Christmas in July!

Woohoo! The ski press is here! Erik came by yesterday and dropped it off. You may be able to see the smile on my face in the photo. This is my own Red Rider BB gun. My pony. My Radio Flyer wagon. My Schwinn Typhoon. My flexible Flyer sled. All rolled into one! Now we simply need to buy a bunch of wood and glue and p-tex and learn how to build skis. We have done a lot of research, and have a training video on the way. Then Erik has in-house training scheduled with a master ski builder. By the real Christmas day, I hope to be skiing on some skis that I made myself. If that works out, maybe one day you too will be skiing on a ski made in Berkeley, California! We will try to have it on display when we have our Fall Parking lot kickoff sale in late August. In the meantime, I need to try to focus on the sale instead of the new toy. I know Erik will be hard at it as soon and as much as possible. Looks like some late night ski building??

Enough vacationing already?

I have not been blogging this summer, as usual. This week however, there is some interesting stuff going on at the shop so I felt the need. I have certainly enjoyed the summer so far. Last night I got back from what may be the last road trip of the summer. Some camping, biking, and hiking in the redwoods trees of Humbolt County. Absolutely awesome! A few days in Eureka with friends to wrap it up, and then back home. Very relaxed. But now I have to shift gears again. A lot will be going on at the shop this week.

John and I will be finishing up our new boot bench. The boot lab also has some new added features that we have to implement. Most of what we need to finish the projects will have arrived while I was gone. A lot of appointments were scheduled last night after checking email and phone messages on the work phone. Back to the grind stone for a bit.

One other exciting thing for this week is that we will be setting up Boone Ski's (http://www.booneskis.com/) new ski press in the shop later this week. A ski press is the largest and most important piece of equipment in the ski building process. This will be really cool. Eric Boone and I were chatting in the spring. Eric wanted to buy a ski press to do more in-house work on prototypes and the like. He had nowhere to park it currently. I had a shop that was not used for a large part of the year (when he will be needing it). We decided right there and then. For the time being at least, the ski press will be at California Ski Company. Eric has a ski building clinic scheduled later this week. Then we will see what can be done with the unit. While it is not my press, I am still psyched to be able to learn how to use it and learn more about the process. I am also happy to be able to help out a local ski company. Eric is a great guy who is doing skis for all the right reasons. I would love to see him continue to succeed and grow. This could be really cool! I am psyched!

After the Bachelor Party...

Well we have closed the doors for the season. This year the staff went to Bend Oregon after closing to ski Mt. Bachelor just as we had last year. A great time was had although the snow was not fantastic. Not that I am complaining. Spring skiing is great and we didn't need to ski for eight hours every day. This is meant to be a thanks to the staff and a general wind down as we head into the summer months. Swimming, Golf, mini golf, Mountain Biking, and hiking filled in the time in the afternoon. Cooking big meals and hanging out topped off the evenings. A great ending to a great ski year!

As I looked at the people present at the condo, I thought of how much of a diverse group we were. I saw people from 9 months old to 74. My eighteen year old daughter had headed over from school in Eugene. Roman had driven up from Lake Tahoe as had Neil "the squirrel" Harris. Rick Copeland came from Mendocino. And then there were the East Bay employees of the ski shop. We covered about every race, religion, political bent, age, and socio economic category. What brings us together? Skiing! What a great activity!

And what a year to be a skier! Awesome snow conditions. Fantastic new types of skis. Cheaper than ever seasons passes. I hope you took advantage of it!

Here at the shop we had a great ski year as well as a great year for sales. The register started ringing early. Overall sales volume was record breaking. The staff was (as usual) simply awesome. The customers were (also as usual) fantastic. We sold down to a very clean position on inventory. What can I say after a year like this except- THANKS!

Now for the summer break. What will I do? There may be a Mammoth ski trip coming up. There will be some golf played with staff. I will get to ride my bike(s) a lot. My Miata will get some track time and a lot of twisty road action. I will be building a friend a new road bike. My daughters will be around to play with. Maybe some co-ed soccer?

I guess I will also have to cross some chores off the list too. You know, clean the garage, fix the fence. That sort of thing. But that's ok. I can schedule it around the fun stuff!

At work the list is pretty long too. As usual John and I will be doing general maintenance on the machines. Painting and polishing is needed here and there. Some new slatwall will be getting installed. A big project will be the boot areas for both retail and in the lab part of the back shop. Two more boot presses, another water tank, a freezer, and another grinder will have to be fit into the lab. On the retail floor we are finally going to raise the boot fitting benches so that we can get up off our knees when we do a fitting. Yes!

So for now, I will be going into the shop 2-3 days a week and playing hard the rest of the time. If you need something ski related, just give us a call at the shop. If we are not there, we will get back to you to make an appointment. Fall seems a long way off right now. Experience suggests that it will come sooner than expected. Before you know it we will be skiing in Tahoe again. In the meantime, we must all do what we need to so that we are ready for the season. Have a fun Summer!

A memo from Head

After the big sales surge on Head products following their Olympic success, I got this memo from Head today. Big news in the ski racing world!

