Top 5 Fridays Ski Industry News - Episode 186 - October 25, 2024

Hey Skiers! I'm Jeff from SkiEssentials.com. And I'm Bob. Happy Friday. Welcome back to our Top 5 Friday Ski Industry News videos. I'm excited about this week's news. Because it's like ski news. Yeah, it's real ski news. Yeah. I'm very excited about that. I'm also excited about these things. Yeah, these just showed up in the mail today. Yeah, so these are ZipFit liners if you're familiar with ZipFit. We offer ZipFit in our brick and mortar shops and our boot fitting locations. Neither Bob nor myself has really ever had any experience in them. No, and we were talking yesterday about how just modern boot liner technology is so good that like most people don't need something like this. But definitely interested to see what it feels like on snow. Yeah, I'm really excited. So we're going to be spending some time in the ZipFit liners this season kind of assessing their performance based or compared to stock liners in a ski boot. And I think it'll give us a really fun opportunity to, you know, form some opinions about liners in general. If this is kind of our baseline, so to speak, we can speak to which liners we think are better and I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean we just played around with them and I had it on in my boot with my nice cotton gym sock and I'm really optimistic. Yeah. Just of how they felt in the boots just in the office. So my cotton gym sock did not quite get in the... I mean you're in the 27 now, right? Yeah. So can you... do you think you would have struggled in a 26? Yeah, I don't think it would have gotten in. I think that's what I was feeling. Yeah. But I think going home and putting a real ski sock on and starting to mold these things a little bit, it's going to be a world of difference. I think you are definitely in the must-mold category before you even feel at all comfortable. Yep. But yeah, I'm pretty excited about this. Yeah, I am too. And we got a couple other housekeeping things to get to before the news. So first up, we have like kind of a couple different sale promotion things going on right now. About a week ago we announced new outlet price drops. We lowered the price on like 59 different 2024 skis. There were some good ones in there as well. I was kind of involved in that process a little bit more than I normally am. So definitely check that out. Head on over to the outlet. You'll see those price drops. And then you, hopefully you all know this, but you wouldn't know it unless you're already part of our loyalty program. We have doubled loyalty points. So we've really doubled the value of your existing loyalty points. I think we started that on Tuesday this week. It kind of coincided with us updating our loyalty program. It changed two years ago, I think, our loyalty program and got like, in my opinion, a little bit too complicated. So we simplified it. There's still like tons of good value and awesome incentives in there. But kind of in doing so we wanted to give people some extra value. So the value of your points have been doubled and it's pretty darn significant. Yeah, and loyalty points are great because you can use them on anything. Yeah, anything. Yeah. Yeah. I've watched some orders come in that people got like some great stuff, but like sometimes nothing because they have enough loyalty points saved up. Well, to be fair, they had to spend the money to get there. It's kind of like how I feel with like my one percent cash back on my credit card. Yeah, you get it right. And when I get a hundred bucks back, I'm like, yes. But then I'm like, ooh, what did I have to do to get here? Spend $10,000. That's what you had to do. And that's a little bit tougher to swallow. But, you know, if they doubled that, I'd be a little bit more. Well, Bob, speaking to your one percent credit card cash back, you could probably get a better credit card. I like keeping it steady. Not really where I was going. But if you want to think about it in those terms, our normal loyalty program is essentially five percent back in the form of points. Yeah. So some some great value there if you're only getting one percent back in your credit card. I should only buy only buy things. Yes. Exactly. That's really what we're going for. And then a comparison series is still going on. We had the narrow front side comparison go up yesterday. There were a fair amount of people upset in the comments at the lack of vocal Alon Fischer. Fischer, Dynastar. Dynastar and then like Master Series and FIS. Yeah. Yeah. Level skis. And like I'm here to say that if you are if you are disappointed, imagine how we feel. You know, it's not like Bob and I are like leaving things out on purpose. We literally use every single resource that we have available to us. And