We’re just unpacking from a great weekend of demos at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center. As depressing as the region-wide lack of snow may be, a captive audience of the most eager skiers in New England skiing laps of a 1KM snowmaking loop is a great situation for us! We had skate skis on the snow from Fischer, Madshus, Salomon and Ski Trab, and classic skis from Fischer and Madshus. As usual the feedback from skiers was extremely valuable. Most of our customers are not high-end professional skiers, and we really depend on a wider cross-section of skiers for feedback on the products that we carry in order to ensure that we’ve got options to satisfy everybody who’s interested in top-end materials.
As we’ve seen in the past, the biggest lesson of the demo days was that different people have different preferences. What a shocker! It is interesting though, because it’s so tempting for us to reinforce our own preferences and prejudices. We need to remember that our job is to help customers find the platform that will support their experience and performance to the highest level. Conditions throughout the weekend ranged from full-blown slush on Saturday afternoon to hard, textured (perfectly groomed) ice on Sunday morning, and fairly dry sugar later on Sunday as the traffic piled laps onto the loop. Here’s a brand by brand run-down on what we heard about skate skis:
Fischer
Words to describe these ranged from “cadillac” and “silky smooth” to “gold-standard”. This was our first opportunity to put a lot of skiers on the revised 610 that we wrote about earlier this fall, and the characteristics that we expected to see from those revisions really seemed to carry onto the snow. With the more rearward position of the camber bridge and smoother release points we expected to find that the skis accelerate quickly and easily under foot, and that the bridge provides an active and supple response. We also saw that the relatively strong flex values (we’ve tended that direction in our selections) did not create a harsh or overly-taxing platform. We remain very excited about these skis, and fully expect that skiers who have always enjoyed Fischers will really appreciate these new skis. In general, the people who did not respond as positively to the Fischers were looking for either a more active high camber with a longer engagement of the ski on and off the snow, or a snappier elastic response to overload. The snappier response was relatively easy to find with stronger values, but was also more readily available in some other models. The longer engagement really wasn’t going to come from these relatively low-resting skis. But on the whole the Fischers elicited strongly positive (and sometimes effusive) responses, with very few people coming up with anything overtly negative to say about them.
Madshus
We had some interesting options in the Madshus skis – particularly on Sunday with the dryer snow heading toward sugary soft conditions in the heavily skied corners and climbs. On the one hand we had the normal Madshus HU construction cold model with a moderately high camber and a very long active response under foot. These skis really satisfied people who wanted more active engagement 0ver a longer push cycle, but who weren’t worried about big overload response. We didn’t put any super strong HU skis on the snow (which experience suggests may have been interesting). These were cold new-snow skis prepared for cold new snow, and they were making people with an active skiing style really happy – particularly climbing. These remain one of the most reliable crowd-pleasers that we’ve got, and one of our most popular items.
The other Madshus model that we had on the snow was a very low camber production of U++ skis with added reinforcement under the foot, and a short camber bridge. I’ve written about these skis in the past, and anybody who has read my writing about them knows that I’m a fan. These low-camber skis produced the most passionate feedback. On the one hand we sold two pairs directly off the snow, and on the other hand we had a couple of people pronounce them to be “junk”. The thing about these really low camber skis is that the active engagement below full weight is almost non-existant. But the elastic response to overload is greater than any other ski we’ve got. And the short wheelbase makes the ski handle like a much shorter ski – it’s really confidence inspiring in squirrely or chunky/cruddy (chuddy?) snow. These are pretty much the only skis we had on the snow that inspired people to add something to their line-up that they didn’t expect to add. But skiers accustomed to the higher camber action of the HU ski (or something like a Rossi) are unlikely to like the feeling of them.
