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!

So much to catch up on...

It has been soo busy at the shop. Every day. So I haven't updated well here.

Sorry.

Let's see. The Olympics are on every day. Awesome to see. The US has done us proud in Alpine skiing and overall. Head skis has surely been dominant and the customers have noticed. Interesting. Advertising does work! Happy for Americans Lindsay, Julia, Bode, and Ted. For Maria Reich and the other winners too. Those that deserved to win did so. Can't say that I am a fan of the NBC coverage but it is still awesome!

The industry is running out of gear! We are getting low on certain items. Our inventory looks like it typically does a month from now. Not really a bad problem to have, but we will miss a sale every here and there. And worse yet let a customer down perhaps. Sorry! I wish I could get more but the suppliers are out too. It has been a good year so far!

We had a demo day with Wayne Wong and the amazing Anton Gliders (http://www.antongliders.com/) scheduled for tomorrow but weather cancelled. Rescheduled for March 13. Our Toko tuning clinic is set for March 15 at the shop. Interested? Give us a call and get signed up. Max number is 30.

Speaking of tuning we got a NEW STONE GRINDER! Sorry to yell but this is pretty exciting. Our old machine had a stone that will not let us stone grind snowboards. Even wide skis available these days are a challenge. The new Grindrite 21Hundred from Wintersteiger is a thing to behold. Twenty two preset stone patterns and we can program in more. We have already added the Head "christmas tree" chevron pattern from their world cup skis. Also the Stockli pattern. Both were too complex for our old machine. And it is so easy to use that pretty much anyone could run it. Automation is expensive but efficient and repeatable. Good stuff. It cost about as much as a Mercedes Benz, but hey, you cant make your Stocklis sing in the snow using a Mercedes!

Another mid winter storm has been going on. I go to Reno on Tuesday with John to buy for next year. We will be there Tuesday through Thursday. By the end our lineup for next year will be pretty much set. Due to the pace of retail as mentioned above, I am not as prepared for Reno this year. I spend as much time as possible each year doing basic business analysis and create "open to buy" numbers for each category and carefully pour through the various options. This year I may have to trust my gut a bit more. I should still hit it about 95% right but will miss a few things. I will revisit it all in the spring and try to fix any mistakes...

Anyway, that's about it around here! How 'bout you? You been skiing?

Blizzard in the Sierra!

Actually it was a very warm day at Sugar Bowl yesterday. Bluebird skies and light jackets. Good snow. For the first time in many ski days I got to ski my personal skis. Awesome day!

In addition to my skis we obtained three models of the Blizzard 2010/11 lineup to spend time on. We also brought a Boone ski from our shop demos. I had not skied the Boone's and recently a number of customers have taken out the demo ski and come back saying it was their favorite ski ever. So I thought I should give it a whirl.

All the skis were great- particularly mine! Steve really liked both the Blizzard 8.7 and the Titan Atlas. They are quite different from each other in feel but both very satisfying. The Boone features an all bamboo core and this makes it very light and very "poppy" or springy feeling. Very distinctive and different than anything else I have skied. Boone is local (from Alameda) and seems to be on to something here! Check them out at www.booneskis.com.

We skied a bit with Steve from Sugar Bowl who is a friend of CalSkiCo Steve. They are friends from Chico State and also both work for Outward Bound. Sugar Bowl Steve skis telemark only. And he telemarks very well. It must be nice to spin a few laps every day while on your lunch break!

I am still mentally sorting things out from the Denver show and the on snow demos in my mind. I tend to dream about skis quite a bit this time of year. This season the dreams seem to involve Fischer wide skis more often than not. The redesigned Watea 101. The new Watea 98. The new Watea 114. Wow. Also the new Line Prophet 115. Rockered skis are for real and will be a big buzz this season.

So the season is "over the hump" from a business perspective. The major holidays have passed. We are more than half way through the resort season. Overall I would have to say that I am pleased. Very pleased. The end results for the year will be good. If the storms keep coming and we finish string, the sales results will be fantastic. The staff has been stellar as usual. Our customers are awesome. Life is good.

And I am excited about next year as well. Since I need to think about next year so much this time of year, I cannot help but speculate. The new products are compelling and well done. I think you will like them. Now over the next few weeks I will place the rest of my orders for the 2010/11 winter. Then in mid March I will have put my orders in and then fly to Salt Lake City to ski with friend for a few days. Until then, keep demoing skis (next week is Salomon) and dial in the order!