sometimes it's just the logistics of getting a certain ski in for a comparison can be just too much. Yeah. If it's not already in the building and there's not one like within an hour drive, then all of a sudden, like a lot of shipping is involved and like it just starts to be tough. Yeah. Not to mention kind of the the crossover and performance differences that start to really shrink. Yeah. When you get to FIS or Masters level skis. And like for us to have like Dynastar's Masters, Rossignol's Masters, Vocal's Masters, all of a sudden we're looking at 60, 70 skis, you know, because they're slalom GS, you know, like we're looking at just too big of a size. And like to be perfectly honest and fully transparent, if we were to have all those skis in the warehouse in our own inventory, we wouldn't sell them all. Right. There's no way. Because like FIS skis are great, but not many people are going out and buying them at like $1,400, which is like their full price. You're typically part of like some sort of pro purchase agreement or team purchase. So I don't know. That probably all just sounds like series of excuses. But I thought I would take a little time to explain because it's not like Bob and I are against the opinions that I get in comments. Like we're with you. We agree. And sometimes Bob and I will sit there in the morning after a video and read through the comments, just be like, man, we tried so hard. And people just seem so upset. Yeah. So that's about it. I did just put up a comparison poll. It's on our YouTube community section. So if you're not familiar with that, you basically just go to our channel and then there's a community tab. And I put up a poll kind of asking people what comparison they wanted to see next. And when we started filming, the front runner was bindings. Yeah. I mean, that's been I'm surprised that that's outpacing powder skis just from a entertainment standpoint. But there's definitely been a clamoring for binding information. Powder was in a close second. Yeah. Last I checked. And then the last piece of housekeeping news. I know there's a lot this week, but bear with us because they're all good. We teamed up with Atomic to give away a pair of Maverick or Maven skis. We did that post on Wednesday and also mentioned that we would be announcing the winner in this video. And I am happy to have that announcement for you. We use a random number generator for these things. So we basically take the total number of comments, we organize them in chronological order, and then we use a random number generator and go exactly in that chronological order. The random number was 137. And the the winner of a Maverick 105 CTI or a Maven 103 CTI of her choice is MG Case 26. Awesome. Yeah. You gotta love winning free skis. Yeah. Looks like great skier too. So I have not contacted you yet. I didn't want to give anything away before the video. But as soon as this video starts going live, I will be contacting you to coordinate your new skis. Congratulations. Yeah. I don't know. I don't own one. Right. But you don't own one. Nope. Pretty cool. All right. You ready for actual news? Let's do it. Okay. First topic of the week. We've got an FIS Alpine race preview. Bob, it's been a while since I've said that out loud. The men and the women are both in Solden this weekend for Giant Slalom. A couple highlights to look forward to. I feel like you can't talk about ski racing without starting with Michaela Schifrin. She has racked up 97 wins in her career. Could this season be the first time we see a skier get to 100 career wins, Bob? It seems like something would have to go poorly for that not to happen. I agree. Don't want to jinx her. Nope. And then we've got the return to racing for Nina O'Brien. If you've been following along or if you follow World Cup Ski Racing, she had a leg injury in the 2022 Olympics and then re-injured it last season. So she's really had a couple challenging seasons. So wish the best to Nina as she returns to racing. And then speaking of returning to racing, we've got two legendary skiers returning to racing. Marcel Hirscher announced his return over the summer. So that's not that much of a surprise. But Lindsey Vonn, is she going to do it? It looks like she's going to do it. I don't know that I've seen any formal announcement from the FIS organization or the U.S. ski team or anything like that. But I did see this in the form of statements. I just don't know the validity of the outlets that put out those statements. But it sure looks like she's coming out of retirement. And Bob, at 40 years old, it'll be fascinating to witness her effectiveness. