers, and heavier or faster skiers report it feeling soft at speed. A recurring pattern is buyers who chose it as an only ski, spent most of the season on firm snow, and concluded they should have bought something narrower. Nobody reports the opposite, which is the useful signal.
Alternatives worth comparing
Rossignol Arcade 80 Xpress All-Mountain Skis with Bindings Under $1,000
Eighty millimetres with the binding included and mounted, which carves a groomer properly and handles a few inches of new snow. For a skier whose season is mostly firm days it is the more useful ski, and it removes the binding purchase and the mount fee from the total.
Rossignol Forza 20 Xpress Skis with Bindings Under $500
A system ski at around a hundred and fifty dollars less with a carving bias, for skiers who spend almost all of their time on groomers. It is the opposite of this ski in every way, which is exactly why it is the honest alternative rather than a near-neighbour.
Marker Griffon 13 ID Ski Bindings, 100 mm brake Under $250
A hundred millimetre brake is within the fifteen millimetre window a hundred and ten millimetre waist wants, and the release range suits most adult skiers. Add this and a mount fee to the ski price to get the number you should actually be comparing against a system ski.
Every alternative here is a product already verified on this site, so the listing behind each link resolved live through CreatorsAPI and the returned title was read against the product the entry claims to be. Both buttons are affiliate links, and prices move constantly.
How to shop this category
Three numbers describe a resort ski and you can shop on them alone. Length decides stability against agility: longer is calmer at speed and floats better, shorter turns faster and forgives more. Waist width, measured in millimetres underfoot, decides what snow the ski is happy in: under 80 mm is a carving ski that lives on groomers, 84 to 100 mm is the all-mountain band where one pair covers most days at most North American resorts, and over 100 mm is a powder ski that feels lazy edge to edge on hard snow. Turn radius, quoted in metres, is the arc the sidecut wants to make, and a 13 metre ski genuinely does want to turn more than a 19 metre one.
The fourth number is the one that inverts against touring advice, so it is worth stating plainly: on a resort ski, mass is a feature. A ski damps vibration in proportion to how much it weighs, which is why a heavy ski feels calm on firm snow at speed and a light one skitters and deflects. You are not lifting a resort ski uphill, so you pay nothing for that weight and get stability back. Buy the heaviest ski you enjoy carrying from the car park, and no lighter.
System skis, sold with a binding already mounted, are the right answer at the bottom of the market and the wrong one at the top. They remove four decisions and a mounting fee for a first buyer. They also lock you into a specific binding, usually a lower-DIN-range model on a rail plate, and they cannot be remounted for a different boot as easily. Once you are buying skis you intend to keep for five seasons, buy the ski and the binding separately.
Why is a heavier ski better here?
A ski damps vibration in proportion to its mass, so on firm snow at speed a heavier ski is calmer and a lighter one skitters. This is the single clearest place where resort advice and touring advice invert: a touring skier is lifting that mass thousands of vertical feet and pays for every gram, a resort skier is not lifting it at all and is paid back in stability. Buy the heaviest ski you enjoy carrying from the car park, and no lighter.
The three mistakes this category produces
Buying on length alone from a height chart
Height sets a starting point and weight corrects it, because a ski is a spring and a heavier skier bends the same ski further. A 200 lb skier at 5 foot 8 and a 140 lb skier at 5 foot 8 do not want the same ski.
Buying a powder ski for a resort you ski mostly on groomers
A 110 mm waist is genuinely slow edge to edge on hard snow and tiring for a whole day. Count your actual deep days honestly before you buy for them.
Treating a mounted binding as a set binding
A system ski arrives with the binding attached and not adjusted for you. The release value still has to be set from your height, weight, age, boot sole length and skier type together, and tested on a calibrated jig.
Looking after it
Keep the base waxed, because a dry base is not just slow, it oxidises and that damage is permanent. Wipe the edges dry before the skis go in a bag or they will rust overnight in a warm car. Store them dry, strapped together base to base, out of a hot garage. Ski them into a shop for a base grind and an edge tune once a season and after any rock damage that catches a fingernail.
None of that is glamorous and all of it is cheaper than replacing the item. The pattern across every category on this site is the same: snow sports equipment is destroyed by water, heat and neglect far more often than by use, and the difference between gear that lasts three seasons and gear that lasts ten is almost entirely what happens to it in the twenty minutes after you get home.
