Don’t look now, but Summer is over. We can tell because we’re about to head off on our final ski picking trip of the season. When we return it’ll be September, and we’ll be shifting gears heavily toward fall fun instead of summer fun. We’ll do our best to make this late summer ski selection trip look like a vacation with some good adventure photos on facebook, including some days on snow at Pass Stelvio with Noah Hoffman. But the purpose of the trip is actually to finish our ski picking for the season.
The first stop will be in Altenmarkt, Austria, where we visit with our pal Jean-Marc at Salomon. The Salomon trip will be really interesting this season because we’ll be looking at the first full production of the much-anticipated Carbon skate ski.
The Salomon Carbon Skate LAB is the first successful utilization of structural carbon (outside of reinforcing laminations to add stiffness) in the XC race industry. There have been other attempts, but nothing that could be called a success. Carbon is a tricky material because it has a high modulus of elasticity that is very directionally specific. In recent years the configuration and lay-up of carbon to general very refined material properties has made leaps and bounds. Previous attempts at skis with structural carbon elements simply didn’t have the suppleness or flexibility to be successful. But Salomon has nailed it. The carbon skis started showing up visibly on the World Cup early last season – earlier prototype productions were well disguised, though they did see World Cup race time. The new skis were generating results in cold, new snow conditions. Later, at World Championships, there were medals in wet snow as well. The rate of adoption has been very high for an entirely new set of materials.
Our test experience with the skis was entirely positive; a uniquely snappy and elastic energy response coupled with a soft and smooth camber expression really well suited to cold snow. After Amy’s first test she came home and announced “that ski is *#^$%^ing frictionless!”
One of the really interesting qualities of the carbon cap material is that the 45 degree layup provides a very high level of torsional rigidity while the thin thickness profile makes a soft and supple camber response. How does a soft-feeling ski with superior edge security sound? Tad Elliott received his one and only pair shortly prior to the Birkie, and chose it for the race over his entire fleet of World Cup quality skis. While his comeback from mono only gave him the capacity to ski with the leaders for 42km of the 50K race, he enjoyed outstanding skis and great sensations for the whole race. Late in March at the Super Tour Finals and long distance national champs in Sun Valley, Tad chose the same pair of skis on a day when the refrozen ice was so sketchy that half the field felt they couldn’t even put an edge into the track. Again, Tad enjoyed great skis, and was at the front of the pack until Ivan Babikov blew the field up with an attack on his pair of Carbons. The same pair of skis for a cold, new snow Birkie, and a sketchy, icy spring series race; for an elite skier that is remarkable.
Based on the astronomical price-point of the Salomon Carbon Lab boot we’ve heard from a lot of customers that they think this ski will cost a huge amount. That’s a big bummer for Salomon, because the price-point of the Carbon Lab ski is right in line with other top models from other brands. We’ll be selling them for $775, and you’ll be able to find them cheaper than that from other stores if you want. The Amer factory, where Salomon and Atomic skis are produced, has invested a lot of money in infrastructure to keep production costs relatively low. The magic of the Carbon Lab ski is in the design and engineering – the material cost is a relatively minor part of the equation, and the new materials plug directly into existing production tooling and methods. Salomon has not had to reinvent the manufacturing process for this ski. The boots, on the other hand, have a carbon shell produced in the Ferrari factory (according to what we’ve heard), which drives the price through the roof, and creates big limitations on production numbers.
Last season we started looking at Ski-Trab as a potential brand addition. We first tested Ski-Trab ten years ago, and recognized really good material workmanship then. Last year we started hearing really good things about the skis from a number of different directions. Pavol Skvaridlo, who imports the skis to Canada, loaned us some material to work with. And Steve Soistman and Mario Roncador up in Alaska sent us some additional material to test. So we’ve worked with the skis a bit. Not enough to claim expertise, but enough to be very intrigued.
Part of the attraction is the company itself. Ski Trab is a family company, started by Giacamo Trabucchi in the ‘40s or ‘50s. It is now run by Giacomo’s sons, Adriano and Daniele Trabucchi. The Trabucchis seem to operate similarly to the way we operate – focus on quality over growth, and retain control of the process. They make some of the very lightest and most competitive ski-mountaineering skis in the world, and dominate the Ski-Mo competition scene. They’ve been making XC skis for years, but have recently increased their attention to refining their XC product line and are intent on making the best XC racing skis that they can.
The Ski-Trab xc skis are among the lightest skis on the market – within grams (on the lighter side) of the Madshus Redline and Salomon Carbon Lab models. Like the Salomon Carbon Lab skis they appear to utilize a relatively high-modulus material lay-up with a relatively thin thickness profile. Ski-Trab uses Aramid (Kevlar) instead of Carbon, which yields higher strength/weight, and lower stiffness/weight.
The resulting ski is a relatively high resting camber, active feeling ski with outstanding edge control. The skis feel a little less “snappy” than some, but are on the active and energetic end of the spectrum. For most of last winter it was really cold in our area, and we found that the Ski Trab skate skis offered lower static friction than almost anything else, making them a really nice climbing ski in very cold conditions. They didn’t feel quite as energetic at high speeds as some of our favorites from other brands, but by the same token they produced fast lap times in all of our testing throughout the winter.
We won’t claim to have a full understanding of the design concept or cambers used by Ski Trab. A big part of our visit to Bormio later this month is the opportunity to learn how the Trabucchis think about skis and cambers. This year will be another step in the learning process for us. We won’t run a huge inventory, but we’ll be putting plenty of demo skis on the snow, and we welcome customers to join us in this process. In fact, if you’re intrigued by the company and would like to pre-order skis before our visit to Bormio (starting August 24) – we’ll knock $100 of the price of the skis, and sign you up as a testing partner as we gather more experience and expertise on the brand.
Speaking of price… ummm, we’re not quite sure yet. We know our cost in Euros before we’ve dealt with importing the skis, but there are lots of associated costs to be factored into the equation. We expect that the skis will be priced in-line with our other models from our other brands, and in the neighborhood of $775. We’ll finalize that soon and let you all know. That 100$ discount above? For budgeting purposes, we’ll promise not to make it more than $675.