Well, its been awhile since my last post, but I’m back and at least for the first part of the winter will be posting weekly updates. Its been a pretty hectic month getting ready for the season. I think this is the most prepared I have ever been before the lifts have started. The new shop has been great and it has afforded me the luxury of a curing booth for the decks and subs. After pressing they all go into this 70 degree room for another 5 days to insure the epoxy cures completely.
Although the recycled graphics from the last few years was fun I’m glad to be rid of someone else’s logo on my stuff. This season we’re looking at white, with some soon to be added stickers.
The sliding truck plates are black but other then that I’m pretty much sticking with the same design. Three hole locations and two height options with a quick release pin.
Black and green grip for the tops, with a built up tail option available too.
The subs from last season worked great but there is always a tweak that can push them even further. I reworked both the 145 and 135 forms for the better. I most excited about the 135 with the slightly longer base and lower sweeps to the nose and tail. Always looking for that short board that will float deep pow. The new subs are in white.
One great thing about the Chiller shop is that there is a great testing zone in the back. Just need a bit more snow to soften those landings.
The shop is clicking right along but the website is badly in need of a product page and that is next on the agenda. Expect more pics and prices next week.
Nate Solder – New England Patriots (17th overall) When a 6-foot-8 freshman tight end named Nate Solder signed on to CU in 2006, there was no telling where he would end up. “I would prefer to play tight end but if I’d be better suited at tackle, I would be willing to play there,” he [...] CU Independent
Telemarking is stupid. Let’s admit that right in the beginning. Telemarking is an inefficient way to ski down a mountain, very hard and time consuming to master and physically (even overly?) demanding. There is no question that alpine or even modern touring skis/gear are “better” in any kind of downhill situation. (If you don’t believe me, read the interview of the telemark superhero Joonas Karhumaa…he pretty much shares this opinion with me)
That said, after skiing some thirty years alpine and having tried snowboarding (which I also loved) through the nineties, I decided to try something new this year. I have freeheeled in the small molehills of our country (Finland) occasionally already a few years. But I always thought that surviving “real” ski trip to the real mountains with free heels would be the ultimate test for my skills. I wanted to know how would it feel to ski steeper, bigger lines with telemark gear? I didn’t know what to expect. I was only slightly scared that I end up not enjoying the skiing at all because of my limited skills.
Andermatt is a superb ski area for the freerider
Again, we headed to the lovely ski area of Andermatt. I visited the place for the first time last year, pretty much based on the praising review of the area by my good friend Antti Zetterberg. Last year I skied the area with my trusty Armada JJ’s and we got some excellent conditions. I liked the experience quite a lot - the terrain in Andermatt is not too “extreme” or “hardcore” but the slopes are still steep enough for the most skiers or snowboarders. Perfect for a lazy freerider like me, I’d say…easy access to the basic off-piste routes, nice touring possibilities and enough steep stuff to scare you just a little if you are into that kind of stuff (but not that much Chamonix like serious glaciated/ski mountaineering lines).
The telemarking…well, the novice telemarking
As a whole I don’t regret bringing the free heel skis with me. I think I learned a ton and got humbled by a few occasions (always a good thing after all). I also made some remarks of telemarking that were quite suprising. Let’s start with the positive stuff:
- If you are a strong alpine skier, doing alpine turns on teleskis in the narrow entrances, tight trees, “tourist” moguls etc. is not a big deal. Sure you have to lean a bit back but it is not a biggie. This all can be a bad thing too but more on that a bit later…
- Touring and flats and overall moving around on tele’s is so nice (even on non-free pivot bindings like Rottefella R8′s I have). Skiing with my 6 year old daughter with teles is also fun…easy to move around to help her etc. And even easy routes can be good exercise and/or good way to refine the technique
- Fat skis and especially rocker help you a lot – much more forgiving
- Now, let’s move on to the suprising/not-so-positive stuff:
- I guess I should have listen to the guys that tell to get a little lighter gear for the starters. Big fat skis, sturdy bindings & boots – like my Atomic Bent Chetlers, R8s and Scarpa T1′s require a pretty good technique, especially in the crud, heavy powder and variable snow. It is just too easy to make either sloppy alpine turns or some sort of “inbetween” (telemark/alpine) turns..the kind of stuff that make you survive but you don’t feel good and balanced at all.