Which build this appears in
This item is a line in one of the complete build ladders on this site, which means it has been costed against everything else you would buy alongside it rather than picked in isolation. That is the useful way to look at any single purchase: what it does to the total.
- The resort performance ceiling: A wide ski, a stiff wide-last boot, three-layer outerwear and the tuning kit to keep it all working. Most people should not buy this.
What to read next
If you are still deciding between models, the full alpine skis roundup ranks the shelf by tier with the same published specifications used here. If you have not settled on the rest of the kit yet, the buy-once resort setup budgets a complete setup line by line with a running total, which is a more useful way to spend a budget than optimising one item.
For sizing, the calculators cover ski length, snowboard size, mondopoint boot sizing, skin width and the skier code your shop uses to set a binding. The reference charts hold the same numbers in printable table form, and the comparisons work through the decisions where two reasonable options genuinely pull in different directions.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm best for?
Deep snow, trees, and a skier who already owns something narrower for firm days.
What are the drawbacks of the Atomic Bent 110 Skis, 172 cm?
Slow edge to edge on ice and hard work for a lighter skier. Buying this as a first ski is a common and expensive mistake.
What length Bent 110 should I buy?
Height sets the window and weight moves you within it, because a ski is a spring and a heavier skier bends the same ski further. Wider skis are also commonly run slightly longer than an all-mountain ski by the same skier, since float scales with surface area. Run your own numbers rather than reading a height chart, and remember that a ski this wide asks more of a lighter skier at any length.
What bindings do I need for a 110 mm ski?
An alpine binding with a brake width within roughly fifteen millimetres of the ski waist, so a hundred or a hundred and ten millimetre brake here. A narrow brake drags in the snow and a wide one catches on everything. The release range should comfortably contain your certified value rather than sit at either end of it, and the setting itself is calculated and jig-tested by a technician.
Is 110 mm too wide for a first pair of skis?
Yes, for almost everybody. A ski this wide is slow to move from edge to edge on firm snow, tiring over a full day of groomers, and demanding for a lighter skier. Most learning happens on firm snow, which is where this ski is least helpful. An eighty to a hundred millimetre waist covers far more of a real season, and a powder ski is a second pair rather than a first one.
Atomic Bent 110 vs a system ski: which actually costs less?
A system ski removes a mount fee and several decisions, which is worth real money on a first purchase. A flat ski gives you the binding you choose, a wider release range, a mount point set for your boot and the option to remount later, which is what you want on a ski you intend to keep. Price the flat ski honestly, with the binding and the mount included, before deciding which is cheaper.
How long should my skis be?
A ski standing on its tail should reach somewhere between your chin and the top of your head, and where you land inside that window depends on weight, discipline and ability. A heavier skier bends the same ski further and wants more length, a beginner wants less because a shorter ski recovers from a mistake faster, and a powder ski runs longer than an all-mountain ski for the same skier. Our ski length calculator does the arithmetic for all four inputs at once.
Do I need to buy bindings separately?
Only if you are buying a bare ski. A system ski includes the binding, already mounted, which saves a mounting fee and four decisions. A bare ski gives you the choice of binding, a wider DIN range, and a mount point set for your boot, which is what you want once you are buying skis to keep.
Is a heavier ski really better at a resort?
For stability on firm snow at speed, yes, and it is the clearest place where resort advice and touring advice invert. Mass damps vibration, so a heavy ski tracks calmly through chop that makes a light ski deflect. The cost is only felt when you have to carry it, which at a resort is from the car park to the lift.
How often should skis be tuned?
Wax every three to six ski days for a base that stays fast and healthy, and a full edge tune once a season plus after any impact that leaves a burr you can feel with a fingernail. A home wax kit pays for itself in about two shop tunes.
How we choose: we compare published manufacturer specifications, published certification standards and verified owner reviews across retailers. We do not test equipment in person, and every figure quoted here is the manufacturer's published number unless we say otherwise. This is researched buying guidance and not professional instruction: binding release values are set by a certified technician on a calibrated jig, and avalanche terrain requires formal training and a current regional forecast that no article can replace.