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, these elite level athletes, they just don't seem to be good at sitting still for very long. Yeah. So I'm not surprised. Yeah. I mean, hopefully Tom Brady comes back. Actually, we've got Drake May now, so we're fine. I'm kidding. No, it'll be really fun to watch. I would venture a guess that she would still be very competitive in downhill. Yeah. Well, I mean, downhill, so like it takes one good run and then you're on top of the world. Yeah. She's just got so much experience skiing fast speed courses. So I don't know. It'll be really fun to watch. And then kind of continuing the theme, we had the first FIS Free Ski Big Air. This was Big Air Chur, which is often the first event of the season. First, I'd like to share my opinion that I sure wish event coverage was better. I mean, it's nonexistent. I don't even care if there are no announcers. I just want to see a start to finish. Like, it can be a fixed camera on a pole somewhere and just hit record and then put it on the Internet. Yeah. That's all I ask. And like, how does someone not do that? I don't know. Someone's got to renegade, film these things and put them on their Facebook page or something. Yeah. I don't know. I just wish it could be better. And I can't be the only one that would I would take two hours of my life to watch a replay of the Men's and Women's Big Air. Yeah. Easily. And it's not just Big Air. We've talked about this a bunch. Like, it's all these events. Yeah. So anyways, a couple highlights here. We got the two winners. Mate Sponsor took the win for the men with a left nose butter triple cork 1620 and a switch left tail butter triple cork 1260. Boy, I wish you could see it on video to know what that all means. Yeah. I know what that means. You can actually see highlights of his winning. Does he still wear the big pants? They all wear the big pants. OK. But he was like, no, big pants, didn't he? No, I would say, I mean, Mate definitely dresses baggy, but I would say he's slightly more conservative than some. There are some big pants out there, but he's a he's of smaller stature, isn't he? I remember there was like, I believe, yes, a smaller skier that wore like that made them look Mate like for a while he had the like zip up hoodie that he would tie, but not zip up. So it kind of had like this flap. I don't know. I really appreciate the the style of the youth because it just reminds me of when I was that age and people our age would look at me and tell me I looked like an idiot. And now every time I have like just a moment of that thought, I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Like I would have done exactly the same thing. I thought I looked so cool when I was 17 years old. Exactly. And there were probably 40 year olds on the hill. They were like, it looks like an idiot. Yeah. So I tried and give them the benefit of the doubt. And then Mathilde Grimaud, she took the win for the women with a beautiful carving left double cork 1260 and a switch switch left double cork tenny. And then she also did like a nice big sweet mute three and like a victory lap. And they still have to do its best two different jumps out of three. Yeah. They don't have to spin different directions. They can it can be forward or switch. Okay. Which is a little different than kind of where it was heading for a while. But I like the current format. And then third topic of the week, this was a big one that I don't know, maybe people are aware of this. Hopefully you are. Natural Selection has announced the addition of skiers for what will be the 2025 competition. This competition in general is kind of the brainchild of Travis Rice. I don't know exactly how long it's been around, but it feels like it's been around for a while now. Kind of focuses more on playful terrain that encourages tricks and creativity. If you were to compare it to like Freeride World Tour. But I would say largely it's similar. It's natural terrain and there's a kind of a combination of scoring criteria. Yeah. We don't have that many details yet. It will be in Alaska in mid-April. There's no formal list of invited skiers yet. There's just a lot of speculation. And some of the speculation that I have enjoyed is who is really going to excel? As far as skiers? Yeah. And like we can break it down into like categories of skiers. Are people going to come from the Freeride World Tour and like take that mindset and do really well? Or will we see somebody like Sammy Carlson or dare I say it, Candide Thovex kind of bring the freestyle side? Yeah. I mean, I think that, I mean, for so many things, Candide's the template for what you're going to get out of it. Yeah. But will we, you know, massive speculation. Will we see Candide? I think that's the biggest, that's like the biggest question out there right now is will Candide compete? And I could, I don't think I can form an opinion either way. Maybe this is what Lindsey's going