Salomon
We were really excited about the opportunity to put the new Salomon Carbon LAB skis on the snow with our customers. The one range of conditions where we didn’t really expect the Carbon skis to dominate was in slush, but we did prepare a small selection of what we selected as “universal plus” skis with a TB3. People loved them! Overwhelming feedback was that they were confidence-inspiring, with great edge control, but also just plain fast-running. Both Amy and Austin had these skis ranked high among their favorites after their West Yellowstone trip where they found winter intact with cold fresh snow. Now we’ve bracketed the range of conditions with a sloppy day on a short manmade loop, with equally positive response. The very first ski that we sold directly off the snow was one of the Salomons. What was really interesting is that the same cold skis with TB2n that felt good in West Yellowstone, were also inspiring people testing them in slush to plunk down credit cards. Awesome.
In terms of feedback the response to the Carbon LAB skis was not terribly specific – mostly because the different binding system (all other skis were mounted with NNN) meant that people weren’t making totally direct comparisons with other brands. While the Carbon LAB skis have a higher resting camber than the Fischers, I would say that they occupy a similar “balanced” place on the spectrum of characteristics, with a bit more active engagement on and off the snow, and also a bit more elastic response at overload. In general, they feel like a “more of everything” ski, and I believe this is a response to the use of the structural carbon in the layup. It’s a very different feeling ski than the previous Equipe 10 models that we’ve worked with. We need to get some of these mounted with NNN in order to allow some more direct comparison. We’ll keep doing that as long as we don’t run out of skis – they’ve been a popular choice so far this season, and the really positive response from West Yellowstone and this past weekend is only going to help them along.
Ski Trab
Of everything we had happening this weekend, we were all most anticipatory about this piece. Ski Trab is a new company for us, and we’re really just getting started with them, so we were anxious to get these on the snow. Our experience from last season was limited but encouraging. The skate skis we had felt fast at low speed (“slippery” if you will), and very stable and secure under foot, but didn’t have the high-speed response we want to see. In August we visited the factory in Bormio, and took some skis up to Stelvio glacier to test. At that time we felt that we filled-in some blanks in our understanding, and found good feelings from some stronger skis, with much more active response at higher speeds. This weekend was our first shot at our new inventory, and it was super encouraging.Because of the conditions we only worked-up the warm model skis. The cold skis have a slightly different sidecut, with a narrower tip, and a different base material. We’ll get on those a bit later, but for a start we worked with three pairs in a variety of strengths in the 186 length that both Amy and I skied, and singles in the longer and shorter lengths. In that 186 length we found a general preference for the stiffer skis, especially as the snow softened to slush or sugared-up with traffic. That might be somewhat counter-intuitive, but it was a pretty clear feeling. The softer skis felt really smooth and fast on the hard Sunday morning snow. And all the skis had very positive edge feeling and unshakable stability in conditions that were sometimes a bit sketchy.
Response to the skis was overwhelmingly positive. Our hope with these skis was that we’d have a winner in terms of stability and skiability, and that showed-up in the feedback that we got. But what was most encouraging is that the stability really didn’t come as a trade-off with speed. Amy stuck her neck out and suggested that, if she were racing in the variable snow conditions that we saw on the weekend, she would probably choose the Ski Trabs because they removed stability and balance concerns from the equation. The negative feedback we received on the Trabs was fairly limited, and came mostly from people who were really excited about the extremely low camber and active elastic overload response of the low-camber Madshus option. In one case we got some negative feedback on the 179s, and Amy followed up with a lap on the snow that resulted in her moving the bindings back a cm which made the skis feel much better. We’ll be sure to review the binding placement on those.
We don’t know what to expect from Ski Trab, and it’s hard to go to the bank based on one demo weekend. But we couldn’t have asked for a better launch in terms of feedback, and we’ll keep an eye on things.
