Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Post Demo days thoughts



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.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Days of Bliss


Tomorrow after work I head out for four days of bliss. It's demo time! Two days at Mammoth followed by two days at Kirkwood skiing all next years gear. This year the Ski Rep association has decided to do seperate Norcal and Socal events so if you go to both you get four days to ski the new models. This is great news as we need to check things out as thouroughly as possible. Brian, Todd, Becky and myself will do Mammoth. Becky stays on and Christian, Heather and others will make it to Kirkwood for the second session. Whoo Hoo!! Looking forward to trying all our current lines plus Hart, Palmer, Line, 4Front and a variety of "possibles". Also looking at the competition. The Rossi's look interesting and we always have to check out the Chinese skis (K2) as that is what we will be selling against in our area. Wish me luck in finding magic for our customers!

Friday, February 8, 2008

Trying to test some skis

Wednesday was great. I Skied the Stockli Scot Schmidt vs. the Scott Mission vs. the Head iM 88 in the morning. The Schmidt is magical. Afternoon was the Head iM78 vs. the Fisxher Race SC. Since the Race SC is my personal ski I really enjoyed a half day on them. We had a great time skiing everything thet Sugar Bowl had to offer. Brian joined NASTC for the secong half of the day for some backcountry training, He was impressed with the instruction and went back Thursday for more fun with NASTC including drop runs down to Donner Lake. All in all it was SUPER FUN! Next week, however, the testing becomes serious. Next week we test the 2008/09 crop of skis and have to make some serious decisions. Testing is split between Nortern and Southern California this year. Southern is in Mammoth followed by Northern at Kirkwood. I will do both. Monday through Thursday next week will be the time to make decisions that will dictate next years ski wall- and with it my economic future. No stress... yeah right! Brian, Becky and myself will go to Mammoth. Christian. Heather, Becky, Todd and others will join us at Kirkwood. John is out of the loop with a bad knee. Otherwise almost everyone will have some input. In addition, our regimin for testing will change a bit as we will be filling out cards for the Realskiers.com reviews. Peter has a slightly different testing scorecard setup, but we should easily assimilate. A few weeks after the Demo I go to Reno and put in the orders for skis. The skis show up in August and we have our big kick-off sale. Then we see what skis sell well throughout the season. That is our business cycle, and the next week will point me towards decisicons that will have a big impact on my life. In the end all I know how to do it is to ski the skis, choose what will work best in the various catagories, and buy them. Wish me luck!

Sunday, February 3, 2008

Las Vegas Report

Vegas was a gas as usual. I managed to stay out of trouble for the most part, and got some work done. First impressions are this: Head- New ski to replace the Mojo 90 looks great, overall graphics were solid, a new "chip" iM78 should be spectacular, boots look solid. A monter in the 100mm range will battle with the Mojo 103 for floor space. A bit spendy like the 103, I may not stock both. There's gonna have to be a ski off! Tyrolia bindings will see some changes due to FIS height requirements. Many models lose the snti-blocking anti friction devise as well as the diagonal heel. Bummer!! The LD-12 gets to keep all the good stuff as do all the railflex models. Maybe the most interesting thing at the Head booth were the Palmer skis. I need to ski them and do some more research (the Palmer website comes up as soon as this blog entry is done). So far they look more than interesting- more like they are kind of mind blowing! Peter Keelty of Realskiers.com has spoken very highly of them and I attempted (without success) to ski them last year. Now they are being distributed by Head, so it should be easy for me to get on them. Maybe this next week? Fischer- Watea gets only graphic changes (can't fault them here!), Womens skis are solid with nice minor upgrades. Still missing a big wide ladies power ski, but the ladies stuff they have is really good. They showed a FIS race ski that has been the talk of the World Cup circuit. It has holes in the tip and a "swallowtail" in the rear. Everything else in Fischer skis looks great too. In addition to the skis, the boot line continues to evolve and improve. We sell more Fischer boots every year. Even the bags were really nice. They are made by High Sierra for Fischer this next year. Volkl- Tigersharks are gone (I never liked 'em much anyway). The new "switch" ski is called the Grizzley. It looks awesome and is pretty awesomely expensive too. It will be interesting to see how well it skis. As a replacement for the AC40, the AC50 with a system Duke binding should be phenomonal. A womens Gotama, a rocker ski, and some additions to the Duke/Jester royal family rounded it out. Boots have been pretty well overhauled. Good graphics, very cool carbon buckles, need to get a few on some more feet. Just too little time at the Volkl booth. My hour was inturrupted by an award ceremony as Volkl was given props for their contibution to the US ski teams efforts. Elan/Dalbello- Refinement on the ski side. A few tweaks in the Magfire series. 999 and 888 are joined by a really nice looking 777. A killer womens fat ski, an Ingimar Stenmark model carver, and a new big mountain "twin tip" series were all nice additions. Dalbello has (of coarse) kept pushing the Krypton thang with hot new graphics and some minor tweaks (primarily materials based). A new model replaces the Z series and incorporates come 3 piece cabriolet (krypton)style design features. I like it! Stockli- A $3500 very limited edition ski was the showpiece. Let me know if you want to special order one! What I wanted to see however, was the new Scot Schmidt model. And there it was. Scot was there and I asked him how he felt about the final result. "Don't know" he said, "haven't skied it!" It turns out that there are currently 4 in existence. All four were there and Scot was taking one home to mount and test. We flexed it some and surmised that it felt pretty much like the current model (but with the new dimensions). He was thinking the tip may need to be softened up a bit more. Even legends get older I guess! Scot was also hopeful that Greg Stump will complete his history of ski movies to release in the fall. It sounds like a documentary type approach. Interesting. Anyway, I'm getting off track here. Stockli skis. New Cross series skis. All the big shirt skis (Stormrider xl, xxl, xxxl) get to keep running. New DP Pro. Rotors stay. Rotor 78 and the XXL were the best sellers nationally this year and it is no surprise. They appeal to a very large segment of the ski population. Salomon has an interesting boot. It is a falcon with sections of the forefoot that can be heated and molded to the foot of the skier. Their skis look to be continue to improve as well. Alpina is typically a source for great kids boots. Each year I have to view the whole line to then order only junior boot models. This year out of the blue they are doing a foam injection model at around $400. Wow! This could be a great boot for a lot of people. I now have a pair in my size on the way and will foam 'em up and ski them ASAP. Hart skis are back and looking seriously good and hand made. I will be looking at them over the next few weeks also. Scott's mission ski is still on the radar. I viewed Rossignol and was impressed. Totally revamped line from France with great graphics on the "7 deadly sins" collection. Replacement for the Bandit series looks similar to the B2, 3, 4, but after 10 years the Bandit name is gone. Rossi looks good. I like the rep too. Turns out we went to rival high schools. Did the full tilt and line tour and will be doing Full Tilt adeeper next year. Line skis look pretty good and are quite reasonably priced. Gotta ski 'em. 4Front has great art and a cool vibe but has moved the company from Tahoe and production from the US, so I am less interested than before. There's more (lot's more) but that is the thumbnail of what I cared about going into next ski season!