Seeing that it is the start of the training season for Nordic skiers, it seems like a good time to recap some of my highlights from this past year and also talk about some of the things I am looking forward to this upcoming year at Caldwell Sport.
We had a very busy winter season that started with one of our annual ski pick trips to Europe in June. (We will be leaving for our first trip this year a month earlier in May, so if you are interested in being added to our pick list, please contact us.) This past year, we saw several significant updates from each of our ski companies: Madshus launched the new Redline series, Fischer launched their new Speedmax series, and we were able to pick some of the Salomon World Cup 569 series. Zach has written a much more detailed review of these models here. We were very excited for the snow to fall so we could try out all of the new models.
Early in the fall, we launched a new on-line store so that customers can order wax and tools from us without actually having to talk to us if they don’t want to. If you have not seen it, you can find it here at http://shop.caldwellsport.com. I think it has been a good addition to the business and provides good information and resources for customers.
We had 2 early season demos this year at Craftsbury that were a huge success. Not only were we busy constantly putting people on our demo skis, we got a lot of very positive feedback and were able to demo a lot of our skis ourselves. One interesting thing we saw is that a lot of the frugal New England yankee racing crew were impressed with the new changes in the skis and placed orders right after our demo for something similar. We also were pleased to see how many new skiers tried out gear from our demo and placed orders for top tier gear even when they were just starting out. This is something we have said for years – World Cup skiers are looking for a lot of the same qualities beginning skiers are looking for.
We also had a chance to try out the new Madshus Super Nano Skate boots and the new Rottefella SSR bindings. Although I have never been a big fan of either Madshus boots or binding wedges, I seem to have been converted to both. Madshus stepped up the support in their boot and refined the fit so that they provide an incredible amount of stability with a more precise fit. They also improved the look of the boot, which was a positive thing. Everyone we put on the Madshus Super Nano boot this year ended up buying a pair which is a testament to their successful boot evolution. I was also surprised to find that I really liked the feel of the SSR bindings in a lot of conditions this winter. In the past, I have felt the wedge sometimes made a ski slightly more slippery feeling but also decreased the stability. I did a very unscientific study on a 2km loop where I used perceived effort (because I didn’t have my heart rate monitor along) with a regular Xcelerator binding versus the new SSR binding. My time on the same pair of skis was 20 seconds faster using the SSR. Although the test was not controlled very well, I know I would have used the SSR binding if I raced that day.
This past year, we put a big effort into supporting and testing our skis, grinds, Vauhti wax, and Red Creek tools at some major ski events. We tested in West Yellowstone over Thanksgiving, US Nationals in Soldier Hollow in the beginning of January and also had skiers testing for us in Alaska and in Hayward, Wisconsin. We have a lot of top US skiers on skis that we picked. These skiers race both on the World Cup circuit and on a National stage and usually carry a large fleet of skis. The feedback we get from these athletes is critical for maintaining our evolving knowledge base and is great way to have a large pool of very active guinea pigs. When these guinea pigs are fit and racing fast, they also make us look pretty good by association. I would like to thank Sophie Caldwell, Noah Hoffman, Caitlin Gregg, and others for making us look like we know what we are doing.
There were also some interesting things that stuck out regarding wax, tools and grinds this year. On the wax side, we were very pleased to find a lot of success with the Vauhti hfC 15 liquid and the new Vauhti hfC powders that came out mid season. While we have always been a big fan of their kick waxes and klisters, we are increasingly impressed with their new glide waxes. These waxes were on skis this year that won Supertour Races in West Yellowstone and at Senior Nationals, not to mention used with great success at World Junior Championships and the Olympics.
Zach is always trying to find the next best grind and I think he made a good step forward this year with both the new TG1-1 grind and the TG1-2 grind. He has more detailed information about these grinds here. While the right ski and right grind are the two most important things for a fast ski, I was also surprised how much hand structure can increase the speed of a ski. We brought a whole test fleet of grind skis out to Senior Nationals along with a whole test fleet of structure skis. We had many occasions where the addition of hand structure made a significant improvement in ski speed even when the grind was winning the grind test. A lot of time, hand structure is de-emphasized, mainly because it is very expensive and time consuming to test all of the necessary components. Even at a very high level, most teams don’t travel with a good fleet of hand structure test skis, not to mention grind test skis. We were fortunate to have both out at Senior Nationals and learned a lot. We had a lot of success with the Red Creek hand structure tools and I will pay more attention to these in the coming season.
This was the first winter in a long time that I haven’t put on a racing bib for the whole season. We were busier than ever and invested more time and resources into being at more big events and providing testing support. Not only were we at a lot of big National events, but I was able to be part of the US wax staff for World Junior and U23 Championships in Val di Fiemme, Italy and Zach was part of the US staff as a wax technician at the Olympics in Russia. Both of these events were a ton of work, but also enable us to put a lot of time into testing skis and wax when it counts. We hope to continue our huge investment in this type of work so that we can continue to provide our customers the best information possible.