to do. Natural selection. Yeah. She's going to throw us a curve ball. Yes. And just instead of actually racing on the Alpine World Cup circuit, she's going to. Right to Alaska. She skis for head, correct? Yeah. Oblivion 116. You think she's more of an Oblivion 116 skier than like a Core 111? For this event, yes. Because she's probably going to like take off and land switch a bunch. She's got to unlock her creativity. Great point. I like your speculation. Your speculation is now my favorite speculation. And then last topic of the week, this one's kind of funny. Lift service skiing in North America is underway. Ski Ward in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts is staking the claim as the first ski area to open with lift service skiing for the 24-25 season. They opened their magic carpet to the public last weekend with a patch of snow that was maybe long enough for a half dozen turns. So basically they like make it in a container and then dump it on the ground and push it out. I believe what I understand. I believe that is correct. Yeah. Yes. Kind of like taking piles from the Zamboni outside the ice rink and using that. Pretty similar. Yeah, I've used that method several times in my life. Have you skied on Zamboni snow? Very seldomly and long ago, but yes. So it became like such a big thing. Yeah. With part skiing. Because we would just... Leti Park in Burlington, if we wanted to take some time for story time. Yeah. Like Will Wesson and myself and other friends back in college years, like Will would like build rails and then lock them to trees in the woods and we would just go take the rail, bring it out to the pile, form the pile a little bit. Yeah. And ski rails for hours and then just put them back in the woods and lock them up. Ours was a bit different when I was coaching for the ski club. It was Bud Keen and Mike Slaughter who were the head snowboard coaches. Yeah. Bud Keen, Sean White's coach, really a name drop. So they would take the snow from the Jackson Arena and truck it to the ski club at Spruce and go from there and just do runs. Really? Yeah. That's commitment. That was big commitment. We went to the pile. Yeah. It's way more efficient that way. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. That was a big development for us when we stopped taking the pile and we just went to the pile. Yeah. So anyways, congratulations to Ski Ward. And then finally we have our edits of the week. First up, we have the trailer for Ski, the greatest ski tour of all time from Nikolai Schirmer. This looks absolutely incredible. I saw a couple comments that certainly reflect how I feel about it, that I've got to be more excited for this as like a real storytelling ski movie than anything I can remember. It looks terrifying. It does, but it looks like edge of your seat. Yeah. Just like. I mean, it's like, it's good that it's like, like Halloween's approaching. Like it's a scary, scary ski movie. Yeah. My wife keeps asking if we can watch more scary movies. So I'll throw that in there. She'll think someone's just going to get killed or something. Yeah. Maybe like Free Solo. I bet you've never seen Free Solo. No, that's petrifying. That's a pretty scary movie. Anyways, second edit of the week, we've got Marcus Eder, who I think we could very likely see in, in Natural Selection. This is the line of the year 2024 selection. And then we've got the trailer for Ash, which will be the fourth film from the Magma crew. And then we've got a really cool, a great watch, a behind-the-scenes cut from Kimbo Sessions 2024. The gift that keeps on giving, Kimbo Sessions. Lots of fisheye views in this one. Yeah, I think there were like a lot of like, I don't know if they were actually old cameras. It looked old, looked like old and artsy. There's like a resurgence of people using like old, older cameras for, for skiing edits. So that's it. That was a long one, I think. Yeah. Well, it's fun. Yeah. So congratulations to the winner of the Maverick or Maven skis, whichever you prefer. Take advantage of those double loyalty points values over the weekend. That will end on Monday. And then, yeah, keep an eye out for those outlet price drops. And we're gonna have some anniversary announcements next week. Sweet. Do you know that this coming season will be the 40th winter for a... Yeah, I could have done the math because I remember the 35th five years ago. So anyways, yeah, we'll be entering our 40th, 40th season as a business. I was not here at the beginning because I am 38. Yeah, I was seven when it started, but I wasn't here. You were there from the start in spirit. I was elsewhere. So yeah, anyways, lots of fun stuff next weekend. We'll have whichever comparison gets the highest votes. And yeah, hope everyone has a fantastic weekend. Bye.