"Great news from Head Wintersports! We are pleased to welcome Ted Ligety (USA, 2010 World Cup GS Champion), Aksel Lund Svindal (Norwegian multi-medalist at the 2010 Vancouver Games), Kjetil Jansrud (Norway, 2010 Vancouver GS Silver medalist) , and Werner Heel (Italy, 3rd overall in 2010 World Cup DH standings) to our Head World Cup Rebels racing team.As individuals, the members of our now-expanded winning team took home fifteen of thirty possible Olympic alpine racing medals from Vancouver, and seven of twelve possible Crystal Globes from the World Cup.Over a few forthcoming emails, you will receive press releases about these fine athletes joining our racing team.Look for our Head World Cup Rebels burning down the slopes next winter. It’s gonna be a lot of fun!"

What do you think about that?

Don't talk to me about Golfing yet!

Well, Spring has been nipping away at the winter season. We have all been getting our ski days in while thinking in the backs of our heads about activities like Golf, Biking, fishing and the like. We know that we are in the transition zone. Some customers will be hanging up the skis and turning their attention to other things outdoors. Others are sticking with the snow sports opportunities until they are turned away. Those that are still skiing have been getting repaid with some great spring conditions. Lot's of powder falling from the sky still. Some of the best powder days of the season have come recently. Shortly after it is warm and back to traditional spring conditions.

I am obviously part of the latter group. The past four weeks have given me:

Week one- three days in Utah with 50 degree days. Ice, corn, slush was the cycle. Not great but good fun with good friends.

Week two- Two days with John at Squaw skiing with Fischer skis upper management and our Norcal rep. Conditions were about like Utah the week before. The main difference was KT22 with expert skiers instead of Snowbird with old friends. Ripping the corn baby! Thanks for the room and the lift tickets. Thanks too for the good company. Fischer is rolling again!

Week Three- Wow. Big pow day for a Wednesday turn and burn at Sugar Bowl. Fresh light snow. Midwinter conditions. Timing is everything!

Week Four (the last four days)- Road trip to Utah for the Soze group Boot Camp. This was our second year (John and I) and we drove to Park City to hang out, ski, and learn with a group of about 20 elite boot fitters. Last year we got incredible powder. This year- incredible powder! We drove eleven hours with no weather. The last half hour was into a full blown blizzard at Park City. Park City had been getting snow for the last five days! Our first two days skiing were in waist deep powder with the occasional face shot (see photo above). I skied the Boone Skis Powder model at 118mm under foot and fully rockered with a lightweight bamboo core (http://www.booneskis.com/). Awesome! Day three it cleared, and it was blue skies as far as the eye could see. Perfect conditions for all to enjoy. Also perfect conditions for what we needed to do. Video taping our techniques and then tweaking our boots to improve form. Videotape, tweak, repeat. All day. Good times! Thanks to Jay, Kim, Pete, and Steve of the Soze group http://www.thesozegroup.com/. Special thanks to Ernie, Mike and John at Boot Works in Park City for hosting again this year http://www.bootworks.com/. Then another long drive home yesterday. Now off to work in a few minutes. Still coming down from a hard core Utah High!

It looks like we have another month or so of skiing. What will next week bring? Who knows? One of these weeks I will go golfing or biking on my day off. It's pretty nice out. I could probably do it next Wednesday...but I won't!

The Big Time

The shop was featured in an article in the Wall Street Journal today. We've hit the big time! Check it out at:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704869304575109920292668054.html?KEYWORDS=ski+berkeley

Olympic Glory

Well the games are over. I hope you all got as caught up in the Olympics. I did. I didn't go into the event amped. By the end, I was mesmerized. It was fantastic! The skiing, sliding, hockey, and yes, the curling too. The USA had great results. All the right people seemed to have success. Sportsmanship and fair play were on showcase. In the alpine skiing events all the stars shone. Bode did great. Julia had fantastic success. Lindsey got the results she deserved as did her good friend Maria Riesch. Anja Paerson came back from a huge crash to get a medal too. In the end, however, the biggest winner overall may not have been an individual. The biggest winner may have been Head. Head's ski and boot dominance was indeed impressive! In Europe this will translate to big sales increases for the brand. That's what they pay the sponsorship dollars for. In the U.S. I was uncertain. Would American buying habits be influenced? They were during the games but would it last? Well, now that the Olympics have been over for a week we are indeed seeing continued Olympic fueled interest in the Head products. Hopefully that will carry over to next year too!

With that in mind we are holding a "Gold Medal Sale" through the end of March. Four products that we carry were given great Olympic exposure. Head Skis and boots, Leki poles, Uvex goggles, and POC helmets. Customers took more notice of these brands when they were shopping. "Isn't this the brand that Julia Mancuso wore in the Olympics?" That sort of thing. So we decided to run with it a bit and have a "Gold Medal Sale" on these product lines. We have them all on sale now and I am impressed with the results! Advertising does work. Thanks Head! Thanks Olympics! Thanks Bode, Lindsey, Julia, Anja, Maria, Didier, Elisabeth, and Zaeka!

Last week was the Reno "buying show" for the regional ski industry. Three days of discussions and decisions with our sales representatives. John and I headed up in the Honda Element. We got a lot done but were able to put off most binding decisions for a week or two as deadlines were not too firm for the second year in a row. When the distributors can demand the orders earlier they do. With a bad economy, the retailers as a group will not stand for taking any more risk than they must. That seems to be the case again this year. So I got to go out to dinner instead of working the first night. Basque food with our Head reps Dan and George. Good company and good fun. While in Reno it snowed in the mountains too. All in all a good week. Now I need to buckle down with the computer and crunch some numbers and make some final decisions!