Well I had four days last week to decide what is what with next years skis. I didn't get to ski everything I would have liked to, but I got to ski a lot of skis! We covered all our current brands models as well as heavy time on Blizzard, and some models from Scott, Movement, Amplid, Hart, Rossi, K2, Salomon, Atomic, Line and others. What a great event and a super fun experience. Thanks to Will Lachenaur and the rest of the WWSRA delegates as well as the WWSRA employees for putting it on.
What I cannot figure out is why more dealers don't show up. It is amazing to me that dealers order skis without skiing them! The sales reps do all they can to make these events fun and easy but still the turnout is probably less than half what it should be. Why anyone would skip a few days of skiing on the products you will be selling next year, going to free parties with all the food and beer you want, a chance to talk shop with your peers, and then ski with Ingrid Backstrom, Jessica Sobolowski, and other "celebrity" skiers is beyond me. It's one of those things that make you go hmmmm...
Anyway, we skied lot's. About ten testers from Calskico filled out test cards for everything they skied. The test cards will be put into an excel spreadsheet for my use (thanks David B) and then sent off to Realskiers.com for inclusion in their ski test database. I think we covered about a hundred skis. Most models have multiple cards. Brian at Mammoth and Christian at Kirkwood share my boot legnth, so that is who I typically skied with. That way we could do a few runs and then trade skis without readjusting the bindings. At Mammoth we skied in packs of 4-6 so we could really get a lot of testing done. At Kirkwood we broke off more into ski catagories and did personal comparisons. Christian and I took Ladies skis and 95-100mm waist models.
Highlights of the Demo:
Stockli XXL, Palmer carving ski, Head iM78 chip, Fisher Watea line, Fischer Vision lineup, Elan 777, the Basque Dinner with the Fischer Crew in Garnerville NV, Showing the local hotshots how to play foosball with my Dalbello/Elan rep Will Lachenauer at the watchtower bar, Amplid C7 carving ski, the new Scot Schmidt model from Stockli (Please don't soften the tip if you are listening Scot).
It was nice to talk with and ski with other dealers as well. I don't think it is a coincidence that I did see Jim from The Starthaus, Christian Denis from Elite Feet, the Footloose gang and other representation from what I consider to be the better shops. Christian and I always seem to find we have similar viewpoints on matters having to do with sliding down hills on sticks. I only wish I could ski like him! It must suck to be on the slope at squaw a few hours every day!
Special thanks to Robin Barnes from Heavenly, Blake Yeamans and Guy for their input on the test.
Overall I was VERY pleased with our lines for next season. I'll post our test results when they are compiled.
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