- It took me 6 days to really “see the light”…with that setup I really had to give power to the rear foot, to really flex the bellows, making enough pressure on the rear ski. I now understood that with lighter ski you have to ski “right” from the beginning. I would have fall/stumble all the time with lighter gear in the beginning of the week…now my set-up saved me but I didn’t ski proper teleturns (estimate is for about 40-50% of the time or so…)
- This is related to the previous statement: but I guess strong alpine background is both bless and curse when you start teleing. Alpine form is good when you are tired or you face some really technical/icy/narrow/steep/tight trees etc. kind of situations – “surviving” is easier and you know how to handle the skis in that kind of situations already. But especially with fat skis and sturdy boots/bindings in “normal” skiing situations it is kind of too easy to slip another alpine turn here and there. And IMHO that completely ruins the rhythm. The worst of all are the mentionde “inbetween” type of turns where you do some kind of sloppy tele turn but it just doesn’t feel right. For this reason perhaps, it seems to me that many snowboarders are faster to pick up proper telemarking skills than strong alpiners?
- The one thing I also hated to notice was that with teles I was more comfortable on a windpacked, a bit more dense snow. On the last day I skied four times the basic “B-rossi run” down Gemsstock, on perfect denser “windpuff” conditions. I really enjoyed that stuff, having suffered earlier on the week with old powder snow that alpine skiers and snowboarders seemed to enjoy.
- I also guess that for a skier like me some 2-3 weeks or even more should do the trick…couple of more weeks of hard skiing and I guess it would “click” (at least I hope so!) Anyway, telemarking is pretty hard and you can’t kid yourself: just go on and do it again and again…and again…
- I also wonder the need for releseable bindings? I guess with today’s skis and big turns style of riding, NTN system can’t be a bad thing, even if you loose a bit of the original simplicity idea. I thought on some occasions that a fall would mean almost sure wrecked knees!
Because of the variable weather and the varying level of the “models” (there was another telemark novice in the crew) we didn’t got (or even shot) a lot of action shots. I hope we have better luck next time and maybe the skills have improved too? Here (below) are a few nice scenery shots by Antti Zetterberg for substitute. I guess good scenery/lifestyle shots are way better than flat light pics of flailing telemarkers anyway?
Jesus, its getting harder to come up with catchy titles to these posts especially after I promised tons of pictures in my last entry. I didn’t come home with any riding shots even though I rode some deep pow. This first picture is from Xmas day when me and my boys hiked off the backside of the resort.
This second shot is of the backyard. I came out of the shop to find that the boys had made a pretty sweet jump. All these years I’ve been the major builder in the family but now they are taking over the reins.
Remember back before YouTube when you had to download videos? well just consider this a nostalgic trip back in time. Its only 64 mb and well its nothing special, just riding in the backyard. The soundtrack is copyrighted so this is pretty much the only way to show it now a days, plus only those that read the blog and really like snowskating would wait the 5 min for a download. Anyways, just check it out > winter
Got a jump on the season Thursday. Pretty sketchy conditions but really fun. 10-14 inches over small rocks. More snow is forecast for Sunday.
Pretty soon this spot will be very busy.
This is my sixth season blogging about snowskating and building snowskates. I have no idea what the year holds but I’m looking forward to getting on with this winter. I should be posting every Fri or Sat. I will be getting a product page with pricing up soon. In the meantime feel free to shoot me an email and let me know your thoughts on the blog/snowskates/riding/whatever > chillersnowskates@gmail.com
So yesterday as some of you knew (if you follow our twitter), I went out and snowskated my driveway. I made a makeshift box (the top not nailed on) and did some slides and shove-outs. This was my first time actually riding at home this season and the snow was pretty nice. We only got about 2 inches up here but it’s been nice and cold so the snow is super fast. I made a short video edit towards the end of the session. Waiting so long to film with my old digital camera wasn’t such a good idea as lighting wasn’t so awesome in the driveway later in the day. The footage isn’t anything amazing but I had tons of fun with this little box and plan to cut it up and actually nail it to the 2×4′s for next sesh. Video to follow, hope you guys are getting out there if you can! Happy Holidays to you all as well!