Classic Skis
Demoing classic skis in klister conditions is fun, because most people don’t have much ability to test different klister and most people don’t have great klister skis. The combination of real klister skis and some really good success with some simple klister combos made for some very positive feedback. On Saturday the snow was very wet, and we got great results from Rode Topline KR3. As things broke down we added a bit of the new Vauhti K-Red klister for kick as necessary. Sunday was much drier, granular snow that got moist but never fully wet. We had great skis on Vauhti K-Violet and K-Gold mixed, and in some cases we added a bit of K-Red later in the day. The K-red is a new addition to the line this year. We tested several prototype versions in the spring, and the one that made it to production is the one we liked in testing. I guess we liked it for a reason! This is a really strong-kicking klister and it was easy to add a bit too much, but a great way to bring the kick up a long ways with a very small volume change in the wax job. It’ll be a super useful ingredient. The K-violet remains just about the broadest range and most excellent cold conditions klister I’ve seen, and is a reliably great basis for mixing in a wide range of crystal configurations below freezing.
We didn’t chase klister testing to a competition level, but a good basis of mixing ingredients applied to real klister skis was enough to make some really good feeling skis. From both Madshus and Fischer we had a selection of real, purpose-built klister skis with compact (short) high pockets. The flex values on these skis often run quite high, and first impressions based on numbers are often that the skis will be really hard to kick. But the geometry of these pockets puts the whole klister job into play with relatively little impulse. Adam Glueck is one of the hotshot eastern juniors we work with on skis, and he was a good test monkey for us since he has an apparently bottomless supply of energy and enthusiasm. He skied on at least four different pairs of dedicated klister skis and he had his preferences. But his summary of a real klister ski was a keeper: “they’re bombproof kick – I went straight up Chip Hill – and on the downhill I was passing people on skate skis”. OK, I might have paraphrased that a little bit. Adam talks a lot, and really fast, so it’s sometimes hard to keep up. But the message about real klister skis is a keeper. In klister conditions, it’s good to have klister skis. Stiff hardwax skis are not klister skis. We very often put growing juniors onto stiffer hardwax skis so that they’ve got something to grow-into and the skis will have utility as a hardwax ski when the kid puts on 15 or 20 lbs. But once a certain stability in the growth profile has been reached, it’s really good to have a true klister ski in the bag.
KV+ Poles
We didn’t really plan ahead about pole demos – we pretty much just figured that we could hand-out our personal poles. Amy and I ski on 145 classic and 155 skate, and Austin is on 155 classic and 165 skate. So we had those sizes available. There was a really large and consistent interest in the poles all day long, and feedback was overwhelming. We came home with orders for six pairs. That’s pretty good for a $375 item that we hadn’t really planned on pushing too hard. We had one skier say that the strap felt too bulky under his hand, but that was pretty much the only negative on the ergonomics. One guy mentioned that the swing weight was almost too light compared to the overall weight, and that he ended up with the pole planted too far forward. That’s a problem we’re not going to apologize for, and I think it’s easy to adjust to the swing weight being “too” light. Our original order for poles has been almost entirely chewed up, so we’ll be reordering very soon. Like tomorrow.
About the Gerbil Loop at Craftsbury
We probably saw over 500 skiers at Craftsbury this weekend. The parking lots were full both days. They haven’t been able to make new snow in about two weeks because it’s been so warm, and the forecast isn’t very encouraging for more good cold in the near future. But they were careful and diligent about keeping the tracks clean and well groomed, and the skiing was as good as you can imagine given the circumstances. What was most awesome to see was that so many skiers in such a small area were so happy to be skiing. Everybody seemed really happy to be there, and I heard no angry words being exchanged on the crowded track. The UVM boys were there taking what looked like a pretty fast workout, and they just skied in a train through traffic. There were people moving a lot of different speeds, and making space for each other. I think it’s a testament to the operation that Craftsbury runs that it brings out the very best in people. For us, the weekend was a great success. If there had been endless K’s of perfect skiing we would have had much less opportunity to interact with people. And skiers seemed just as willing to become customers as ever. In fact, if anything, the focus on new gear to tackle the conditions that were available was greater than average. Altogether it was an extremely worthwhile weekend, and there’s no way it would have been possible or successful without both the investment and the dedication to a good product that Craftsbury contributes to the sport. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: we are optimistic and confident in the future of the sport largely because of what Dick and Judy and the whole crew at the Craftsbury Outdoor Center have invested in ensuring a future. So, thanks!